Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Tradition
We all love to stay with tradition. The more we experience in life, the more likely we are to fall back on tried and true methods to accomplish our goals in our business or personal life. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has become our motto. Children who have no history of success or failure are much more likely to experiment with the new. They may even play with what the experienced people call fire.
"Tradition!" exclaimed Tevea in "Fiddler On the Roof" as he fought to hold onto what he knew worked, what provided him with a sense of purpose in life. His three girls were bent on change, and the environment around the family was crumbling due to other forces at work. In the end, he changed up to a point in order to accommodate his daughters. Beyond that point, he was afraid that he would break. The environment changed and swept him and his family up in it. How much can we change before we break? How do you know when things need changing even if they don't appear "broke?"
It's amazing how easily traditions get started in a family. All you have to do is do something the same way a few times, and it becomes the accepted way, especially if it is a pleasurable experience. You may even have a hard time remembering how they got started.
My mother used to cook pork roast and potato dumplings. The dumplings were big, heavy like cannon balls, with a flavor and consistency I admired. They were cooked with the pork roast in the gravy. Can you imagine the calories and cholesterol? As a big, fast-growing, athletic teenager, I relished the meal when it was infrequently prepared. The recipe had been handed down for several generations. The dumplings each had a small piece of the crust of bread in the center. I asked mom once why the crust was there. She said that she didn't know. That was just what Grandma Schumann said had to be there.
I was struck by an article I read about a tradition that defies explanation. The small town of Pandhurna, India, population 45,000, has an annual event called the Gotmaar Festival. No one really knows why the festival exists; some older members of the community say that it goes back at least three centuries. All the Pandhurnans know is that once per year, on the day of the new moon in the Hindu month of Sharawan, the drums begin beating along the river Jam, and the time has come for another time of madness.
Within minutes, thousands of males divide into two groups, gather huge piles of stones on opposite sides of the river, and for the next 6-1/2 hours, try to kill, maim or mangle as many of their fellow townsfolk as they can. A tree is positioned in the center of the river and the object is to chop down the tree with an axe without getting stoned to death in the process. In one event, four young boys were killed and 612 people injured. Explains one of the residents, "We all know it is barbaric. It is a kind of madness. And it has no reason at all. But it has been with us since day one, and, on that day every year, we just cannot help ourselves."
It's been over a hundred years since the Hatfield and McCoy feud ended when a jury sentenced eight Hatfield clan members to life in prison and ordered a ninth hanged for the slaying of five McCoys. The trial ended the blood feud that killed 10 to 20 people. We no longer even know the cause of the feud, yet the names Hatfield and McCoy represent traditional views carried to the extreme.
A woman was once asked why she had just cut off the end of a ham she was preparing to roast. "It's because my mother told me to," she explained. When the mother was asked, she said it was because her mother told her to. The grandmother, who was still alive, told them that it was because the hams had always been too big for her roaster, so she had to cut a piece off.
Tradition is not limited to people. Animals can exhibit the same type of behavior. Processionary caterpillars follow each other in a line. In an experiment, a ring of the caterpillars was formed. Each marched around, following the one ahead of it. But, since they were in a ring, no progress was made. Food was placed in the center of the ring, but the caterpillars continued to follow each other, ignoring the environment around them.
People who follow only tradition are like the caterpillars. They are unaware of the opportunities around them. They cannot see the environment, changes in the environment, or opportunities such changes might afford them.
Milnes' books about Winnie the Pooh were some of my favorites as a child and some of my favorites as an adult that I read to my children. In one episode Piglet comes upon Winnie the Pooh walking with his head down as he follows tracks. Piglet asks what he is doing. Pooh explains that he is hunting a Woozle whose tracks he is following. Piglet joins with Pooh and they continue to walk. Soon they notice that the Woozle has been joined by other Woozles. As they continue to walk, they become more and more concerned as the number of tracks continues to grow. Frightened, they call off the hunt. Christopher Robin has been watching this in amazement from a perch high above in a tree. Pooh and Piglet have been walking in a circle. They were following their own tracks and became frightened by their own activity.
Not only can we get into ruts following someone else but we also can get into ruts following ourselves, and then confusing our tracks for sure signs that we are on to something big.
Escher in some of his prints catches the humor in this. In his design for the impossible building, where monks walk a square path up and down steps that are really all at the same level, an observer like Christopher Robin watches in amazement. It is difficult for someone to observe the predicament inside the tradition. It is rare that someone can. It is best observed from the outside. Yet if we don't communicate with the outside, how will we ever know? It's hard to read the label when you're inside the jar.
We cannot blame those that went before us whom we follow, or even blame ourselves for previous decisions we have made. We, and those whom we have followed, in all likelihood made good decisions based on the environment of the time. Now, the environment has changed. It requires different actions. Some of the leaders in Eastern Europe understood this point well. Va'clav Havel, when he was the new President of Czechoslovakia, stated in a New Year's Day address, "We cannot lay all the blame on those who ruled us before, not only because this would not be true but also because it would detract from the responsibility each of us now faces - the
responsibility to act on our own initiatives, freely, sensibly, quickly."
We must be fiddlers on the roof. From that vantage point we can have a different view of what is really happening. And, like a fiddler on the roof, we must carefully balance so that we don't fall off. We must balance between tradition and change. Like fiddlers on the roof, we are just trying to scratch out a simple tune without breaking our necks.
We all love to stay with tradition. The more we experience in life, the more likely we are to fall back on tried and true methods to accomplish our goals in our business or personal life. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has become our motto. Children who have no history of success or failure are much more likely to experiment with the new. They may even play with what the experienced people call fire.
"Tradition!" exclaimed Tevea in "Fiddler On the Roof" as he fought to hold onto what he knew worked, what provided him with a sense of purpose in life. His three girls were bent on change, and the environment around the family was crumbling due to other forces at work. In the end, he changed up to a point in order to accommodate his daughters. Beyond that point, he was afraid that he would break. The environment changed and swept him and his family up in it. How much can we change before we break? How do you know when things need changing even if they don't appear "broke?"
It's amazing how easily traditions get started in a family. All you have to do is do something the same way a few times, and it becomes the accepted way, especially if it is a pleasurable experience. You may even have a hard time remembering how they got started.
My mother used to cook pork roast and potato dumplings. The dumplings were big, heavy like cannon balls, with a flavor and consistency I admired. They were cooked with the pork roast in the gravy. Can you imagine the calories and cholesterol? As a big, fast-growing, athletic teenager, I relished the meal when it was infrequently prepared. The recipe had been handed down for several generations. The dumplings each had a small piece of the crust of bread in the center. I asked mom once why the crust was there. She said that she didn't know. That was just what Grandma Schumann said had to be there.
I was struck by an article I read about a tradition that defies explanation. The small town of Pandhurna, India, population 45,000, has an annual event called the Gotmaar Festival. No one really knows why the festival exists; some older members of the community say that it goes back at least three centuries. All the Pandhurnans know is that once per year, on the day of the new moon in the Hindu month of Sharawan, the drums begin beating along the river Jam, and the time has come for another time of madness.
Within minutes, thousands of males divide into two groups, gather huge piles of stones on opposite sides of the river, and for the next 6-1/2 hours, try to kill, maim or mangle as many of their fellow townsfolk as they can. A tree is positioned in the center of the river and the object is to chop down the tree with an axe without getting stoned to death in the process. In one event, four young boys were killed and 612 people injured. Explains one of the residents, "We all know it is barbaric. It is a kind of madness. And it has no reason at all. But it has been with us since day one, and, on that day every year, we just cannot help ourselves."
It's been over a hundred years since the Hatfield and McCoy feud ended when a jury sentenced eight Hatfield clan members to life in prison and ordered a ninth hanged for the slaying of five McCoys. The trial ended the blood feud that killed 10 to 20 people. We no longer even know the cause of the feud, yet the names Hatfield and McCoy represent traditional views carried to the extreme.
A woman was once asked why she had just cut off the end of a ham she was preparing to roast. "It's because my mother told me to," she explained. When the mother was asked, she said it was because her mother told her to. The grandmother, who was still alive, told them that it was because the hams had always been too big for her roaster, so she had to cut a piece off.
Tradition is not limited to people. Animals can exhibit the same type of behavior. Processionary caterpillars follow each other in a line. In an experiment, a ring of the caterpillars was formed. Each marched around, following the one ahead of it. But, since they were in a ring, no progress was made. Food was placed in the center of the ring, but the caterpillars continued to follow each other, ignoring the environment around them.
People who follow only tradition are like the caterpillars. They are unaware of the opportunities around them. They cannot see the environment, changes in the environment, or opportunities such changes might afford them.
Milnes' books about Winnie the Pooh were some of my favorites as a child and some of my favorites as an adult that I read to my children. In one episode Piglet comes upon Winnie the Pooh walking with his head down as he follows tracks. Piglet asks what he is doing. Pooh explains that he is hunting a Woozle whose tracks he is following. Piglet joins with Pooh and they continue to walk. Soon they notice that the Woozle has been joined by other Woozles. As they continue to walk, they become more and more concerned as the number of tracks continues to grow. Frightened, they call off the hunt. Christopher Robin has been watching this in amazement from a perch high above in a tree. Pooh and Piglet have been walking in a circle. They were following their own tracks and became frightened by their own activity.
Not only can we get into ruts following someone else but we also can get into ruts following ourselves, and then confusing our tracks for sure signs that we are on to something big.
Escher in some of his prints catches the humor in this. In his design for the impossible building, where monks walk a square path up and down steps that are really all at the same level, an observer like Christopher Robin watches in amazement. It is difficult for someone to observe the predicament inside the tradition. It is rare that someone can. It is best observed from the outside. Yet if we don't communicate with the outside, how will we ever know? It's hard to read the label when you're inside the jar.
We cannot blame those that went before us whom we follow, or even blame ourselves for previous decisions we have made. We, and those whom we have followed, in all likelihood made good decisions based on the environment of the time. Now, the environment has changed. It requires different actions. Some of the leaders in Eastern Europe understood this point well. Va'clav Havel, when he was the new President of Czechoslovakia, stated in a New Year's Day address, "We cannot lay all the blame on those who ruled us before, not only because this would not be true but also because it would detract from the responsibility each of us now faces - the
responsibility to act on our own initiatives, freely, sensibly, quickly."
We must be fiddlers on the roof. From that vantage point we can have a different view of what is really happening. And, like a fiddler on the roof, we must carefully balance so that we don't fall off. We must balance between tradition and change. Like fiddlers on the roof, we are just trying to scratch out a simple tune without breaking our necks.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Innovation Commons Collaboration
Why do some collaborative efforts succeed and others fail? What's required to create successful efforts time and time again? What role does software play? If these questions interest you then you may want to participate in a collaborative effort to develop some of the principles of a successful "innovation commons".
I am gathering a group of people together to develop a set of principles for a successful "innovation commons". I wrote an article on some of the principles, but I know that this is not complete and would like to engage a group of people together to hold online conversations on the topic. If this interests you, please click here or send me an e-mail (paul@theinnovationroadmap.com) and I will send you a copy of the article and include you in the discussion as soon as I have enough people to make it work.
Thank you!
Paul Schumann
Editor & Publisher
The Innovation Road Map Magazine
http://www.theinnovationroadmap.com/
paul@theinnovationroadmap.com
PO Box 26947
Austin, TX 78755
512.302.1935
Why do some collaborative efforts succeed and others fail? What's required to create successful efforts time and time again? What role does software play? If these questions interest you then you may want to participate in a collaborative effort to develop some of the principles of a successful "innovation commons".
I am gathering a group of people together to develop a set of principles for a successful "innovation commons". I wrote an article on some of the principles, but I know that this is not complete and would like to engage a group of people together to hold online conversations on the topic. If this interests you, please click here or send me an e-mail (paul@theinnovationroadmap.com) and I will send you a copy of the article and include you in the discussion as soon as I have enough people to make it work.
Thank you!
Paul Schumann
Editor & Publisher
The Innovation Road Map Magazine
http://www.theinnovationroadmap.com/
paul@theinnovationroadmap.com
PO Box 26947
Austin, TX 78755
512.302.1935
Creative Productivity
The future will be even more full of change than the present. And the present is change filled. This is not just a truism. We have entered a time period wherein technological, economic, and social conditions, together and separately, are driving change at an accelerating rate.
Creativity is one of the keys to the future! The discoveries, inventions, innovations, and improvements that will fuel the next economic expansion will require creativity. Creativity will be needed to overcome our social, political and economic problems, to face ever increasing worldwide competition, and to meet the challenge of a time of rapid innovation.
Creativity, the basis for all innovations. Creativity will also be needed to respond competitively to the innovation of others. And, creativity will be required of you to cope at all levels, personal or professional, with the changes about to be thrust upon you.
To be creative requires a positive future orientation. You must become students of the future so that you may plan to meet the creative challenges.
You must be sensitive to the present so that you may be able to detect those factors that will have a bearing on your future. And, you must be willing to change; to move your interest to that which gives you the highest return for you investment, keeping in mind at all times the broadest definition of your business, career, or self. This is imperative in a time of change for it is only within broad concepts that you can adapt to change.
Von Fange wrote in Professional Creativity, "to make creative contribution, as Einstein indicated, requires that one always search for what is fundamental. Or, to phrase it another way, if buggy whip people had realized that they were not in the business of making high quality buggy whips, but rather in the business, fundamentally, of stimulating further output from the prime mover of the family conveyance, their factories would not now be gaunt skeletons upon the American industrial scene." History does not treat favorably individuals, companies, or industries which do not react to change.
Creativity is inherent in our nature. You are created creative. Unknowingly, you choose to not exercise all of your creative talents because of the limits imposed by the processes of communication, socialization, and education. To be creative requires that you break through these limitations. Anyone can be creative. To profess that you cannot create is to set a goal you will certainly achieve. You are in control. But the very processes of communication, socialization, and education that limit creative ability, enable progress to be made. Humans require a purpose, a goal, and a paradigm for their life and career. Their establishment enables rapid progress to be made. But, as soon as they are established, they limit what can be accomplished. Progress, technical or social, is made by the establishment of a purpose and a paradigm. When maximum utilization has been-made of these, a revolution in thought occurs, and a new paradigm or purpose is established. This is creativity.
Creativity results in something new being brought into being; an attempt at immortality for that new creative may live beyond the creator. Rollo May in his book The Courage to Create captured the thought this way: "Creativity is a yearning for immortality. We human beings know that we must die. We have, strangely enough, a word for death. We know that each of us must develop the courage to confront death. Yet we also must rebel and struggle against it. Creativity comes from this struggle-out of the rebellion the creative act is born. Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one's death." Yet immortality through creativity does not come easy. Edgar Lee Masters has one of the characters in Spoon River Anthology say "Immortality is not a gift. Immortality must be earned."
Creativity requires courage. Picasso stated, "Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction." Creativity implies change and change implies abandonment of the old. It requires courage to face the new. "He was a bold man that first ate an oyster" observed Jonathan Swift. You must be courageous to face the critics of change. You must be courageous to face the anxiety produced by changes in our own thoughts. You must be courageous to face the struggle which is a part of the creative act. Von Oech in A Kick in the Seat of the Pants defines four roles of a creative person-explorer, artist, judge, warrior. A good metaphor, all of these roles require courage.
Creativity also requires thinking. T. J. Watson, in his collection of essays, As A Man Thinks, stated it this way; "Thought begets the will to create." All thinking is mentally directed creativeness. You think only when you wish to achieve a conclusion that, by implication, did not exist before.
You have two facets to your brain, two different ways of perceiving the world. L-mode thinking, characterized by linear temporal, analytical, logical processes, dominates American culture. R-mode thinking is typified by holistic, non-temporal, spatial processes. Creativity is a product of R-mode thinking. Purpose is a product of L-mode thinking. Balanced thinking skills, allowing the sub-dominant R-mode style of thought to surface, fully awaken your creative and cognitive abilities.
Creative productivity is working, or living, smarter, not harder. Repeatedly performing the same operation faster is not the key to improving productivity; creativity is.
Creative productivity in your professional or personal life can be accomplished through an understanding of the mental and physical processes that are in response to real or perceived demands made upon you. Creativity is a state of mind over which you have control.
Paul Schumann
The future will be even more full of change than the present. And the present is change filled. This is not just a truism. We have entered a time period wherein technological, economic, and social conditions, together and separately, are driving change at an accelerating rate.
Creativity is one of the keys to the future! The discoveries, inventions, innovations, and improvements that will fuel the next economic expansion will require creativity. Creativity will be needed to overcome our social, political and economic problems, to face ever increasing worldwide competition, and to meet the challenge of a time of rapid innovation.
Creativity, the basis for all innovations. Creativity will also be needed to respond competitively to the innovation of others. And, creativity will be required of you to cope at all levels, personal or professional, with the changes about to be thrust upon you.
To be creative requires a positive future orientation. You must become students of the future so that you may plan to meet the creative challenges.
You must be sensitive to the present so that you may be able to detect those factors that will have a bearing on your future. And, you must be willing to change; to move your interest to that which gives you the highest return for you investment, keeping in mind at all times the broadest definition of your business, career, or self. This is imperative in a time of change for it is only within broad concepts that you can adapt to change.
Von Fange wrote in Professional Creativity, "to make creative contribution, as Einstein indicated, requires that one always search for what is fundamental. Or, to phrase it another way, if buggy whip people had realized that they were not in the business of making high quality buggy whips, but rather in the business, fundamentally, of stimulating further output from the prime mover of the family conveyance, their factories would not now be gaunt skeletons upon the American industrial scene." History does not treat favorably individuals, companies, or industries which do not react to change.
Creativity is inherent in our nature. You are created creative. Unknowingly, you choose to not exercise all of your creative talents because of the limits imposed by the processes of communication, socialization, and education. To be creative requires that you break through these limitations. Anyone can be creative. To profess that you cannot create is to set a goal you will certainly achieve. You are in control. But the very processes of communication, socialization, and education that limit creative ability, enable progress to be made. Humans require a purpose, a goal, and a paradigm for their life and career. Their establishment enables rapid progress to be made. But, as soon as they are established, they limit what can be accomplished. Progress, technical or social, is made by the establishment of a purpose and a paradigm. When maximum utilization has been-made of these, a revolution in thought occurs, and a new paradigm or purpose is established. This is creativity.
Creativity results in something new being brought into being; an attempt at immortality for that new creative may live beyond the creator. Rollo May in his book The Courage to Create captured the thought this way: "Creativity is a yearning for immortality. We human beings know that we must die. We have, strangely enough, a word for death. We know that each of us must develop the courage to confront death. Yet we also must rebel and struggle against it. Creativity comes from this struggle-out of the rebellion the creative act is born. Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one's death." Yet immortality through creativity does not come easy. Edgar Lee Masters has one of the characters in Spoon River Anthology say "Immortality is not a gift. Immortality must be earned."
Creativity requires courage. Picasso stated, "Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction." Creativity implies change and change implies abandonment of the old. It requires courage to face the new. "He was a bold man that first ate an oyster" observed Jonathan Swift. You must be courageous to face the critics of change. You must be courageous to face the anxiety produced by changes in our own thoughts. You must be courageous to face the struggle which is a part of the creative act. Von Oech in A Kick in the Seat of the Pants defines four roles of a creative person-explorer, artist, judge, warrior. A good metaphor, all of these roles require courage.
Creativity also requires thinking. T. J. Watson, in his collection of essays, As A Man Thinks, stated it this way; "Thought begets the will to create." All thinking is mentally directed creativeness. You think only when you wish to achieve a conclusion that, by implication, did not exist before.
You have two facets to your brain, two different ways of perceiving the world. L-mode thinking, characterized by linear temporal, analytical, logical processes, dominates American culture. R-mode thinking is typified by holistic, non-temporal, spatial processes. Creativity is a product of R-mode thinking. Purpose is a product of L-mode thinking. Balanced thinking skills, allowing the sub-dominant R-mode style of thought to surface, fully awaken your creative and cognitive abilities.
Creative productivity is working, or living, smarter, not harder. Repeatedly performing the same operation faster is not the key to improving productivity; creativity is.
Creative productivity in your professional or personal life can be accomplished through an understanding of the mental and physical processes that are in response to real or perceived demands made upon you. Creativity is a state of mind over which you have control.
Paul Schumann
