I had a private client session recently. In that session, I spoke about the ways in which New England both became and behaved as a distinct region in the 1600s. For non-math majors like me, that’s 4 centuries ago. The fascinating thing about this particular session was that so great and so powerful were the similarities of this 17th-century region to today’s multi-site corporations that both the client and I were amazed, nearly speechless. Up and down the list of items, we saw the commonalities and shared points between New England in the 1600s and today’s complex organizations. We saw the lessons and learnings that could be drawn from then and used now. In 400 seconds, the gap of 400 years disappeared, vanished. 

It was stunning.