One of the most difficult times in an institution is the beginning of a new stage. When the ending of the old stage is not accepted, people are not able nor willing to pay the prices to leave aside the old to have the benefits of the new.

In the conquest of the old Aztec Empire, the legend tells that the Spaniard Hernan Cortes “burned the ships” as soon as they got to the shore so as to make clear to his men that a retreat would be impossible (1519). It was time for conquering. There was no going back.

New stages imply a change of concepts and strategies to reach new objectives. The beginning of the new stage implies the searching of new strategies. What has worked until now, will not work from now on. The rules of the game have changed.

In the field of business strategy, any successful strategy has both a maximal strategy to achieve growth and a minimum strategy to guarantee survival in the market.

According to the researches carried out at The Unicist Research Institute in the field of human behavior, results showed that individuals that begin a change process departing from the definition of the maximal strategy, have a natural tendency towards evolution in that field, while those that first define the minimum strategy tend towards involution.

What is interesting about the results of this research is that following the principle of minimum energy, those that are able to have a maximal strategy can then seek for a minimum strategy, while this does not work the other way around. The one who sees the minimum strategy first has no possibility of going from there to think in expansive terms afterwards. S/he is in a comfort zone. A new expansion can only begin from this inferior level on.

One of the most dangerous and common mistakes at the beginning of a new stage is to keep attached to the previous one, when the new stage has different maximal and minimum strategies. The paradox is that the one who does not pay the prices now, will pay it with interests afterwards, with the risk of not achieving the predefined objectives.

Avoiding looking back implies having envisioned the new stage. Not being attached to the old concepts is a just a prerequisite. A fallacious short path in this case would be to develop cosmetic changes and expect different results. Albert Einstein once said: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Burning the ships of the old stage implies having the vision of the maximal strategy and the tranquility of the minimum strategy. Going to the old “ships” is doing the same thing again and expecting different results.

We invite you to be our guest at the Unicist Library to access the book “Unicist Business Architecture”:  http://www.unicist.com

Diana Belohlavek
VP Global Markets
& Market Labs

NOTE: The Unicist Research Institute is a pioneer in complexity science research. More than 4,000 ontological researches were developed since 1976 until July 2011 in the field of individual, institutional and social evolution, including the development of ontology based and business object driven solutions for businesses.