Epiphany (from the Ancient Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia, “manifestation, sudden appearance”) is the sudden understanding of the essence or meaning of something. The term can be used in a philosophical or literal sense to mean that a person has “found the last piece of the puzzle and now sees the thing in its entirety,” or has new information or experience, often insignificant in itself, that fundamentally illuminates the whole. Epiphanies as sudden understandings have made breakthroughs possible in the world of technology and sciences. A famous epiphany is that of Archimedes, which inspired his famous Eureka! (I have found it!), recounts wikipedia.

In the twenty-third century before Jimmy Page, it was indeed an epiphany that Archimedes experienced jumping from his bath, shouting “Eureka”, realizing the famous Archimedes’ principle. At the beginning of the 17th century, with Galileo’s trial, it was perhaps a collective epiphany that struck part of the European population. It may be that the earth revolves around the sun, since people are talking about it, people disagree, a trial around Copernican heliocentrism is taking place. Minds probably experienced “AHA moments”, “eureka” moments. In 1963, Dick Fosbury took off and jumped in a completely new way. For the other competitors it was an epiphany. They could no longer jump the way they used to. Their understanding of their sport was revolutionized.

This is the kind of revelation we would need at the organizational level. I was having a conversation with Bruno about the intellectual regression that we’ve been experiencing in recent years, and more precisely about that of the managerial posture. We’re considering making our conversations a session, and Bruno mentions his reading of Kant and Galileo’s trial as a sudden realization of reason over faith. This moment in the conversation itself gives me a small “aha moment”. This is what I’m pursuing: making people realize, revealing, introspectively, the gap that defines the paradigm between the old managerial mode and the new one, between the old organizational culture and the one we’re calling for and which is materializing these days through liberated companies, holacracy, sociocracy, the yellow and/or green levels of the spiral dynamics, and all these new models. But is it even possible?

I realize that we’re undergoing the Copernican revelation, or Fosbury’s new technique, but that Archimedes’ Eureka moment, or Newton receiving the apple on his head are personal discoveries. For the former it’s a blatant rupture, like innovation, to which we’re subjected, for the latter it’s an internal journey, a revelation.

Rupture

But is it possible to have a perceptible blatant rupture around a systemic organization, based on something that requires seeing the whole, thinking holistically? Like global warming or ecological problems, or other phenomena that are only understandable through numbers whose meaning we don’t understand at our scale, or whose effects we only perceive too late, is it possible to have an organizational epiphany? We don’t easily perceive the harm we do when we consume too much, it’s not easily tangible at our level, it’s not conceivable by our homo sapiens brain, because it’s systemic, holistic, we must see the whole. Like the Chernobyl radiation it’s an invisible evil whose symptoms we’ll only perceive too late.

We see organizations that work very differently from one another and they inspire us. Can we use them as a revealer? As long as they remain in the minority it’s quite difficult. All the contexts, all the parameters that intertwine. We can’t reproduce complexity easily. People who expect repeatability from our support are mistaken. No rupture with an intangible and complex phenomenon. We must wait until statistically the majority functions this way, thus there will be no revelation but a shift.

If there are revelations they will probably be personal and come from within, not like high jumpers who experience Fosbury’s demonstration. The old system can resist thanks to the reading difficulty we have with this holistic/systemic approach to the complex world. (Especially since it disguises itself through monsters we call SAFe – a false modern system currently in vogue –, certifications or other and falsifies reality).

Revelation

I wondered a bit through various readings here and there about eureka moments. The Greeks thought it was the muses who provided humans with these sudden and revealing moments. That can work, I know something about it. But recent studies show especially that these eureka moments, these epiphanies come from long work of integrating information, a capacity for divergence and thinking outside one’s comfort zone and that suddenly new information provides the key. It’s not the analytical part of the brain that would work, but the right part, emotional, creative. Actually both but not at the same time. A large part is made of data collection, analysis. But the revelation doesn’t come from these moments. It will arrive suddenly through the discovery of a new piece that will complete the puzzle. The right part of the brain is less precise but its ramifications are more extensive. Naturally, as always, wanting to force the eureka moment means postponing it.

Some readings:

The Forest

This part of the brain that nourishes epiphanies is also the one for language when it deals with metaphors or wordplay, it must work with an extended understanding. “Language is so complex that the brain must manage it in two different ways at the same time,” says researcher Jung-Beeman. “It needs to see the forest and the trees simultaneously. The right hemisphere helps you see the forest.” (The eureka hunt).

Collusion of “adjacent possibles”, serendipity, “metaphysical interpreter”, it’s by extending the ramifications of one’s right brain that new landscapes appear that will help us perceive our organizations differently, and understand these new steps to take. That’s also why I feel inextricably drawn to this type of vision: in living organizations I mention slums, forms (the fold, the butterfly, etc.) from Thom’s catastrophe theory, crystals, termite mounds, etc. The answers come from confrontation with other fields of research Mary Poppendieck told me when I spoke to her about these slums and this text. By introducing terms like village, tribe, circle, you open up metaphors, analogies, whose ramifications can go further than your classic, historical terms, like “teams” or “departments”. A new reason to condemn systems like SAFe and the like: all this delays or obstructs a general organizational epiphany that we badly need.

To Summarize

To summarize I realize that it will be very difficult to have a collective epiphany on systemic aspects related to the evolution of understanding our organizations. But that working to have personal epiphanies is vital. The ingredients for these will be phases of collecting information and classic analysis. An invitation will always be necessary (you don’t force an epiphany), a discovery through personal experience (which strengthens our capacity for memorization). A propensity to open up: collusion of “adjacent possibles”, serendipity, etc. A revelation that will reveal a new perspective by associating a final element that will solve the puzzle. And a real dopamine shot and thus an addiction to this new open-mindedness.