Whether in the political, scientific, economic or social field, disruptive or radical change is often the result of an accumulation of small, modest changes over time.
How is the world changing?
When Charles Darwin proposed his theory of the evolution of species, he imposed the idea for a long time of continuous evolution, in small steps. A black butterfly becomes a yellow butterfly through all the intermediate colors, through multiple generations.
The progress of science has shown, however, that evolution is done in a much more brutal way than that, with very important mutations from one generation to the next. In fact, in the evolution of species, most of the change occurs in sudden leaps
This opposition between continuous change and abrupt change, between a linear world and a non-linear world, masks a more nuanced reality with regard to social systems that are human communities, such as markets, nations or organizations.
When she spoke before Parliament on November 26, 1974 to defend her bill to legalize abortion , Minister of Health Simone Veil knew that the game would not be easy. The debates were heated: the minister was severely attacked, she suffered insults, personal attacks and death threats, but the law was finally adopted at the end of 1974 and promulgated at the beginning of 1975.
As she herself noted in her speech, if she can present her project, it is thanks to those who have worked for an evolution of the legislation for several years. During the preceding months, the parliamentary committee “heard, for long hours, the representatives of all families of mind, as well as the main personalities competent in the matter. "
Between 1956 and 1967, eleven bills were tabled by leftist parties to modify the very restrictive law of 1920. All will be rejected, but in 1967, the Neuwirth law marks progress, even if it is limited, the majority not daring to run up against its conservative wing, very hostile to such a development. The debate grew, relayed on the ground by an old militant action which accelerated after the events of 1968.
The most striking is the famous Manifesto known as of the 343 sluts (to use the subtle expression of Charlie Hebdo ): in a column published by the Nouvel Observateur on April 5, 1971, 343 women, including many personalities, declare having aborted and claiming "Free access to contraceptives and free abortion" . None of these women will be prosecuted, which is the sign of an in-depth evolution of the mental models of the social body. The manifesto inspired another in 1973, that of 331 doctors declaring themselves for the freedom of abortion.
CHANGE, SLOW AT FIRST, THEN VERY FAST
The passage of the law in 1974 was therefore not a thunderclap that came out of nowhere, but rather the culmination of a fight started many years before by activists and anonymous people who, little by little, have actions made accept the idea and prepared the social body for a major evolution and pushed the politicians to act. What we see is the courage of the minister in the face of violent opposition. What we don't see is this microscopic shadow work by anonymous people. Yet it is essential.
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This great change, materialized by decisive action after a long period of small victories which prepare it and make it possible and effective, is nothing exceptional. Historically, on the contrary, whether in the political, scientific, economic or social field, disruptive or radical change is often the result of an accumulation of small modest changes over time. Change can come suddenly, but its genesis is often very old.
Thus, the low cost airline revolution began in 1971 with the launch of SouthWest Airlines, an airline with only three planes. It was not until the 1990s that it had an effect on traditional airlines and they began to react.
Likewise, James Watt did not invent the steam engine. This is the product of the work of at least a dozen inventors, some of whom have made small contributions, and others with larger contributions. Watt had a decisive contribution, and that's why he remained famous, but we should not forget all the others and the fact that this invention took place over several decades. It is not therefore a flash of genius that occurred on a particular day, but the fruit of a long process full of small victories and a lot of defeats.
In the scientific field, Arthur Koestler relates, in his book The Somnambules , how the pioneers of science - Copernicus, Kepler, Brahé, Galileo - progressed only painfully for nearly a century among the fog of erroneous theses in order to be able to pave the way for Newtonian physics, which was therefore not born from a simple apple falling from a tree.
"We are dwarves on the shoulders of giants" , said the philosopher Bernard de Chartres in the 12th century, thus emphasizing the importance for those who have an intellectual ambition to rely on the work of the great thinkers of the past, including when it comes to denying them.
In the industrial field, several studies on micro-innovation are also compatible with the idea of small victories.
For example, the well-documented study by researcher Samuel Hollander on the decrease in the production costs of manufacturing rayon / viscose yarn in five Dupont de Nemours factories over a period of thirty years shows that these result for more than two-thirds of minor technical improvements rather than major changes.
This is also the great lesson of the Japanese revolution in production systems from the 1970s: twenty years of small victories brought the Japanese automotive industry to the top. These small victories came from the grassroots.
What Toyota has built is a system that allows small victories, a system that relies on the commitment of employees, especially workers. This went against the Western manufacturing mental model shaped by Taylor , characterized by a synoptic uniform top-led change, in which creative power is taken away from the workers and left to the management. The real Japanese revolution is to develop a system which allows the small victory at the bottom and its transmission to the whole.
The disruptive change is therefore nonlinear , that is to say it begins with a sometimes very long incubation period without visible effect followed by a period in which the effects end up accumulating and have a massive impact. Whether we are talking about innovation, entrepreneurship, organizational or societal transformation, the phenomenon is the same: it is non-linear and, except in the event of a major crisis where the survival of the system is at stake in the very short term, it takes a long time to work before tangible effects occur.
We can therefore see that there is no contradiction with an approach by small victories and the capacity, through this approach, to change a system in a profound way, quite the contrary. Small is big as the Americans say.
A CHALLENGE FOR THE ACTIVIST
The cumulative and relatively slow nature of radical change naturally poses a double difficulty:
on the one hand, the activist's efforts will for a long time have no visible effect at the global level, which can be very frustrating by giving the impression that his efforts are useless;
on the other hand, impatience with the slowness of the results can generate a demand for acceleration.
This is often seen in organizations where leaders want quick results ( “I want three unicorns by next year,” one of them said to his new disruption team ). This impatience is the main source of failure of innovation and transformation programs.
It exists in politics as well, where candidates think in terms of the next election, and are reluctant to undertake substantive work that they find ungrateful. This is forgetting that all revolutions were first built in people's minds, before being translated politically, and that collective change is of a social nature; it is therefore not fast, at least not in its initial phase; it begins and develops for a long time before accelerating.
The best time to plant a tree, the popular saying goes, was ten years ago. Apart from learning to be patient, which seems an ambitious goal for those who lead us, there is hardly any solution. As for the activist, on the other hand, the best remedy for frustration and feelings of worthlessness is to make sure that whatever small they are, their actions have a real impact, even if it is limited. This is the very meaning of the notion of a small victory.
This opposition between continuous change and abrupt change, between a linear world and a non-linear world, masks a more nuanced reality with regard to social systems that are human communities, such as markets, nations or organizations.
When she spoke before Parliament on November 26, 1974 to defend her bill to legalize abortion , Minister of Health Simone Veil knew that the game would not be easy. The debates were heated: the minister was severely attacked, she suffered insults, personal attacks and death threats, but the law was finally adopted at the end of 1974 and promulgated at the beginning of 1975.
As she herself noted in her speech, if she can present her project, it is thanks to those who have worked for an evolution of the legislation for several years. During the preceding months, the parliamentary committee “heard, for long hours, the representatives of all families of mind, as well as the main personalities competent in the matter. "
Between 1956 and 1967, eleven bills were tabled by leftist parties to modify the very restrictive law of 1920. All will be rejected, but in 1967, the Neuwirth law marks progress, even if it is limited, the majority not daring to run up against its conservative wing, very hostile to such a development. The debate grew, relayed on the ground by an old militant action which accelerated after the events of 1968.
The most striking is the famous Manifesto known as of the 343 sluts (to use the subtle expression of Charlie Hebdo ): in a column published by the Nouvel Observateur on April 5, 1971, 343 women, including many personalities, declare having aborted and claiming "Free access to contraceptives and free abortion" . None of these women will be prosecuted, which is the sign of an in-depth evolution of the mental models of the social body. The manifesto inspired another in 1973, that of 331 doctors declaring themselves for the freedom of abortion.
CHANGE, SLOW AT FIRST, THEN VERY FAST
The passage of the law in 1974 was therefore not a thunderclap that came out of nowhere, but rather the culmination of a fight started many years before by activists and anonymous people who, little by little, have actions made accept the idea and prepared the social body for a major evolution and pushed the politicians to act. What we see is the courage of the minister in the face of violent opposition. What we don't see is this microscopic shadow work by anonymous people. Yet it is essential.
[bad iframe src]
This great change, materialized by decisive action after a long period of small victories which prepare it and make it possible and effective, is nothing exceptional. Historically, on the contrary, whether in the political, scientific, economic or social field, disruptive or radical change is often the result of an accumulation of small modest changes over time. Change can come suddenly, but its genesis is often very old.
Thus, the low cost airline revolution began in 1971 with the launch of SouthWest Airlines, an airline with only three planes. It was not until the 1990s that it had an effect on traditional airlines and they began to react.
Likewise, James Watt did not invent the steam engine. This is the product of the work of at least a dozen inventors, some of whom have made small contributions, and others with larger contributions. Watt had a decisive contribution, and that's why he remained famous, but we should not forget all the others and the fact that this invention took place over several decades. It is not therefore a flash of genius that occurred on a particular day, but the fruit of a long process full of small victories and a lot of defeats.
In the scientific field, Arthur Koestler relates, in his book The Somnambules , how the pioneers of science - Copernicus, Kepler, Brahé, Galileo - progressed only painfully for nearly a century among the fog of erroneous theses in order to be able to pave the way for Newtonian physics, which was therefore not born from a simple apple falling from a tree.
"We are dwarves on the shoulders of giants" , said the philosopher Bernard de Chartres in the 12th century, thus emphasizing the importance for those who have an intellectual ambition to rely on the work of the great thinkers of the past, including when it comes to denying them.
In the industrial field, several studies on micro-innovation are also compatible with the idea of small victories.
For example, the well-documented study by researcher Samuel Hollander on the decrease in the production costs of manufacturing rayon / viscose yarn in five Dupont de Nemours factories over a period of thirty years shows that these result for more than two-thirds of minor technical improvements rather than major changes.
This is also the great lesson of the Japanese revolution in production systems from the 1970s: twenty years of small victories brought the Japanese automotive industry to the top. These small victories came from the grassroots.
What Toyota has built is a system that allows small victories, a system that relies on the commitment of employees, especially workers. This went against the Western manufacturing mental model shaped by Taylor , characterized by a synoptic uniform top-led change, in which creative power is taken away from the workers and left to the management. The real Japanese revolution is to develop a system which allows the small victory at the bottom and its transmission to the whole.
The disruptive change is therefore nonlinear , that is to say it begins with a sometimes very long incubation period without visible effect followed by a period in which the effects end up accumulating and have a massive impact. Whether we are talking about innovation, entrepreneurship, organizational or societal transformation, the phenomenon is the same: it is non-linear and, except in the event of a major crisis where the survival of the system is at stake in the very short term, it takes a long time to work before tangible effects occur.
We can therefore see that there is no contradiction with an approach by small victories and the capacity, through this approach, to change a system in a profound way, quite the contrary. Small is big as the Americans say.
A CHALLENGE FOR THE ACTIVIST
The cumulative and relatively slow nature of radical change naturally poses a double difficulty:
on the one hand, the activist's efforts will for a long time have no visible effect at the global level, which can be very frustrating by giving the impression that his efforts are useless;
on the other hand, impatience with the slowness of the results can generate a demand for acceleration.
This is often seen in organizations where leaders want quick results ( “I want three unicorns by next year,” one of them said to his new disruption team ). This impatience is the main source of failure of innovation and transformation programs.
It exists in politics as well, where candidates think in terms of the next election, and are reluctant to undertake substantive work that they find ungrateful. This is forgetting that all revolutions were first built in people's minds, before being translated politically, and that collective change is of a social nature; it is therefore not fast, at least not in its initial phase; it begins and develops for a long time before accelerating.
The best time to plant a tree, the popular saying goes, was ten years ago. Apart from learning to be patient, which seems an ambitious goal for those who lead us, there is hardly any solution. As for the activist, on the other hand, the best remedy for frustration and feelings of worthlessness is to make sure that whatever small they are, their actions have a real impact, even if it is limited. This is the very meaning of the notion of a small victory.
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