Why Kaizen Could Not Have Helped Leonardo da Vinci Fly — and What Enterprises Still Miss Today
- Sunil Dutt Jha
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
Enterprise Anatomy vs Kaizen — explained from Leonardo da Vinci to Newton
Let's start where the real mistake happens
Leonardo da Vinci was not lacking intelligence. He was not lacking observation. He was not lacking imagination, discipline, or iteration.
He:
dissected human bodies,
understood bone structures,
studied muscle tension,
sketched flying machines with extraordinary precision,
observed birds obsessively,
refined designs repeatedly.
If anyone could have succeeded through continuous improvement, it was Leonardo.
Yet flight did not happen.
Why?
Not because his wings were inefficient. Not because he didn’t iterate enough. Not because his method was wrong.
But because Leonardo was unaware of "gravity".
This is the key distinction we are making
Leonardo was operating before the governing laws of motion and gravity were known.
He was designing inside a world whose fundamental physics had not yet been discovered.
No amount of:
iteration,
refinement,
experimentation,
craftsmanship,
or improvement philosophy
could overcome the absence of the governing structure of motion on Earth.
Newton had to first discover:
gravity,
force,
mass,
acceleration.
Only after that did engineering become possible.
Now map this to Enterprise Anatomy vs Kaizen
What Kaizen really is (in this historical frame)
Kaizen is iterative refinement within known laws.
It assumes:
→ the governing structure already exists,
→ the system is understood,
→ cause and effect are stable,
→ improvements compound predictably.
Kaizen works only after physics exists.
Trying Kaizen before physics is known is like:
refining wings to fly without knowing gravity,
polishing gears without knowing torque,
improving navigation without knowing latitude and longitude.
It is methodology applied in a pre-science world.
What Enterprise Anatomy actually corresponds to
Enterprise Anatomy is not a management method.
It corresponds to:
Newton discovering gravity,
Vesalius discovering human anatomy,
Harvey discovering circulation.
These discoveries did not improve practice. They defined the governing laws of the system.
Once gravity was known:
flight became an engineering problem,
not a philosophical one.
Once anatomy was known:
medicine became engineering, repeatable,
not experience-driven.
Once Enterprise Anatomy is known:
enterprise execution becomes governable,
not personality-dependent.
Why this distinction matters deeply (and people miss it)
Most modern management thinking assumes:
“We already know how enterprises work — we just need better methods.”
That is the Leonardo mistake.
They believe:
enterprises are already understood,
execution laws are obvious,
differences are just cultural or operational.
So they apply:
Kaizen,
Lean,
Agile,
Six Sigma,
Digital Transformation,
AI-driven optimisation.
But none of these define the governing laws of execution.
They refine behaviour inside an unknown structure.
The exact parallel (here is the spine)
Era | Mistake | Result |
Leonardo | Designed flight without gravity | No flight |
Pre-1825 medicine | Treated patients without anatomy | Inconsistent outcomes, shorter life |
Modern enterprises | Improve execution without anatomy | Escalation, chaos |
This is not a maturity problem. It is not a methodology problem. It is absence of governing structure.
This is important to remember
Kaizen is refinement inside known laws. Enterprise Anatomy is the discovery of the laws themselves.
Or even easier :
Leonardo could not fly because gravity was unknown.
Enterprises cannot execute because anatomy is unknown.
Why PMOs and governments are stuck today
PMOs are being sold:
better dashboards (thermometers),
smarter automation (AI thermometers),
continuous improvement programs (Kaizen),
reform playbooks.
But none of these ask:
What are the governing laws of execution in a state (State Anatomy) or department anatomy or anatomy of project?
Enterprise Anatomy is that discovery.
Everything else is premature optimisation.
So, it's important to note
Kaizen is not wrong.
Lean is not wrong.
Agile is not wrong.
AI is not wrong.
They are chronologically premature.
They are being applied in a pre-Newton, pre-Henry Grey , pre-anatomy world.
Historical context behind this discussion
Leonardo da Vinci’s peak work on flight and anatomy took place between roughly 1480 and 1510. Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and gravity, published in Principia in 1687, emerged nearly 170 years later. This gap is not incidental; it explains why Leonardo’s brilliance could not translate into flight.
Leonardo lived in a world where human anatomy was only beginning to emerge and remained incomplete, where the physics governing motion on Earth was unknown, and where gravity had not yet been identified as a universal governing law. His designs were refined, iterative, and deeply insightful, but they operated inside an undiscovered physical reality.
Newton’s contribution was not an improvement of Leonardo’s methods. It was the discovery of the governing laws that made engineering possible in the first place. Only after those laws were known could flight move from imagination and craftsmanship into engineering.
That is why the statement “Even Kaizen would not have helped Leonardo da Vinci to make things fly” is not a metaphor. It is a historically precise claim. Continuous improvement cannot compensate for the absence of governing structure. Methods fail not because they are weak, but because they are applied before the laws of the system are known.
