In Search of Dynamic Equilibrium: How Disruptive Innovation Can Succeed in Traditional Cultures

From the outsider’s perspective, the principle of Mizan is perhaps one of the most sublime and beautiful elements of the Islamic religion. Loosely translated as “balance”, this principle offers a fascinating insight inviting us to reimagine the process and role of innovation, not only is Islamic culture but other tradition-rooted cultures as well. An intriguing question arises as to whether Mizan can be employed as a useful tool to better understand and manage the impact of “progress” and the process of change in identity-laden societies.

One might look at Godfrey Reggio’s 1982 experimental film, Kaayanosqatsi punctuated by Philip Glass’ meditative but unnerving score; the dazzling visuals of industrialization layered by Glass’ music overwhelms the viewer’s senses in a disturbingly profound cinematic experience. Inspired by the Native American Hopi tribe’s ancient word, koyaanisqatsi, the movie’s title translates as life out of balance. It begs us to consider the question: yes to progress but at what cost? In a holistic worldview unencumbered by political, social and economic realities of the western narrative of progress where intellectual rigidity and arrogance rule the roost, one must begin to contemplate and understand that progress in one dimension will always come at a cost in another. Optimization over maximization. The proper mix is merely a question of balance.

The trajectory of western civilization has experienced and absorbed epic disruptions from human progress as man learned to control or harness the environment and the material world. Over time, the dominant worldview and belief system of mankind evolved from the ancient God-centric sovereignty to the human-centric sovereignty of the Enlightenment to the modernity-centric materialism at its core. This materialism relegated the traditional anchors of the Divine and spiritual elements to secondary fiddle-dom: still part of the orchestra but not garnering the standing ovations. Materialism also began to overwhelm the critical inter-relationships among the divine, natural and human realms.

Starting with the introduction of the printing press followed by the manifold inventions of the industrial revolution, the misery index of daily life was measurably reduced by civilization’s increasing base of knowledge and man’s creative ingenuity. Inventions such as the cotton gin, the automobile, railways, the radio, television, and most recently the internet have had undeniable effects generally perceived in the western world as improving the quality of life with quantifiable benefits to humanity. The western narrative of progress, however often makes short shrift or ignores altogether the set of thorny issues and challenges arising from the unintended consequences of these disruptions, not the least of which is painful dislocations and destabilizing effects in society at all levels. This poses challenges as to whether and how technology and culture can best be balanced to minimize the attendant loss of tradition, virtues, and values. Technology moves at an ever-increasing rate of change– perhaps somewhere between a geometric and exponential rate. Culture increases in fits and starts at somewhere between a linear yet less-than-geometric rate. The gap between the rate of technological change and cultural change (adoption/absorption) is ever-widening under the current narrative of progress. Things seem to have run amok and life is out of balance. Without a fundamental change in this model, the gap will continue to expand until the two become completely disconnected. The necessary mediation is what we refer to as bridging the techno-cultural divide… before it is too late.

Bridging the techno-cultural divide.

Let us momentarily make a somewhat arbitrary but important distinction between invention and innovation for reasons that will become apparent. Mankind has become increasingly adept at developing life-altering inventions but it remains an often tedious, labor-intensive and lengthy process perhaps best characterized by the maxim: “invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Even inventions or discoveries made by accident (silly putty or stickies are classic examples) ofter were part of an alternate laborious pursuit. While the word invention is frequently used interchangeably with the word innovation, for our purposes, a helpful way to think of the dichotomy is that invention, broadly defined, is a new technology altogether; innovation, on the other hand, entails rearranging existing inventions or components thereof (i.e products, services, ideas) in novel or unusual ways. While there is a fuzzy invention-innovation continuum, for purposes of clarity this wave-particle-like duality is being held constant.

New inventions often can and do unleash a torrent of innovation on an exponential scale. It is precisely our concern regarding the rate of unfettered innovation and the ever-diminishing timeframes for culture, particularly traditional cultures, to process these innovations in a balanced and thoughtful manner. Customs, laws, norms, traditions, regulations, etc. evolve over longer timeframes while the technology-innovation regime is fast and furious that increasingly precludes sufficient time for the affected society to adjust responsibly taking into consideration the inability to understand the unknowable unintended consequences and impacts on all the constituents and stakeholders. The western narrative of “ask for forgiveness not for permission” or Mark Zuckerberg’s “move fast and break things” works until one day it doesn’t. A reactionary resistance to change has equally perilous consequences as change is will be the only constant; being left behind can also pose existential risks and predicaments. Does the concept of Mizan offer an acceptable, if not happy medium to navigate the choppy waters ahead?

In the life sciences, theoretical concepts such as stasis, entropy, equilibrium, disequilibrium, etc. are models or mental constructs of scientists’ best efforts to describe and predict the immanent laws of nature. History has repeatedly shown that from time to time these models become unreliable, outmoded or untenable as anomalies or aberrations appear in the observable phenomena that the prevailing theory cannot explain. At some boiling point this mounting “violation of expectations” leads to a crisis with a field of scientific endeavor. This crisis that leads to a painful and destabilizing shift uprooting the established wisdom. This crisis is what leads to the first phase of a paradigm shift. The violation of expectations is typically revolutionary and jarring, not the more gentle Burkian reformation of the existing order. Thus true scientific progress is radical in nature.

The concept of a paradigm shift was first identified by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 monumental opus, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, one of the most influential and cited academic books in history. Classic examples of bona fide paradigm shifts include Heliocentrism, Newton’s Laws of Attraction, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics. Kuhn’s work has also been applied to many domains outside of the hard sciences: sociology, psychology, art, and religion to name a few such as Freud’s psychoanalysis, Picasso’s cubism Movement and Martin Luther’s Reformation.

The classic pattern of a paradigm shift takes place when aberrations or anomalies disturb the social, political and economic order of things, as they are known, cause us to search for a better model or description rather than to assume the underlying laws of nature have changed. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn introduced a ground-breaking concept of a paradigm shift that occurs when there is a “violation of expectations”; a crisis erupts within a field or domain (usually scientific) and when, and only when, an emergent theory mitigates or resolves the anomalies, then, and only then, will the stakeholders abandon the old crisis-riddled theory and embrace the new model. This is the essence of a legitimate paradigm shift.

The path to successful innovation in traditional cultures might lie in the application of four lenses or “tools of the trade” for innovation: (1) a simple-to-apply version of the Hegelian Dialectical method (thesis-antithesis-synthesis); (2) Mark Granovetter’s “Strength of Weak Ties (1973);” and (3) Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions and 4) the virtuous sensibilities of Mizan or balance.

While western sensibilities encourage and thrive on competitive instincts and zero sum outcomes, embedded in Mizan’s balancing principle are the virtues of civility and humility. This approach might enable us to mediate between two contradictory ideas, extract the non-conflicting elements and integrate the best of both positions: the synthesis. This process creates the conditions for establishing dynamic equilibrium, avoiding the contentious pitfalls of warring ideas.

History is replete with many well-known debates but to illustrate our case we have selected the “Great Debates” of Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke at the core of the liberal and conservative political philosophies. These two men engaged in a battle of ideas through an ongoing series of articles, essays, pamphlets over the last quarter of the eighteen century. The topic was: what was the best form of governmental structure to accommodate the inevitable progress unleashed by the industrial revolution.

In the left corner Paine, father of the liberal tradition favored radical change or outright revolution. In the right corner, Burke, father of the conservative movement, argued for much more measured reforms. In a nutshell: when it came to government Paine, the eternal optimist who supported and encouraged the American and French Revolutions, wanted to throw the baby out with the bathwater: to start anew. On the other hand, the more cautious Burke, a Monarchist argued strenuously to embrace the core principles and foundations of history, tradition, and precedent: keep the best and throw out the rest.

Contrary to the popular view that Burke was a reactionary he, in fact, embraced progress but believed in building upon the time tested institutional foundations and traditions. How to reconcile the optimism of Paine with the perceived skepticism of Burke is the true challenge at hand. Burkian ideas are unpalatable at the visceral level to the left but perhaps a little repackaging can go a long way to bridging the divide.

While not directly acknowledging Burke, in the market place of ideas, Frederick Hayek’s famous quote is instructive, “the curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” This is Burke’s point precisely. Since the complexity of the modern world leads to a vast trove of unintended consequences, even the most competent policymakers need to recognize their own limitations on the resulting political rigidity under conditions of extreme uncertainty. The ideal model for the more flexible free-market approach of experiment-evaluate-evolve to solve problems has great merit but is encumbered by grand-scale political processes. It all comes down to centralization versus decentralization of information and decision making.

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In April 2013 we published our inaugural Off White Paper introducing the concepts of utility-centric and identity-centric innovation. The essence of the former was best captured in the seminal works on disruptive innovation theory, by Christensen et. al. (HBR ’95, Innovator’s Dilemma ’97) that focused on products and services that served as utilities that “were good enough to get the job done.” Brand loyalty at the low end seems to have played an insignificant role in disrupting industry incumbents; it was the ability of simpler, cheaper more accessible products and services that were “good enough to get the job done” that served as the catalyst in successful disruptive innovation.