Once upon a time, in a land called “Industrial Age,” the leaders of organizations resided at the top of a hierarchy, managers were in the middle, and workers were supervised.

It was the job of leaders to do the important thinking and come up with bright ideas to move the company forward, and the job of managers and supervisors to make sure those ideas were implemented.

Because no one cared what the managers, supervisors, and workers thought, many of them parked their brains at the door as they came to work. Others only used part of their brains, limiting their focus to implementation without regard for the effect on the larger organization. Eventually the companies became gunked up. They were not healthy places for people, and their long-term results did not reach their potential.

Because their life spans were short compared to that of the universe, they had never lived in a different age, and most of them couldn’t imagine that things could or should be different. They did not see that changes were beginning to transform the fundamentals of the Industrial Age.

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