Exodus 25:9 According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it. [kjv]
The English word "
paradigm" comes from the ancient Greek word
"παράδειγμα" ≈ "pattern, example". In modern Greek, "
paradigm" and "
pattern" are this same word.
The word "
paradigm" became popular in the 1960's due to the book by Thomas Kuhn who defined a
paradigm shift as a radical change in the way one thinks about and solves a problem.
Paradigm shifts involve new concepts and often require one to think outside the box. One saying about change in relation it paradigms is that "
shift happens".
The definition of an error and a desired change is very similar.
There are examples of paradigm shifts in sports. That is, a radical (from the root) change in how things are done.
A difficult type of change in organizations involves people. In general, it can take many lifetimes for ideas to change, since people tend to retain ideas far past the time when those ideas have been replaced by newer ideas. This is a central idea in Kuhn's book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".
