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Gary Hamel, the father of reengineering changed his tune a few years ago. Continuous improvement he told us was no longer enough. Information had become a fast travelling commodity. Incremental improvement, while better than no improvement at all, was simply too slow. We were coming into an age of revolution where, according to Hamel, "it is not knowledge that will produce wealth, but insight - insight into opportunities for discontinuous innovation. In a nonlinear world only nonlinear ideas will create new wealth."
This theme of discontinuous change is being picked up by all the top business and leadership writers and analysts. In fact it is a bit ‘ho hum’ now; one of those truisms that ceases to mean much at all. The problem is that while a lot of people might be talking about it, few are doing it.
The complex issues that we face require us to do something discontinuous. Discontinuous change is different from what went before it. By definition it means we can't foretell the future from the past. It demands step-out thinking and innovation.
This is a very hard concept for those of us trained in the industrial era to get our heads around. We want to be trained to do better what we are already doing. Discontinuous change means we have to reinvent ourselves, our work practices and our industries and we have to do it fast. Reinvention demands transformation. The well-accepted metaphor for transformation is morphing from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Being a butterfly is very different from being the fastest caterpillar in town. Transforming doesn't involve learning so much as unlearning, doing better so much as doing differently.
The big problem with going from being a caterpillar to a butterfly is the stage in the middle, the bit when the caterpillar creates a cocoon. Just think about being in a cocoon. Firstly it would be dark and cramped. You couldn't do your usual caterpillar-like things. It is highly likely that as a caterpillar you never even saw (or took any notice of) a butterfly and you would certainly have no concept of what it would be like to soar on colourful wings. This cocoon period is very similar to what religious writers refer to as the dark night of the soul. A period when you can't see forward or behind you. You seem lost, directionless and far from happy. Yet unless we give up what we know and move through a period of unlearning, unknowing and metamorphosis we have no chance of discovering who or what we can truly be. There is a long list of people and industries that, lulled by their current success, have refused to go through the discomfort of transformation. Such refusal leads to failure. The life span of a caterpillar is very short even if it is the fastest in town.
I know that when I have been through dark periods of personal and business reinvention I have felt very uncomfortable, out of control. Planning becomes very hard when you don't know who you are becoming, what you will want and how you will achieve it. As a highly goal-focused person this for me has been excruciatingly difficult. I also know that when I come out the other side of the reinvention process life is so much easier, smoother and in tune with the world as it transforms around me. I see the same pattern with my clients. Passing through the dark night of the soul is far from easy but well worth the discomfort.
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