Welcome to the Next Transformation

In about 1300, the West began its first great transformation. When it was complete by 1700, the church had been eclipsed as the dominant institution by the nation-state – kings had more power than popes and it was the individual who chose his or her religion. Starting with this great transformation, the West has gone through three great transformations. You are living through the very beginning of the fourth.

In succession, the past transformations have given the individual freedom of religion, the right to vote, and access to credit. In the process, the church, state, and bank have been transformed. And the West has overcome the limits of land, capital, and knowledge workers as well through a succession of economic revolutions we’ve come to know as the Commercial Revolution, Capitalism, and the Information Age.

The next great transformation, the fourth in the series, will transform the modern corporation as the past repetitions have transformed the church, state, and bank. It will result in the individual having unprecedented levels of control over how he works and on what he works. In the process, the West will overcome what has replaced land, capital, and knowledge workers as the new limit to progress, it will overcome the limit of entrepreneurship by turning a growing number of employees into entrepreneurs, changing our notion of a corporation and its employees.

Key to all of this is this notion. We are well aware that progress depends on technological inventions like the wheel, the compass, the steam engine, the car, and computer. We seem less aware of the fact that progress depends, too, on social inventions like the bank, accounting, legal contracts, schools, universities, nation-states, and the modern corporation.

The next great transformation will disrupt everything. It is hard to image a world in which a group who might have been expected to take a role as factory workers in the 19th century or as knowledge workers in the 20th century will, instead, take on the role of entrepreneurs. Imagine having even 10% of the population busily creating and recreating the organizations through which we conduct business, education, and governance.

This blog will tell the story of next great transformation, will predict the next 50 years using a pattern that began 700 years ago. Pull up a chair around my kitchen table and settle in. This is going to be a fascinating series of events to narrate.

Welcome to the next transformation.