There's a moment in every caterpillar's life when its immune system faces a choice: resist the imaginal discs that have been dormant within it, or allow them to dissolve everything it has been in service of what it might become.
We have imaginal discs too.
They're the capabilities we glimpse when we can solve problems others are unwilling to recognise. The energy that surges when we're creating something that matters. The moments when people seek our judgment on decisions that will shape their futures. The times when we know, with uncomfortable clarity, that we could do this work differently—better—if only the constraints would lift.
An uncomfortable truth: our professional immune system is fighting them every day.
The Nature of Butterflies
There is something about the way we are educated, trained and expected to perform that encourages us to think in terms of "beginning, middle and end" of our projects. A goal, a process, a timescale and an outcome. Measurable, explainable and with an acceptable return.
It's so ingrained that we are often unaware of its influence on our work.
Businesses have a life cycle. They have a beginning, an idea; the progress of that idea, and then eventually an end. Normally, a point at which they've been so busy trying to do what they've always done, in the way they do it, that they don't notice the world around them is changing.
Nor indeed that they want to change themselves. The dissonance, the “existential weariness” we see around us, is a measure of the gap between what they are doing and what they could be doing.
Encouraged by shareholders to provide certainty, they have become “perpetual caterpillar” businesses.
The butterfly is contained within the caterpillar from the outset, in the form of imaginal discs. It is these discs that, when the caterpillar pupates, feed off the body of the caterpillar in order to bring out the butterfly within.
We know more about them than we did. At the same time, much of it remains a mystery, which is why they are still referred to as “imaginal” cells.
The challenge, of course, for caterpillars as well as businesses is that they have no real interest in becoming what they might be. Their immune system resists the transition from caterpillar to chrysalis. The comfort of apparent certainty makes it much easier to stay a caterpillar.
The Stagnation of an Icon
Last week brought a perfect case study in this process when news broke that the parent group of Lotus cars intends to close its UK production facility to relocate production to the USA, partly to avoid tariffs, partly to “optimise production” (The story was later denied, though without a great deal of conviction. I get the sense the decision is made, and the rest is PR)
For someone who's owned the same Lotus Elise for nearly thirty years, this felt deeply personal. But it's also a perfect illustration of what happens when organisations fight their own transformation.
Lotus Engineering was formed in 1951 by Colin Chapman. Five years later, it launched what became an icon, the Lotus 7. The following year, it entered Formula 1, and five years later, Jim Clark won the Formula 1 championship. Five years after that, Jim Clark died in a road accident. Colin Chapman died suddenly in 1982.
Along the way, Lotus produced cars, mostly by hand in Hethel, Norfolk, such as the Elan, Europa, and Esprit, which embodied Chapman's core principle: "first simplify, then add lightness."
Lotus came to be seen as a symbol of British innovation. They remain the acknowledged masters of chassis and suspension design.
Chapman's design philosophy was mirrored in how the company was financed. Friends, family and the proceeds of sales and motorsport success.
Chapman was an engineer and would not have anyone who didn't live by the principle of "simplify and add lightness" near the business. No angel or institutional investment—just a network of trusted allies, suppliers and customers, and a "bootstrap" approach to development.
No butterfly deniers. This was a man who understood his imaginal discs and created conditions for them to flourish.
After Chapman died, the company struggled without his visionary leadership and example, despite having other icons like Ayrton Senna join the racing team.
In 1986, the company was sold to General Motors. With butterfly deniers now out in force, it went through five years of producing cars designed by marketers and accountants that would have had Chapman spinning in his grave
Then, in 1994, Lotus Head of Design Julian Wilson found a blank back of an envelope and created the initial sketch of the Elise (rumour has it, over a weekend). Twelve weeks later, it was a clay model. A few months later, it was a prototype, and a few months after that, the core production team at Hethel produced a worthy successor to the Seven.
Launched in 1996, it weighed in at 725 kg, employed radical design and construction techniques, and sold for the same price as a Ford Mondeo, saving Lotus's skin. I took delivery of mine at the beginning of 1997. I got to see it being built and talked to the engineers working on it. Try that with Ford.
General Motors got out while they could from something I’m not sure they ever understood. The company was later sold to other corporates, from Bugatti to Proton, until in 2017 it was sold to Geely, the owner of Volvo and Polestar, and part of the Chinese EV powerhouse who it seems want to close the UK production site that built it, dissolving 49 years of “first simplify, then lighten” culture in favour of optimisation.
When Does a Brand Die?
There's a huge body of literature on brands, driven by those who claim to have access to “secret sauce”. The progeny of "Mad Men."
I want to consider a far more fundamental question—the soul of the brand —to explore the relationship with the craft of the artisan.
Brands come in different forms. There are "synthetic" brands, designed around scalable business models and targeted at gaps identified through market analysis by entrepreneurs. Some brands emerge organically, almost unbidden from the authentic purpose of founders. Some brands that have long since died have become zombies, the undead spirits of long-lost values.
For me, the market is increasingly dominated by synthetic brands and zombies at the expense of founders.
Staying with the car market, the portfolio chaos of Stellantis reminds me of a camel defined as a horse designed by committee. Genesis and Infiniti were created to offer entry to a premium sector for commodity brands, but they seem to be suffering from a bad case of impostor syndrome. More recently, we have Volvo's Polestar and Mercedes EQS and EQC. All of them look likely to fall victim to brands created for electric vehicles without compromise, unashamed of being new, not trying to evoke a past. China's BYD looks set to decimate Europe’s tired brands, and make America’s globally irrelevant.
There is an acid test for zombie brands: Would the founder recognise it?
If not, it's already a zombie. William Lyons would be unlikely to recognise Jaguar, Ferdinand Porsche would cringe at the idea of a Porsche SUV, although I suspect Enzo Ferrari would still recognise the cars that carry his name. Lotus is on the cusp.
Zombies do not appear overnight—it takes effort, intent and a certain lack of soul. First, we see a gradual dilution until the brand becomes meaningless, followed by licensing to anyone willing to pay, who create products that contradict the original values and confuse customers about what the brand represents.
The slow degradation tarnishes their entire history.
Brand Apocalypse
Now, Lotus are banking on the Lotus Eletre—an electric SUV that weighs over 2.5 tons.
Last weekend, around 300 Lotus cars were wandering the Peak District for a yearly meet. For those people, the Lotus brand, embodying Colin Chapman's ethos, is alive, well and sustaining connections between those to whom it matters.
Meanwhile, in a boardroom far, far away, those considering moving production to the USA are banking on efficiency by building them alongside family saloons, produced by those with no connection to what they are making, other than a job. From “simplify and add lightness” to Expensive Electric Executive Shopping Trolleys.
Lotus, it appears, is about to become a zombie—a brand being developed on the back of heritage acquired by commercial storytellers rather than engineers. Shareholders looking for efficiency and productivity rather than the developing the essence of the brand.
Colin Chapman was a risk taker, personally and professionally, and his DNA is still present in the team at Hethel. It will not transplant elsewhere.
Closer to home, the same thing is happening to professionals.
Our own professional brand—the unique value we create, the problems we solve, the way people think of us when they need something done—faces the same choice as Lotus. Will we honour our imaginal discs, or let corporate convenience turn us into a zombie version of ourselves?
For Lotus, the brand, and the inspiration Chapman’s “first simplify than add lightness” mantra brings is needed beyond the automotive sector?
AI perhaps?
The Caterpillar Problem
Most organisations are designed to keep us comfortable caterpillars. They offer clear metrics, predictable processes, and the security of knowing exactly what's expected. They measure our success by how efficiently we consume the leaves they provide, not by our capacity for metamorphosis.
And why wouldn't they? Butterflies are harder to manage than caterpillars. They don’t take flight.
The question is: what happens when the leaves run out?
We're witnessing this across industries. Companies that built empires on “hungry caterpillar” logic—linear growth, predictable processes, scalable mediocrity—are discovering that the world no longer wants what caterpillars produce.
We want butterflies.
Meanwhile, those mysterious few who learned to embrace their imaginal discs early are creating entirely new ecosystems. We may not like Elon Musk much, but few of us would question his ability to rock boats, doing things others never even considered.
As with any brand, you don’t have to like it to respect it.
Consider the evidence around you. How many "industry leaders" from a decade ago are now fighting for relevance? How many "stable careers" have been automated away? How many brands that once commanded respect now feel like hollow shells, trading on heritage they no longer embody?
Here's a test that cuts through the comfortable delusions:
If someone who knew you five years ago looked at your work today, what would they say?
You've become exactly what I expected"
"You're doing the same things, just more efficiently"
"I can see you growing into something I couldn't have predicted"
"You're solving problems that didn't exist when we last spoke"
If it's either of the first two, you might be experiencing what I call "professional brand death"—the gradual hollowing out of your unique capabilities in service of organisational convenience.
The symptoms are recognisable:
You find yourself explaining why things can't be done rather than figuring out how to do them.
Your energy peaks during conversations about what's wrong with your industry.
You're valued primarily for maintaining existing systems rather than creating new possibilities.
You catch yourself saying "that's not how we do things here" more often than "what if we tried..."
This isn't your fault. It's the natural result of immune systems—both organisational and personal—that prioritise stability over emergence.
The AI Accelerant
This is where, as the Chinese might say, things get interesting. AI isn't just another technology disruption—it's a suppressor of the entire knowledge economy's immune system.
Suddenly, all the caterpillar work—the processing, the analysing, the following of established procedures—can be done faster and cheaper by systems that never tire, never complain, and never demand benefit packages.
This creates what I call the "Imaginal Disc Window"—a brief period when the old constraints are dissolving faster than new ones can form. When the systems that kept us comfortable as caterpillars are stripped away, revealing the capabilities that were always there but never had room to emerge.
AI is a powerful tool in the hands of those who are purposefully curious. Just as shareholders see it as an opportunity to replace jobs, so artisans can choose to use it to free themselves from the control and constraints imposed by corporate bureaucracy, from HR policies to procedural bullshit.
AI offers the prospect of a "Zombie Brand Apocalypse" through the proliferation of meaningless licensed brands, farmed out to those who want to trade on second-hand heritage rather than do the hard work of creating new originals.
The organisations that survive this transition won't be the ones that get better at caterpillar work. They'll be the ones who learn to nurture butterflies.
The professionals who thrive won't be the ones who resist change. They'll be the ones who embrace their imaginal discs and learn to activate them intentionally.
Why This Matters for Artisans
Firstly, because the work we do carries our signature. We may be working in corporations, but as AI creates the opportunity for shareholders to pressure management into prioritising convenience and short-term certainty, not just our work, but our ownership of it is up for grabs.
Secondly, because brands can have dignified deaths. When supersonic passenger flight became uneconomical, Concorde retired the entire fleet rather than compromise the experience. The brand died at its peak, preserving the legacy of speed and luxury. Triumph motorcycles did the same, as did "Punch" magazine in another sector. They remain icons, respected for what they did rather than melted down for synthetic marketing glue.
So can corporate careers.
As artisans, we are approaching our "chrysalis moment", whether we are ready or not. We all have our own "imaginal discs" of capability that we can harness.
It will pay us to pay attention to them.
The Chrysalis Choice
So, a provocation:
What would you create if you weren't afraid of dissolving everything you've built so far?
Not what you'd optimise. Not what you'd improve incrementally. What would you create from scratch, using capabilities you barely allow yourself to acknowledge?
Because that's what your imaginal discs are for. Not to make you a more efficient caterpillar, but to transform you into something entirely different.
The uncomfortable truth is that you already know what they are. You've felt them stirring when you see problems that others accept as unsolvable, feel energy surging when tackling work that others find draining, and notice patterns that others miss. When you sense possibilities that others can't imagine.
Your chrysalis moment isn't coming someday. It's here. The question is whether you're ready to stop fighting your own transformation.
This is why I write "New Artisans"—not because the work is new, but because the conditions that allow artisan capabilities to emerge are finally aligning. For the first time in generations, the systems that rewarded conformity over creativity, efficiency over excellence, and predictability over possibility are being dismantled by forces beyond any organisation's control.
The imaginal discs that our professional immune system has been suppressing? They're about to become our competitive advantage.
The question isn't whether we're capable of more. Of course we are.
The question is whether we're willing to let everything we've been dissolve in service of everything we might become.
Our chrysalis moment is waiting. What can we do about it together?