How many times you saw people hyped up by some new cool idea or technology? And then you saw some of them disappointed to an extent that the idea or the technology was not a silver bullet? And then you saw people trying to accommodate it and get the best of it? And finally you saw the idea or the technology growing mature enough to enter the commodity phase.
According to the Gartner's research the adoption lifecycle of a new technology follows a specific pattern called the hype cycle. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle. Looking at this model I am tempted to apply it to lifecycle of new ideas. I will describe how both the understanding of applications builds up as well as will point out how individuals of different PST personal profiles find their natural comfort zones in this proces.
When it comes to new ideas, the Peak of Inflated Expectations phase is a "religious phase"- when people's minds get inspired and in the absence of direct experience, are driven by beliefs rather than factual evidence and fed with buzzwords. This phase is necessary for an idea to spread - people adopt new ideas on the Why level. This is a phase for entrepreneurs, leaders and generally people with the Pioneer profiles, aka early adopters.
The Trough of Disillusionment and Slope of Enlightenment are the phases where individuals with Settlers profiles try to apply the new idea into various areas in which the idea promises some kind of pain relief and/or improvement and/or breakthrough / disruption. This is where high hopes are validated, lessons learnt through applications and general body of experience is gathered and cross-pollinated widely. The "WHAT is possible" and "HOW to add value" questions are answered in practice.
And finally, when an idea flows through the hype cycle to reach Plateau of Productivity beliefs and expectations are replaced with direct exposure and physical experience. Some hopes die out, the scope of applications of the idea finds its natural horizon. This is where broad population of people understands the value of an idea, its practical applications and how to best utilize it, including the necessary tooling and specialized infrastructure to utilize it. In fact the Idea is no longer just an Idea - specific Artefacts have flourished from the Idea and entered their Wardley's lifecycle from Genesis to Commodity. It is definitely a place for people with Town Builder profiles to shine. And also a place where the world is ready for birth new ideas...! :)
Bonus thoughts ;)
1. Victor Hugo: Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
2. One needs to take into account the environment in which an Idea was born. There are usually forces in the environment trying to maintain the existing status quo.
3. Since this is a blog about personal integrity and evolution of workplace, its natural to reflect on state of the major ideas of the recent decades: Agile (Schwaber at all), Spiral Dynamics (Beck) and Reinventing Organizations (Laloux). How would you describe maturity of these three big ideas at the dawn of 2020s?