Jerry Bellune October 22, 2013
October 21, 2013
October 22, 2013
How stupid can we be?
Management guru Tom Peters has a question:
What was the dumbest thing you did this week?
As a leader, what did you learn from it?
Are you doing enough dumb things?
I mean, really stupid things?
But you didn’t know it till you did them?
Of course not. We don’t do them on purpose.
Going in, they looked like the smart thing to do.
Coming out was another story.
What happens if you don’t do enough of them?
Well, for starters, you won’t learn much.
For another, you won’t achieve much either.
You’ve heard of “paralysis by analysis?”
That’s when you hesitate to do anything out of fear.
Fear that you’ll screw up or look like a fool.
Get over it. Take a chance. Run a risk.
Analyze, of course. Don’t be thoughtless.
But don’t analyze it to death. You must act.
Through actions and errors, we learn.
I hear a lot of complaints from educators.
One told me his students seem to get dumber.
Only they don’t know it. And they don’t learn from it.
They spend hours playing computer games.
Computer games exercise only your eyes.
You need to engage all of your senses.
He says his students need to play more.
Get out there and fall down, Skin their knees.
Slide down the sliding boards of life.
Learn from the real world.
Are you playing enough?
Are you using more than just your eyes on a laptop?
Are you falling down and skinning your knees?
Sliding down the sliding boards of life?
Here’s your challenge for today:
1. Do at least one dumb thing and learn from it.
It isn’t hard. All of us do it all of the time.
We’re just not aware of it until we do it.
2. Plan, launch and offer one new product this month.
Monitor results and odds of becoming profitable.
If marketable, do it. If not, try something else.
Next: How to see over the horizon.
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