Popol Vuh Leadership Lessons: Consult, Prototype, Fail and Try Again

What is the Popol Vuh?

The Popol Vuh is the K'iche' Maya account of the creation of the world and of people, the adventures of the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque, and the history of the K'iche' lords. Britannica records that it was written between 1554 and 1558 by a Maya author or authors, in the K'iche' language using the Latin alphabet. That text is lost. It survives through a copy made by Francisco Ximénez, a Dominican priest in Chichicastenango, Guatemala, who set the K'iche' beside a Spanish translation; the Newberry Library in Chicago, which holds the manuscript, dates it to between 1700 and 1715.

The Newberry explains that popol means a woven mat and vuh means book, and the title is often given as the Book of the Council. It is the heritage of living people: Britannica describes the K'iche' as a Maya people of the midwestern highlands of Guatemala, with about one million speakers today, and the Newberry notes that many Maya hold the book in deep reverence. Any leader who borrows from it should do so as a respectful reader of someone else's heritage, not as an interpreter of its religious meaning.

Why start innovation with a council?

The story's first act of making is not making. It is talking. In Brasseur de Bourbourg's 1861 French: "Et ils parlèrent : alors ils se consultèrent ... ils se comprirent; ils joignirent leurs paroles et leurs avis." In our own English: So they spoke. They took counsel together and thought it through; they came to understand one another; they put their words and their opinions side by side.

Ximénez's Spanish lists the steps even more fully: thinking, coming together, holding council, making their minds known, and thinking it through with one another. Views come out before the debate. A detail that any facilitator will enjoy: daylight arrives while the makers are still consulting.

Notice, too, what the makers do not do. There is no single maker who knows best and announces a plan. The making comes out of the conversation, and when the first attempts fail, the makers widen the conversation rather than narrowing it: they invite the elders Xpiyacoc and Xmucane into the council, and the final, successful attempt follows a gathering that the text says came in great numbers. Many teams do the opposite. When a launch goes badly, the circle shrinks to the few people who built the thing, and the next version repeats the same blind spots.

For a team, the lesson is practical. Before anyone sketches a solution, agree the problem in one sentence; invite the people who will build it, use it, pay for it and fix it; have everyone write a view before discussion; and record what each view changed. If nothing changed, it was a presentation, not a council.

What do the four attempts teach about prototyping?

The makers' first creations, the animals, cannot speak as the makers asked. The second, a body of earth, can talk but has no understanding and falls apart in water. Brasseur gives a line every engineer will recognise, rendered here in our English: "The more we work on it, the less able it is to walk." So they take it apart and start again. The third, people carved from wood, speak and multiply but have, in Brasseur's words, "n'avaient ni cœur, ni intelligence, ni de souvenir de leur formateur et de leur créateur": no heart, no understanding and no memory of their makers. Only the fourth version, made from maize, passes.

Read as a pattern, each failure is specific, and each tells the makers what to build next. That gives leaders four tests to apply to any version of a product, service, policy or process.

How do you know when to scrap a prototype?

Write the test before the build, while nobody has fallen in love with the version. For each of the four tests, set a measure and a threshold: for example, ten of twelve test users file a claim without help. Then write a scrap rule: the result that would make you start again rather than polish.

Tests only help if they are honest. Run them with real data, real users and the awkward cases, not the demo script. Score each test from 1 to 5 against its criterion and agree in advance what pass mark counts. A simple register, one row per version with the four scores, a verdict and the decision, makes the pattern of your own attempts visible over time.

Watch for the mud signal: each fix creates two new problems. When that happens, stop fixing and write down what you have learned about the problem. The Spanish text says the makers broke the figure up and kneaded it afresh: the material, your learning, is kept; the design is not. Record every scrapped version with its lesson, so the decision is visible and blame-free.

• Set criteria for speak, understand, remember and heart before you build.
• Agree a scrap rule in advance.
• Add water early: test with real, messy conditions.
• Scrap on purpose, and keep the lesson.

What does the maize version teach about testing with users?

The fourth attempt starts with a council of many, and insight comes from four small animals who bring the news of the maize and, in Brasseur's French, "qui leur montrèrent le chemin de Paxil". Small voices often know where the answer lies.

Then the makers do something every product team can copy: they ask the people they made how it is for them. Ximénez's Spanish: "¿cómo es vuestro estado? ¿ois, por ventura? ¿veis, por ventura?" In our English: How are you? Can you hear, perhaps? Can you see, perhaps? In practice: put the version in the hands of the people it is for, with their consent; watch what they do before asking what they think; and score every criterion honestly.

What can leaders learn from the Hero Twins?

The Twins' father and uncle went to the underworld of Xibalba before them and were defeated there. When the Twins are summoned, they do not repeat the route. They avoid the traps, and at a crossroads they send a small animal called Xan ahead to gather news. The scout reveals that the first seated figures are wooden decoys and learns the name of every lord. Brasseur's French: "Il n'y en eut pas un dont ils oublièrent le nom" When told to greet the king, the Twins reply that it is only a statue, a man of wood.

This is an after-action review with an extra step most teams skip: before you begin, study what defeated those before you. Interview people from the earlier attempt, name the traps, send something small ahead (a pilot, a data pull, an interview) and map who really decides. Elsewhere the Twins win against stronger rivals by honest ingenuity, use ants for an impossible night's task, and are caught out when they fake their field work: a reminder that activity is not progress.

The method needs a clear boundary. Gathering intelligence means asking openly and using information that has been properly shared, never spying, deception or getting round confidentiality. The Twins' contest with the lords of Xibalba is a story of its own time; it is not a model for treating colleagues as enemies. Teams that pass on their after-action notes to whoever comes next make the next attempt cheaper.

What does Seven Macaw teach about pride and vanity metrics?

Between the wooden people and the maize people comes Vukub-Cakix, Seven Macaw. In the dim light before the true sun, he announces, in Brasseur's French: "Je suis leur soleil; je suis leur aurore et je suis leur lune" The narrator corrects him: he was not the sun, only proud of his jewels and his wealth, and his sight stopped wherever it happened to land.

Innovation teams meet Seven Macaw in every board deck that leads with ideas submitted, events held and awards won. A simple check helps: list every claim, put the evidence a fair sceptic would accept beside it, mark it green, amber or red, and replace sparkling numbers with outcomes, even smaller ones. Then tell the whole story, including the failed versions and the people whose ideas changed the result.

What does the Popol Vuh not teach?

It is not a management manual, and leaders should not quote it as an authority on business. It is not a source of prediction: this approach uses no Maya calendar and no divination, and when the story describes elders casting lots, the useful lesson is only that the makers sought experienced counsel. Its scenes of sacrifice and warfare are part of its world, not metaphors for work.

Be careful with quotations. Popular lines online are often modern copyrighted wordings, and one famous call for all to rise up and none to be left behind is, in the text, spoken by enemy tribes planning an attack. Quote the public-domain Spanish or French, label any English rendering as yours, and label Lewis Spence's 1908 English as his summary, which Spence himself said it was.

How can you start this week?

Start with three habits. Each morning, ask the council question: whose view have I not heard before I build? During the day, ask of any version: what is missing, substance or heart? Each evening, write one line on what today's test taught you. Once a week, score the current version against its criteria, and once a month run an after-action review that starts with what defeated those before you.

If you want a measured baseline, an assessment such as AssessAll's Critical Thinking & Problem Solving shows where you stand before and after a few months of practice. When a version, or a plan of your own, does not work, Jobulary's guide to using the fresh-start effect to reset a goal is a good companion for the next attempt. And if you want the whole system ready to use, Bodhih Training's The Council of Creation: Popol Vuh for Innovation kit includes the e-book, the Innovation Board workbook, fillable forms, a 52-card deck and a 12-week programme calendar.