2040's Ideas and Innovations Newsletter, Issue 56: How Illusion and Delusion Derail Organizations

Issue 56: May 19, 2022

Two colleagues just attended their monthly executive committee meeting. One is the chief revenue officer of the organization, and the other is the head of marketing. The organization is struggling with diminishing membership revenues and sponsorship sales are running behind. The salesperson gave an upbeat, optimistic presentation asserting they would close the revenue gap by the end of the quarter. The marketing executive had a completely different take on the meeting noting that it would take an unprecedented heroic effort to make up the revenue shortfalls.

Or consider this: In Plato’s classic Allegory of the Cave, Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners’ reality but are not accurate representations of the real world. The sha…