For decades, Aerospace has used the Technology Readiness Levels to ensure missions didn't fail catastrophically. They made uncertainty visible before betting billions and risking lives. That discipline kept astronauts alive.

Modern innovation with AI faces similar stakes. Universally all organizational survival is up for grabs. Yet most companies lack any comparable readiness framework. That's were "System Readiness Levels" comes in.

Senior leaders across every known industry are asking a deceptively simple question:

“How ready are we?”

Is the idea ready for investment?
Is the system ready for scale?

Are we ready for AI?

Is the surrounding market ecosystem ready for us?
Is the organization ready to absorb the change?

Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale has been a way of bringing discipline to innovation risk.

The now-familiar 1–9 scale tracked a journey from basic scientific principles through to an “actual system proven in an operational environment.” (Ask AI if about TRL if you haven’t heard of it before now. E.g., “Explain Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) in business terms. I'm a leader evaluating the readiness of my organization to do a new thing. What is TRL, why was it created, and why should I care about it for my organization?")

TRLs worked because they did something leaders desperately need, they made uncertainty visible.

Over time, TRLs escaped aerospace and defense spreading into energy, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, and eventually into boardrooms. Today, many executives can roughly locate a project on the TRL ladder, even if they’ve never formally used the tool.

But there’s a problem.

“Technology Readiness” is no longer enough.

Modern innovation is no longer primarily about technology.

AI systems, digital platforms, business-model innovations, regulatory shifts, and social or ethical interventions are systems, not products. Their success depends as much on behavior, trust, governance, narrative, and timing as on technical performance.

This is why we propose a subtle but important shift in language:

From Technology Readiness Levels to System Readiness Levels (SRL)
From Signal to Scale

The change matters. “System” signals to leaders that readiness applies to:

• Organizations, not just products
• Markets, not just labs
• Humans, not just code

The Scale Needs a Level 0. And a Level 10.

In practice, most breakthrough initiatives begin before TRL 1 ever exists. They start as weak signals: hunches, anomalies, customer frustrations, regulatory noise, or moral discomfort with the status quo.

This pre-project phase is where insight is formed, but it is invisible in the traditional TRL model. Hence the need for SRL 0: the phase of sensemaking, pattern recognition, and problem reframing.

At the other end of the scale lies an even more consequential gap.

TRL 9 is typically defined as: “Actual system proven in operational environment.”

That is a necessary milestone, but it is not innovation.

Many systems reach TRL 9 and still fail. They launch, technically work, and then quietly disappear. Others limp along, consuming capital without ever becoming self-sustaining.

Which brings us to the missing level.

SRL 10: The Tipping Point

True innovation only exists once a system has passed its tipping point on the overall S-curve: when adoption becomes self-reinforcing, legitimacy is established, and the system begins to scale faster than resistance can stop it.

SRL 10 is not a technical milestone.
It is a market, social, and ethical one.

Reaching it implies:

• The market believes the system works
• Users trust it
• Stakeholders tolerate (or endorse) its implications
• The system can grow without extraordinary protection

In the AI world, this distinction is already explicit. Models are not considered “ready” simply because they function. They must also pass thresholds of safety, fairness, governance, and public acceptance. In other words, system readiness now extends beyond performance into legitimacy.

This is why SRL 10 matters. And why leaders – not engineers – own it.

From “Yes, But…” to Breakthrough – The Readiness Journey as Contradiction Resolution

Most leaders are deeply uncomfortable with contradictions.

They prefer trade-offs, prioritization, sequencing, and compromise. These are all valuable skills, but they break down when organizations face genuinely novel challenges.

Yet contradictions show up in leadership conversations every day, usually disguised in a far more familiar form:

“Yes, but…”

“Yes, but we don’t know what customers actually want yet.”
“Yes, but this would destabilize our current business.”
“Yes, but the technology works and the organization doesn’t.”
“Yes, but the market isn’t ready.”

Each “yes, but” is a signal. It marks the boundary between the current state and the next level of readiness.

Seen through this lens, the System Readiness Level (SRL) journey is not a linear execution process, but rather a sequence of ‘yes, buts’ that must be resolved without retreating into compromise.

SRL 0 to 1: From Signal to Concept

• Goal: Articulate a meaningful opportunity.
• Yes, but: “We sense something is wrong or changing, but we can’t yet define the problem or the system.”

At this stage, the contradiction is between intuition and legitimacy. Leaders feel something matters, but cannot yet justify action. Premature analysis kills insight; overconfidence kills learning.

SRL 1 to 3: From Concept to Credible System

• Goal: Demonstrate feasibility.
• Yes, but: “We can describe the idea, but we don’t know if it can actually work.”

Here, leaders face the tension between exploration and proof. Too much rigor too early freezes progress; too little invites fantasy. The contradiction is resolved by disciplined experimentation, not opinion.

SRL 3 to 5: From Working to Relevant

• Goal: Show the system solves a real problem.
• Yes, but: “It works, but not in the real world we operate in.”

This is where many initiatives stall. The system functions, but not under real constraints: users behave unpredictably, incentives clash, edge cases emerge. The contradiction lies between technical success and contextual fit.

SRL 5 to 7: From Relevant to Scalable

• Goal: Prepare the system for growth.
• Yes, but: “If this succeeds, it will break something else.”

This is a classic leadership moment. Scaling exposes conflicts with existing structures, power bases, revenue streams, and identities. The contradiction is between local optimization and system-wide impact.

SRL 7 to 9: From Launch to Legitimacy

• Goal: Prove the system in operation.
• Yes, but: “Just because we can launch doesn’t mean we should.”

Ethical, social, regulatory, and reputational tensions dominate here. In AI especially, this phase reveals whether trust has been designed in. Or merely assumed.

SRL 9 to 10: From Adoption to Tipping Point

• Goal: Achieve self-reinforcing momentum.
• Yes, but: “This is live, yet it could still fail.”

The final contradiction is between existence and inevitability. Passing the tipping point requires alignment across technology, narrative, incentives, and values. It is where markets, not organizations, make the final decision.

Why This Matters for Leaders

Every failed innovation attempt can be traced back to a “yes, but” that was managed rather than resolved.

Leaders who succeed are not those with better answers, but those who:

• Recognize the real “yes, but” at each stage
• Resist false trade-offs
• Create conditions for contradictions to dissolve rather than harden

Different stages of the SRL journey require very different leadership capabilities; most organizations systematically over-invest in some while neglecting others.

That is where the NEPTUNE model comes in.

Why New Things Fail, And Why 1%ers Are Different

One of the most consistent patterns we see across organizations is this:

Most leaders – and most innovators – are genuinely strong at only two or three stages of the Readiness journey.

That is not a weakness. It is a consequence of education and experience.

Some people thrive in ambiguity. Others excel at execution. Some are natural system integrators; others are exceptional at scaling, protecting, or institutionalizing success. Very few individuals have personally navigated all stages from signal to tipping point.

That is why 1%ers are rare.

A 1%er is not defined by intelligence, creativity, or charisma.

A 1%er is defined by having repeatedly crossed Readiness thresholds, and survived the “yes, buts” that derail most initiatives.

They have:

• Felt the loneliness of SRL 0–1, when insight exists without permission
• Endured SRL 3–5, when “it works” still isn’t enough
• Managed SRL 5–7, when success threatens existing power structures
• Navigated SRL 9–10, when reputational, ethical, and systemic risks dominate

Crucially, they have learned when to change how they lead as the system matures.

Most organizations fail not because they lack talent, but because they deploy the wrong strengths at the wrong stage.

NEPTUNE: A Leadership System, Not a Personality Model

This is where the NEPTUNE model becomes indispensable.

NEPTUNE describes seven distinct leadership capabilities that, although always present (NEPTUNE is a system!), become more or less dominant at different points in the SRL journey:

• Navigator – sensing direction before clarity exists
• Empath – understanding human need and unintended impact
• Plate-Spinner – managing multiple fragile experiments
• Transcender – reframing contradictions into higher-order solutions
• Umbrella – providing cover, legitimacy, and protection
• Ninja – removing obstacles quickly and decisively
• Elephant – institutionalizing, scaling, and stabilizing success

Every SRL stage privileges different NEPTUNE capabilities.

The mistake most leadership teams make is assuming:

• Their strongest leaders should lead every phase
• Excellence in scaling implies excellence in discovery
• Operational mastery equals innovation capability

It does not.

The Diagnostic Question Every CEO Should Ask First

Before launching any major “new things get done” initiative, there is a single foundational question leadership teams should ask:

“Which NEPTUNE capabilities do we actually have, and which ones are missing?”

This is not about labels. It is about risk awareness.

If your team is rich in Plate-Spinners and Ninjas but lacks Navigators, you will execute brilliantly on the wrong opportunity.
If you have Transcenders but no Umbrellas, bold ideas will die politically.
If you scale without Elephants, success will be squashed by the market ecosystem.

You must know where you are before you move.

The SRL journey is unforgiving of self-deception.

You cannot skip stages.
You cannot outsource missing capabilities forever.
And you cannot will your way through “yes, buts” that require different leadership muscles.

The role of senior leadership, therefore, is not to have all the answers.

It is to know where the organization truly is, understand what the next readiness threshold demands, and ensure the right NEPTUNE capabilities are present before crossing it.

That is how new things get done.