perspective: “When everybody knows that something is so, it means that nobody knows nothin’.”

Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike - New York Times -- I've spent a good amount of my time over the years noodling over the concept of perspective, trying to see things differently in order to break out of the lockstep that stifles creativity, and progress. Here's a good article on zero-gravity thinking, asking basic questions, and intentionally leaving comfort zones in order to grow. Looking back on it, I got a lot of these analytical techniques from dead Jesuits, but many also from a still-living professor, Maurice Geracht, who specialized in the novel; there's more to Henry James than most people suspect.

Here's the lead-in and the link to a good, quick read:

IT’S a pickle of a paradox: As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience.

Andrew S. Grove, the co-founder of Intel, put it well in 2005 when he told an interviewer from Fortune, “When everybody knows that something is so, it means that nobody knows nothin’.” In other words, it becomes nearly impossible to look beyond what you know and think outside the box you’ve built around yourself.
This so-called curse of knowledge, a phrase used in a 1989 paper in The Journal of Political Economy, means that once you’ve become an expert in a particular subject, it’s hard to imagine not knowing what you do. Your conversations with others in the field are peppered with catch phrases and jargon that are foreign to the uninitiated. When it’s time to accomplish a task — open a store, build a house, buy new cash registers, sell insurance — those in the know get it done the way it has always been done, stifling innovation as they barrel along the well-worn path. (more...)

Jagdish

Our kids took a picture of this book I've been reading by Jagdish Sheth, lately of Emory University outside Atlanta. I guess they thought the name was unique and needed to be made part of this year's Christmas chronicle.

I bought this book in Atlanta at our annual convention and started reading it 12/09/2004. I am now on page 245 of 272 and have not made it all the way through once yet, and I plan to read it again, and again.

There's a lot of thought-provoking content here for all of us who serve others on a professional basis. The focus is on advisors and consultants, but the precepts or concepts apply to all who have professional engagements.

I recommend this book highly; it is loaded. Especially a propos to our regional dialogue are the discussions of scarcity and abundance, of engineering and economics juxtaposed with the liberal arts, and of trust and integrity.