What Makes Great Leaders Great: Management Lessons from Icons Who Changed the World

CHAPTER 4

Recognize the True Nature of the Problem

LEARNING FROM

M. C. Escher

The works created by M. C. Escher (1898–1972) fascinate art lovers around the world. On close inspection, images that at first glance seem natural appear full of contradictions, with water flowing up- and downhill at the same time, stairs simultaneously leading up and down without any actual progress possible, and impossible rooms that could never exist in reality. Other images created by Escher depend on the eye of the beholder, with what is inside or outside, concave or convex, up or down eluding objective definition. These images irritate the viewer and often cannot ...