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

CHAPTER 17

Question Every Assumption

LEARNING FROM

Nicolaus Copernicus

When Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) was a young man, it seemed obvious to everyone that the Earth was at the center of the universe, because every night the celestial bodies could be seen revolving around our planet. Until Copernicus came along, nobody questioned such a geocentric worldview. But this persistent astronomer queried all such supposedly “proven” assumptions and constructed a worldview in which the sun, not the Earth, occupied center stage. In this heliocentric worldview, he explained the complex movements of the planets by postulating that they moved in small ...