
Probably the greatest misconception about change is that a leader can force it through. Even as skilled an executive like Lou Gerstner needed others to actually implement the changes at IBM, his role was mostly to inspire belief that it could be done. The truth is that you can’t force change. You need need to attract rather than try to overpower.
That’s why the future will always surprise us. It is not any one great event that tips the scales, but some hardly noticeable connection that completes the network. Network scientists call this type of thing an instantaneous phase transition and there’s really no way to predict exactly when it will happen, but if you learn to look for telltale signs, you can see one coming.
…ect on productivity was negligible, causing the Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Solow to quip, “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” In fact, it wouldn’t be till the late 90s that we saw a measurable impact from computers.