Any company with iconic brands and a successful legacy will need to contend with the triumph of the past if it is to transition to a new future. As the marketplace evolves, companies and brands must evolve to remain relevant.

However, attempting to shift direction can only result in people getting stuck in the assumptions of yesterday. These assumptions appear as truths, masking the need to question things. They determine what is possible and what is not. All too often, leaders have a blind adherence to their background assumptions and thoughts, dictating their entire course of action.

When leaders don’t see those assumptions for what they are—assumptions, and not truth—there is no amount of process or technology or money or experience that can genuinely shift the direction of an enterprise. They are inevitably handcuffed by the certainty of what they know.

Without walking out of their assumptions, leaders can only play in current comfort zones and create a modern version of the past. New strategies and approaches failing to match the current frame of thinking will be missed or easily discarded.

Shifting this frame therefore becomes critical.

When leaders see the background assumptions for what they are, and let them go, they can move themselves and their organizations to a more unconstrained place. Instead of perpetuating the inertia of the current model, they can innovate and invent the future of the business.