Challenge your assumptions 35

innovative ideas. The natural thing to do is the thing we have always

done, but as Charles Ames, CEO of Uniroyal Goodyear, says, ‘Blindly
following organizational concepts that have worked elsewhere is a
sure way to waste talent and get poor results’ (Ames, 1990: 2).
Sometimes the way that we frame a problem contains an assump-
tion that prevents us from solving it. In the Middle Ages the definition
of astronomy was ‘the study of how the heavenly bodies move around
the Earth’. The definition implied that the Earth was at the centre of the
universe – which was the prevailing view at the time. In about 1510
Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, conceived the idea that the
Sun was the centre of the solar system and that all the planets revolved
around the Sun, and revolved on their own axes. He did not consent to
the publication of his works until after his death because he knew how
controversial such views would be.
The idea that the Earth was the centre of the universe was so
ingrained into conventional wisdom that it was very hard to displace.
Similar ideas exist in most businesses – assumptions that underpin
most strategies and decisions, and that are so fundamental that they
are never challenged. It is what Malcolm Follos calls ‘Cowdung’
(Thornton and Follos, 2002): the conventional wisdom of the dominant
group.
Another example of how a definition can contain an assumption
that restricts development is the atom. The atom was originally
defined as the smallest indivisible unit of matter. The implication was
that an atom could never be subdivided. This assumption made it
difficult for scientists to conceive of splitting the atom.
The more experienced and expert individuals are, the more likely
they are to assume outcomes. Very often an expert will extrapolate
from known facts and experiences to predict a result. In 1901 a young
Italian radio pioneer, Guglielmo Marconi, came to England to test his
theory that radio waves could be transmitted across the Atlantic
Ocean. The experts all scoffed at the idea. It was known that radio
waves travelled in straight lines, and that the Earth was a giant sphere,
so the experts quite reasonably assumed that a radio signal sent flat
would travel on a tangent out into everlasting space. Marconi
persisted with his madcap experiment, and set up his transmitter in