First written May 20, 2000 Revised and Updated Tuesday January 15, 2008   What is a Paradigm Shift ? Behind every major paradigm shift, there is a strong leader and a change agent." - Madhavan T Gopalachary Preamble: We often hear and read about this term" Paradigm shift" but very few books explain as to what it is all about. One book, which is an exception to this, is the landmark book of Dr.Stephen Covey - "The seven habits of highly effective people". Dr Covey has beautifully illustrated this with explanatory notes and examples. According to him, the first time this term was used was by Thomas Kuhn in his book the "Structure of Scientific Revolution." In this book Kuhn went on to explain as how each time with the change in our thinking, there was a major scientific revolution. To put it simply the term "Paradigm shift" means a sudden change in our ways of thinking about a situation, though it has not changed. Till Nicholas Copernicus came along, for Ptolemy and the rest after him, the world was supposed to be flat with the earth being at the center of universe. It took another 500 years for the Catholic Church to redeem him. Giorgio Bruno was burnt at stakes for this belief before that. Once there was a paradigm shift, all the missing links fell into places and many scientific discoveries were made. Newtonian physics was incomplete till Einstein came along and propounded his theory of relativity. Similarly in medicine till the germ theory was accepted, a lot of babies and mothers died of puerperal fever. In the world of politics, the idea of democracy was brought to remove the anachronistic idea of Kings and their descendants ruling us for generations. However not all paradigm shifts are positive and sometimes they may also move in negative direction. In these pages we will refer to it in the positive sense only. Paradigm Shift Agents: The paradigm shift can take place only after a sudden and opposite change in our perceptions, which is normally different from reality. This change happens quite suddenly in individuals and in societies, it takes longer time and sometimes it is cataclysmic. The French and Russian revolutions come under this category. The paradigm shift does not come about automatically or on its own. There is always a change agent. Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, George Washington, Lenin and Gandhi were all change agents. Behind every major paradigm shift, there is a strong leader and a change agent. Examples of paradigm shift; Taken from Dr. Covey's book referred above: Example no. 1: "I remember a mini paradigm shift I experienced one Sunday morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed and was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. He children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed. Then the man sat next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. But children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's papers. It was very disturbing and yet the man sitting next to me did nothing. ---Everyone else in the subway car felt irritated too. So, finally, I turned to him and said, " Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?" The man shifted his gaze------ and said softly, "Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think and I guess they don't know how to handle it either." Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently and because I saw differently, I thought differently and because I thought differently, I felt differently and behaved differently. My irritation vanished.-----------Everything changed in an instant." The above paradigm shift took place because of sympathy and compassion. In business we need empathy and understanding and be situation specific. Example no 2: This is taken from the same book but in turn it is from US Naval records. During the World War II, a US Naval battleship was patrolling the Pacific Ocean. The seaman perched on top of the observation mast suddenly radioed the Captain that he saw a light to the starboard side. The Captain asked the seaman "Is it stationary or moving ?" to which the seaman replied that it was moving. The Captain asked the seaman to signal using lights, asking the other ship to change course by 15 degrees as they were on a collision course. They received a signal almost instantaneously asking them to change course by the same amount. The Captain asked the seaman to repeat the instructions to which they received the same reply. The Captain asked the seaman to send a signal saying that he was a Captain. To that they received a reply that the other sender was a seaman - second grade. The captain became angry and told his seaman to send a signal that they were a battleship. To that they received a reply from the other light source that it was a lighthouse. The Captain changed course. Most of us behave like the captain of the battleship. We get carried away by our power and position. The Captain also wrongly assumed that the other light source was a ship. You can't fault him because in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific, you don't see many light sources. This is because of the conditioning of the mind. We reject what is not logical to our mind. Unfortunately, the subject of logic itself needs a paradigm shift. We are still clinging to the rules of logic propounded by Greek philosophers. They could not have ever conceived that we will be sending space crafts to Saturn and beyond. However, Principles and Values are like lighthouses. They cannot change course. If we do not change, we are in for a collision. The above paradigm shift took place not out of choice but out of the necessity for survival. Example no 3: This is taken from the movie "Gandhi" directed by Sir Richard Attenborough and played by Oscar winning actor Ben Kingsley. Gandhi was educated in the Inner Temple in England and was a Barrister at Law. He came from a fairly affluent family. He used to wear three piece pin stripe suits. On his return to India from South Africa, he goes around the country meeting people. One day his train stops over a bridge on a river. He gets down from the train to wash his face and sees a village woman washing clothes. The upper portion of her sari is torn and she tries to cover her modesty  with the torn cloth by tugging at it but to no avail. Gandhi is wearing an Indian dress and carrying a shawl over his shoulders. He lets it go in the river and the flow takes it to the woman. She grabs it and covers herself. He decides there and then to go half naked because majority of the people do not have proper clothes. The music and the way the scenes are shot and acted cannot be repeated. There is absolutely no dialogue except the background music throughout the scene. This is a paradigm shift based on absolute empathy. Gandhi's greatness was his ability to empathize with people. He was also a leader par excellence. He is the originator of the non violent movement in the days it was unheard of. The above three examples are sufficient to understand a paradigm shift and what it means. Unfortunately, it has become a cliché with too many people using it inappropriately. The most important thing to realize is that the situation remains the same. Only the perception and understanding of the situation changes to the diametrically opposite. Small lateral shifts are not paradigm shifts. Written  by Madhavan T Gopalachary The views, opinions and interpretations are personal. Sponsorship does not mean that the sponsors endorse them. Editorial Policy © Copyright, Jan-08 . www.madgopes.com . Without prejudice. All rights reserved www.mmgindia.com is the official website of Madras Management Group, Chennai, India. www.madgopes.com and www.mmg.name are personal websites and all editorials are published under their banner to retain editorial independence. We would highly appreciate feedback from readers and it may be sent to ipr@mmg.name.