Linear Efficiency Improvement Versus Order of Magnitude Leaps

The bulk of civilization focuses on producing linear or even post-inflection logistic efficiency improvement: we're given something and we just try to make that as good as possible within our given framework, usually through minor tweaks and adjustments. This is certainly necessary and helpful, but the progress of our species is truly driven forward by order of magnitude leaps, paradigm shifts, revolutions (and we usually count on a handful of individual superstars to do that for us). These tend to be rare (Kurzweil believes they're becoming more frequent). Is there a way we could speed things up a bit? What can we do to increase the frequency of such exponential jumps? Change the educations system? Change the political system? Change the economic system? (Come on, we can do better than democracy and capitalism. I won't even comment here on education.)