Epiphany OR Creating Personal Change

Archimedes, deep in thought, grappling with the problem of finding the purity of the King’s ornaments, sank into his bathtub, hoping to give his mind some rest. Eureka!

The rest, as we know, is history.

An Epiphany is defined as a ‘sudden realisation or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something’. Alternatively, ’the sudden, profound insights that often seemingly come out of nowhere’.

Epiphanies play a profound role in self realisation, in helping us solve problems, learn something new, often see things in a different light, and most often – to simply ‘get it’.

Epiphanies are what makes real change possible. Real change happens when the realisation is personal and we behave and approach problems differently. And that is the manifestation of ‘personal change’.

That is what would help a hierarchy conscious manager, struggling to find acceptance in a more egalitarian work culture, understand the change required; and that is what would help a micro managing leader realize that the team below is better than what is believed; all that is needed is to ‘let go’.

Wouldn’t it be just great if everyone could just dial into an “Epiphany on demand?”

Well, if not quite like that, it may still be possible to experience more Epiphanies than usual. To start with – lets try and decode the process behind Epiphanies – what makes it possible and what prevents its occurrence more frequently?

Mental Models

What Epiphanies do, is really to restructure our ‘mental models¹’ in a significant way. As previously unconnected parts and strands connect, a new model gets created, allowing us to see things differently.

What causes this ‘mental model’ to change ‘suddenly’? Or does it really change suddenly?

The Theory of Self Organised Criticality (SOC)² presents a framework that could help us understand this better³. The proponents of the theory, BTW (Bak, Tang and Weisenfield) used the analogy of a random sand pile to explain this.

Am going to try to explain this briefly.  Imagine dropping grains of sand, one by one, on a table, randomly. As time goes by piles start forming and they develop slopes. As sand drops on this pile, grain-by-grain, at different times, a single grain triggers an avalanche. The point when the pile is ready to experience the avalanche is the ‘critical point’. Till this point, the pile maintains its equilibrium through a combination of gravity and inertia. All it takes to disrupt the equilibrium is a single grain. The truth is that the avalanche has been building over time, as a process of collecting grains and reaches a tipping point. That is as big a part of causing the avalanche as the last grain.

In much the same way, an Epiphany is the result of an avalanche. The mental model has been experiencing the stresses of unsolved and unanswered questions but maintaining its equilibrium by applying various opposing forces called ‘biases’ and ‘reaffirmations’. It is when the model has been exposed to a series of opposing grains and questions, that it becomes ready for the avalanche.

Landslide Blockers

As a facilitators and coaches we are constantly trying to trigger these avalanches in the minds of the people. We call it the ‘Aha! Moment’. Much like the separate sand piles experiencing their slides at different times, individuals experience their Epiphanies at different times too. Sometimes the oppositional forces of ‘confirmation biases’ and ‘rigidity’ holds the pile together a lot more strongly, not allowing the questions or doubts to creep in. A ‘confirmation bias’ as the name suggests, is the human tendency to favour the information we are biased towards. For more on this read our earlier story.

We were working with this organisation that experienced a 40% success rate (as we were told) in a particular process. That, we were proudly told, by the business head, was because of informal and quick decision making process in the organisation which he encouraged and practiced. We had been hired to help the team understand that they had a 60% failure rate and that things needed to change. For more on this subject you can read .

Rigidity, of course is the unshakeable belief in something. It brooks no questions and tolerates no disagreement. It is the zealot who can but see only one shade of colour. Breaking through often requires the triggering of an avalanche by releasing a pile of sand.

How to trigger an Epiphany

Here is my scientifically unsubstantiated but totally logical and anecdotal point of view – open minded, curious people experience more Epiphanies.

If we:

a) Recognise and accept that an existing explanation of the world is no longer sounding congruent

b) Look at every possible answer that presents itself without judgment

c) Allow the discomfort and tension that questioning ourselves causes

then, we may just have created the conditions necessary for those ‘Aha!’ moments to occur more frequently .

As Siddhartha contemplated on why sorrow had to exist and not just happiness, the mind accepted that they were not the opposites but a part of the same. He saw and became the Buddha.