Fear and Imaginary drama

by | Oct 23, 2012 | Year 2012 | 0 comments

Yes, fear of failure is a powerful destructive force.  Fear.  Imagination.  Imaginary fear.  Paralyzed by the unknown.  I have seen too many people living 50 of the last 1 drama in their living.  But in their mind, everything is true and driven by fear and imagination.

Why is it so?

Development, innovation, and pure discovery require a lack of fear, especially a lack of imaginary fear.

So why gives so many energy to fear and imaginary fear.  So why is it so?

Maybe like this article says:

 

If you’re an MBA-trained manager or executive, the odds are you were never, at any point in your educational or professional career given permission to fail, even on a “little bet.” Your parents wanted you to achieve, achieve, achieve — in sports, the classroom, and scouting or work. Your teachers penalized you for having the “wrong” answers, or knocked your grades down if you were imperfect, according to however your adult figures defined perfection. Similarly, modern industrial management is still predicated largely on mitigating risks and preventing errors, not innovating or inventing.

 

The No. 1 Enemy of Creativity: Fear of Failure

Never once in my life until my mid 30s did anyone ever (to the best of my recollection) call me “creative.” But now, I hear it all the time.

So what happened?

Well, after a traditional education, business school, and five years working in strategy consulting and venture capital, I went to a cocktail reception at Stanford’s d.school, the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, where I met George Kembel, cofounder and executive director of the school. While I cannot remember one thing that we discussed, I do remember laughing for about 40 minutes straight as we riffed on odds and ends. (I’ve since learned that anyone who has a sense of humor is creative.)

Over the next five years, what Kembel and his colleagues at the d.school taught me changed the way I thought about everything, leaving me to wonder why the hell I had never learned the basic methods for thinking like a designer (especially in a world where the leading company, Apple, has a culture built around design methods).

More on Harvard Business Review

 

 



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