Kuhn was a very smart guy. In 1949 he graduated with a Ph. D. in Physics from Harvard. Being the smart fellow that he was had some drawbacks. For instance, when a person is almost always right that person begins to ask questions like, "Why is everyone I meet so stupid?"

When obvious isn't obvious...
Kuhn noticed that there were times when very intelligent people working around him were performing experiments that had obvious results and simple conclusions that the experimenter couldn't see and didn't conclude! Oh, when the results confirmed what they (the experimenters) wanted to find they saw that data very easily. But when the data differed from the expected results the experimenters had real perceptual problems. "How could someone so intelligent not see the obvious results of their experiments?" was a question Kuhn asked himself. Hmmm...

He concluded that the experimenters in question were quite literally blind to the results of their experiments. They COULD NOT SEE the obvious because they were blind! Blinded by their mental models, their paradigms.

The more he studied mental models, paradigms, the more conclusions he drew. He discovered that people locked into a single paradigm that wasn't true oft times couldn't accept new or contrary data that would enable them to "see the light." He called that Paradigm Paralysis.

He also noticed that when a paradigm changed a revolution in that field occurred. Joel Barker would call it, "going back to zero," meaning that a new level playing field was created for all players. That's a Paradigm Shift.

Kuhn argues that scientific advancement is not evolutionary, but rather is a "series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions", and in those revolutions "one conceptual world view is replaced by another".

Paradigm Shift--Think of it as a reboot
Think of a Paradigm Shift as a change from one way of thinking to another. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change. Mavericks. Outsiders.

For example, agriculture changed early primitive society. The primitive Indians in the Americas existed for centuries roaming the earth constantly hunting and gathering for seasonal foods and water. However, by 2000 B.C., Middle America was a landscape of very small villages, each surrounded by patchy fields of corn and other vegetables. The invention of farming was a paradigm shift.

Agents of change helped create a paradigm-shift moving scientific theory from the Ptolemaic system (the earth at the center of the universe) to the Copernican system (the sun at the center of the universe), and moving from Newtonian physics to Relativity and Quantum Physics. Both movements eventually changed the world view. These transformations were gradual as old beliefs were replaced by the new paradigms creating "a new gestalt" (2).

Likewise, the printing press, the making of books and the use of vernacular language inevitable changed the culture of a people and had a direct affect on the scientific revolution. Johann Gutenberg's invention in the 1440's of movable type was a serious agent of change. Books became readily available, smaller and easier to handle and cheap to purchase. Masses of people acquired direct access to the scriputures. Attitudes began to change as people were relieved from the intellectual gate keeping being practiced by the  church.

Similarly, agents of change are driving a new paradigm shift today. The signs are all around us. For example, the introduction of the personal computer and the internet have impacted both personal and business environments, and is a catalyst for a Paradigm Shift. Newspaper publishing has been reshaped into Web sites, blogging, and web feeds. The Internet has enabled or accelerated the creation of new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking sites. We are shifting from a mechanistic, manufacturing, industrial society to an organic, service based, information centered society, and increases in technology will continue to impact globally. Change is inevitable. It's the only true constant.

On August 9, 2011, Apple Computer saw its stock price rise enough -- gaining more than 5% -- to briefly surpass Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in the U.S., according to an Associated Press analysis of its market cap. (Exxon Mobile wound up the day slightly ahead of Apple.) But think about the implications! What does Apple make? Things that enable websites to be made, read, accessed, and that house files to be downloaded into machines that Apple makes to play them! The paradigm has shifted.

References:
1. Kuhn, Thomas, S., "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Second Edition, Enlarged, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970(1962), (p.10)

Organizations and the people in them need to be able to identify and work with changing paradigms. And equally as important, they need to be able to generate their own new paradigms. Unless that happens, the organization is bound to stagnate.

Leaders and employees will forget about innovating. Instead, they will assume that successful strategies from the past will also lead to future success. That’s an increasingly erroneous assumption.
                           --Joel Barker