in Innovation, Podcast
Calling all Hungry Minds!
About 5 years ago I started an offline meetup where me and a friend would each invite an interesting person to teach us something; I called it the Hungry Minds. It started as intellectual networking and just learning from someone else; there is no business card exchange. But it evolved into a brainstorm and support group. For example, we asked ourselves some of the following questions:
Every once in a while I get emails from business people and students asking for advice on all types of challenges they’re facing. A recent one has to do with brainstorming for innovation, specifically how to fight cognitive bias so the group can be open to all avenues of the future.
Recently I had some issues with one of the internal fans on mi laptop, which will turn 5 years old in November; so I’m not surprised one of the fans stopped working properly. The problem is the internal components no longer exist because my laptop is a late 2012 model of the HP 15 Envy. So what did I do?
Is empathy overrated? As I posted a few weeks ago, empathy is the greatest creator of human energy; so I don’t believe it to be overrated. Still, there are those who believe too much empathy is not good. One of those people is Psychologist and author Paul Bloom, who wrote a book about the topic. I’ve found it interesting and have been reading and listening to his counter arguments to empathy; the main argument is it’s narrow, biased and therefore puts it ahead of rational thinking.
Here’s a typical scenario…
You’re an employee at a large organization, have been there for a while. You see opportunities to make things better, you talk to people, some doors open then they close. You’re frustrated because you can’t make progress. You start thinking about all the ways everything could be better if you only had a chance to apply your ideas.
Does this sound familiar?…
A couple of months ago I republished a list of all the ways Misfits (innovators) are misunderstood in the workplace and what they want from their boss to be able to get along with them. It got a great deal of attention immediately after I published it, many Misfits empathized with the list; non-misfits probably didn’t.
So for all of you non-misfits, today I’m going to elaborate on a key attitude of a Misfit: being a contrarian. …
Yesterday I gave a talk to Foxconn employees and Directors about culture and how it drives innovation. A good way to frame culture is like this: what you reward and what you punish.
With that said, turn your attention to the following tweet: