Conventional wisdom holds that the economic crisis that began just over a year ago occurred because an overheated economy’s bubble finally burst. Because most of us associate the crisis with burgeoning mortgage foreclosure rates that rippled through worldwide credit markets–drying up available capital–we assume that the bubble may have been only three to five years long.

What if that fundamental assumption is incorrect? What if the bubble began before many of us and many of our organizations were born? What does this mean in terms of how we understand the present and manage into the future?

According to a study of economic history accomplished by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen, “...It turns out that 1952 to 2000 was an aberration. We had a combination of tremendous stability brought on by two monolithic superpowers - danger, yes, but stability, combined with unprecedented prosperity. Very rarely in human history - maybe the Egyptian empire or 200 A.D. in Rome - only a few times you can go back and find those. So my own view is that the possibility of seeing this again in our lifetimes is very, very low. What we're experiencing now, get used to it! It's life, and it's the normal life.” (Fortune Magazine, January 22, 2009)

In short, Jim Collins is welcoming us to the new normal. If Collins and Hansen are correct, those organizations that are waiting for a return to the good old days before they unfreeze to re-engineer and re-think their organizational futures may wait a very long time, perhaps centuries or even longer.

Collins’ insight has vast implications. Most organizations and most of us came into being and grew into our present incarnation since 1952. While everything we know has not suddenly become wrong, many of our core assumptions need serious reconsideration. What is perhaps more troubling is that our conventionally most successful organizations may be the most vulnerable.

In The Quest for Resilience by Gary Hamel & Liisa Välikangas (Harvard Business Review), the authors observe that successful organizations resist change and falter. They deny warning signals. Their very success has taught them that they have good judgment, that their models of reality are coherent and accurate, and that their strategic “gut” is superior. What they know obscures what they need to learn.

We all face different dynamics now. Previous economic downturns favored category leadership incumbents, but greater competition and sea changes in consumer demographics and lifestyles demand different behavior from both leaders and followers.

This is a time when leaders must step forward to help their people and organizations prepare for a future that is likely much different from the past. It is a time to challenge strategic orthodoxy, beginning with some very basic assumptions about what is desirable.

Is bigger really better? Are we entitled to growth? What are the real building blocks of capacity? Does the whole notion of competition need re-framing?