And that involves embracing a fresh, new vision of the world. Thomas S. Kuhn, author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , discusses revolutions at length as changes in worldview. But this change is never embraced uniformly through an established professional community, and certainly never through the general society. In the scientific community, Kuhn points out, students must be brought to see the world as scientists on the frontiers of research now see it. The same is true for a paradigm shift in other professions, organizations and even general populations.
Revolutions start with a few individuals.
Managing a revolution, therefore, is first about the management of perception, not in the traditional public relations sense of providing spin, but in a far more fundamental fashion. It means selling the new paradigm in such a way that others can also share in the new worldview. In the scientific community, resistance to a new paradigm often continues until an older generation of scientists die off. When it can legitimately be made, this claim is often the most effective one possible. To effectively manage a technological revolution is to first sell the new paradigm.