Author: William Kerr

…of coming from and understanding where one stands before looking where one might want to go. (see last post)

Think Cheserton’s Fence.

Change efforts often walk down the ‘thinking outside the box’ path and then work with a radically new idea. One of the challenges with this is that, as Bruce Wheaton, author of ‘The Tiger and the Shark’ stated, “If an idea is truly new, it generally won’t be accepted.”

Seems to be a bit counter-productive to work with brand new ‘outside the box’ ideas which, more often than not, might not be accepted.

K.C. Cole‘s comment that “Truly new ideas not only build on tradition…,” brings this idea home through Piaget’s theory of constructivism that suggests learning involves actively constructing meaning; a new idea that doesn’t connect with past knowledge can make assimilation (fitting new information into existing knowledge) difficult. 

Maybe a better approach is to work at the edges of the box, either just outside or just inside, which will often produce the change and innovation required because most people live and work more in the middle of the proverbial box.

‘Outside the Box,’ as many people have experienced and written about, is often cold, dark, and lonely and expanding the box might be a better way forward than working outside of it.

PS: This blog post was thought of and written by me, no AI here, and is a mosaic of my experience, reading, and forward learning.

…or at your desk, there is always the possibility that things might get worse.

The greater probability though is that things will likely stay the same for some time to come and continue on, “in this petty, petty pace” as both William Shakespeare and Werner Earhard might have said.

The evening news, one’s YouTube scrolling, or maybe a person’s boss exclaims that this has happened or that has happened all of which are either good or bad when, in fact, it’s all just ‘the way it is’ standing alongside its partner ‘and the way it isn’t.’

Change meisters pitch a future based on assumptions that ‘this is not how it’s supposed to be and doesn’t fit with how the world should look,’ but then have difficulty getting one to their promised future.

Seth Godin once stated somewhere that to make things better, one has to make better things. Maybe starting from, and being OK with, a ‘this is the way it is and the way it isn’t’ position at the moment instead of a ‘this is not how it’s supposed to be and doesn’t fit with how the world should look’ attitude can help to make some of those better things possible.

It sounds/reads like a paradox but it’s a bit more Zen than paradox.

PS: This blog post was thought of and written by me, no AI here, and is a mosaic of my experience, reading, and forward learning.

…and working forward.

Realizing I didn’t really understand what was actually happening in the world, I stopped and looked around.

I listened, read, and changed routine.

Reorganized my value chain of people to better reflect where I’m going, not where I’ve been.

Looked at who I’d like to work with and what I’d like to work on instead of who wants me for what they want. There’s a balance necessary here which only becomes apparent when one stops, looks, and listens.

Maybe country singer Patsy Cline was on to something when she released, ‘Stop, Look, and Listen’ in 1956.

Well, I know a cool cat from way downtown
He’s been boppin’ all around
In this ole world he’s livin’ fast
Someday I’m afraid he’s gonna run outta gas
So if you’re travelin’ that way, too
I tell you, friend, what you better do

Ya gotta stop, look and listen
Hey, ya don’t know what you’re missin’

PS: This blog post was thought of and written by me, no AI here, and is a mosaic of my experience, reading, and forward learning.