As a business person involved in helping my clients to change and grow I am personally fascinated by what I term the edge. This edge, in my terms, is the boundary between what we know and what we need to discover or explore. This edge exists in all things from our personal life, to learning, to societies. The edge of knowledge and learning and understanding what's beyond is the catalyst of change.
I read recently Carlo Rovelli's short book "Seven Brief Lessons in Physics". In the final chapter he wrote about how our view the universe has changed over time with new understanding. The example he gives is that once, primitive mankind thought only of the sky and heavens as something above us and the land, which was flat, not round, was below us. But as our knowledge grew we recognised that we revolved and we believed that the earth was at the centre of the the universe; later we recognised the earth is a planet and that actually the sun was at the centre of the universe and we orbited it; today we know that our little plantary system is just one of billions out is space.
Limits are scary
As our knowledge has grown and people have accepted truths our understanding has improved. Change is constant. Our knowledge is finite and has limits. Working with others and sharing what we each know can help. But crossing those limits is scary. As people we are either in fight or flight mode. Fight is fearful and threatening. I don't mean the aggressive type of fight, I mean the personal confrontation to understand that we are crossing a boundary and that we need courage. The remarkable thing is that when we cross those boundaries, we learn and grow, and our personal universe and understanding of it grows too.
Courage
Business too needs this courage. All progress involves change and leaders need courage, born out of conviction, vision and deep understanding to take risks.
History has shown that these are the people that have left a mark.