Daring to Stumble on the Road to Discovery
Jobs, careers, valued skills and industries are transforming at an unheard-of rate. And all of the change and uncertainty can make us risk-averse and prone to getting stuck.
Despite these realities, our education system emphasizes teaching and testing us about facts that are already known. There is much less focus on our ability to discover, create and reinvent.
The same often holds true in the workplace. Perfection is rewarded, while making mistakes is penalized. It’s no wonder that “failure” has taken on a deeply personal meaning, something to be avoided at nearly all cost.
The skills we’re taught work well for familiar situations, yet we’re trained to perfect our ideas and use the past to predict the future with linear plans in a nonlinear world. As such, we need a completely new mind-set. Linear thinking is a death knell for creativity.
When I worked as a venture capital investor, I found that most successful entrepreneurs don’t begin with perfected ideas or plans — they discover them. Entrepreneurs think of learning the way most people think of failure.
Peter Sims - NY Times
