“The problem of the steady change of ideas (or the perpetual need to imagine new ideas) also demolishes the notion that the essence of education consists in mastering certain contents or materials. You are not little birdies sitting in the nest with your mouths open to receive half-digested worms of knowledge regurgitated by the faculty. Education is not about content. It is not even about skills. It is a habit or stance of mind. It is not something you have. It is something you are.” So says educator Andrew Abbott. To work towards ‘progressing’ our skills and capacities, as if this was just some kind of iterative and cumulative process - that is, as if we were merely intelligent machines - is a limiting concept.
In Brisbane we now have a regular entrepreneurs’ networking event called The Hive, based on a successful predecessor in Melbourne. Whether the association is intentional or not, the title of the event resonates with Seth Godin’s viral marketing metaphors, which also include Purple Cows and the mystical, driven Sneezers. Sneezers hang out at hives, where the latest purple cows are discussed over drinks at bar prices. It’s a potent cocktail - entrepreneurs (mostly but not all young), compelling metaphors and of course a few drinks at bar prices. This isn’t the first time Godin has been mentioned in this blog, not necessarily because his strategies are effective but certainly because his imagery is.
Psychological research has shown that conscious deliberation can be surprisingly ineffective for successful decision making. In fact, the more you think about a complex choice the more likely you are to include irrelevant information, and the worse your decision will be (from the standpoint of rationality, post-choice satisfaction, and accuracy).
So is the answer snap decisions?
There is better way: use your conscious mind to acquire information but don’t analyse it. Let your unconscious mind digest it (while you think about other things) and then go with your gut.
Ap Dijksterhuis “When to Sleep on It” Harvard Business Review Feb 2007
To avoid the overwhelm that some people feel by the prescription to change the world - the world is so huge, there’s so much to do, and where do I start? - it’s simple enough to start by leaving more value than you take. Doing so, at the very minimum, overcomes the natural inclination towards greed…
This is a call to focus your passion and creativity on creating value that you can share with others, for brilliant, creative, and compassionate people lose more by withholding what they have and not exchanging value than by leaving more of what they have on the table.
From Leave Some Value On The Table by Charlie Gilkey at Productive Flourishing
- Crystallise your problem and write it as a single question. For example: How can I increase ongoing sales to past customers?
- Concentrate on the question and take two deep breaths.
- On your third breath, write down a possible solution.
- Every second breath, write down another solution, until you have five in total.
From: The Idea Accelerator: How to solve problems faster using Speed Thinking by Dr Ken Hudson
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