Everything Connects: How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation, and Sustainability

PROLOGUE

 

If you were to poke around the shops of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, or a Russian neighborhood in your nearest city, you may find a gorgeously carved little metaphor waiting for you on a shelf: the matryoshka doll, what might more commonly be called a nesting doll.

These dolls nest in this sense: on first taking it in, you’ll find a peasant girl or woman in traditional garb, typically wearing a long, flowing dress called a sarafan. But that charming figure is more than meets the eye; should you meet her with your hands, you’ll find that she opens up and another doll is inside. And then that doll opens up into another doll, and that one into another, on and on until you reach the smallest doll, carved from a single piece of wood—usually ...