Innovation Motivational Quotes

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Firestarters are flexible. They recognize situational needs and are able to flow into the accessible role identity most relevant to overcome emergent challenges.
Raoul Davis Jr. (Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life)
The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas. Some skeptics insist that innovation is expensive. In the long run, innovation is cheap. Mediocrity is expensive—and autonomy can be the antidote.”   TOM KELLEY General Manager, IDEO
Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
When there is silence, Give your voice. When there is darkness, Shine your light. When there is desperation, Offer hope.
Tim Fargo
Creative minds don't follow rules, they follow will.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
When you travel mentally from a low point to a high point, the ensuing inspiration eclipses the negativity of the initial downfall.
Raoul Davis Jr. (Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life)
Success is not only dependent on understanding your own skill-set. It’s also important to recognize the talents of others and know how to profit from them.
Raoul Davis Jr. (Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life)
Introspection is a form of self-management. You reflect. You decide. You change. You allow yourself to grow.
Raoul Davis Jr. (Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life)
Belief that you can act is a powerful motivator. Belief that change can happen in a flash is an even stronger motivator.
Raoul Davis Jr. (Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life)
5 Ways To Build Your Brand on Social Media: 1 Post content that add value 2 Spread positivity 3 Create steady stream of info 4 Make an impact 5 Be yourself
Germany Kent
There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it. Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief - WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care? People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us. For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It’s not “integrity,” it’s “always do the right thing.” It’s not “innovation,” it’s “look at the problem from a different angle.” Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea - we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation. Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders—in that order. Leading is not the same as being the leader. Being the leader means you hold the highest rank, either by earning it, good fortune or navigating internal politics. Leading, however, means that others willingly follow you—not because they have to, not because they are paid to, but because they want to. You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills. Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not. Unless you give motivated people something to believe in, something bigger than their job to work toward, they will motivate themselves to find a new job and you’ll be stuck with whoever’s left. Trust is maintained when values and beliefs are actively managed. If companies do not actively work to keep clarity, discipline and consistency in balance, then trust starts to break down. All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation. The same is true for learning.
Clayton M. Christensen (Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns)
Our ancestors have invented, we can at least innovate.
Amit Kalantri
Pivoting is not the end of the disruption process, but the beginning of the next leg of your journey.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
No obstacle is so big that one person with determination can't make a difference.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Growing a culture requires a good storyteller. Changing a culture requires a persuasive editor.
Ryan Lilly
The world accommodates you for fitting in, but only rewards you for standing out.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Before you get bored of yourself try creativity in your life.
Amit Kalantri
Be creative while inventing ideas, but be disciplined while implementing them.
Amit Kalantri
Just because you have baggage doesn't mean you have to lug it around.
Richie Norton
If you must walk in someone's shadow make sure it's your own
Rasheed Ogunlaru
He without inspiration and motivation exists no more in a world full of innovations and inventions!
Darnaya Darice
The real challenge is for each of us to determine where we feel we can make the most impact.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
She wasn’t sure which motivation made better fuel for innovation: naïve but ethical beliefs, or the need to survive.
Annalee Newitz (Autonomous)
Never fear starting. Fear never starting.
Ryan Lilly
Creative people neither like to be possessive nor like to be possessed.
Amit Kalantri
Disruptors don't have to discover something new; they just have to discover a practical use for new discoveries.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Not only should we encourage kids to daydream, but also to jump-in and build those dreams. Dreaming is largely lost among adults drowning in self-imposed realities.
Ryan Lilly
Don't run with the crowd; fly with the stars.
Matshona Dhliwayo
If humans can live for 100 years, why do companies die so young.
Sukant Ratnakar (Open the Windows)
A sense of control can fuel motivation, but for that drive to produce insights and innovations, people need to know their suggestions won’t be ignored, that their mistakes won’t be held against them. And they need to know that everyone else has their back.
Charles Duhigg (Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business)
To succeed consistently, good managers need to be skilled not just in choosing, training, and motivating the right people for the right job, but in choosing, building, and preparing the right organization for the job as well.
Clayton M. Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change))
Improvement is not enough, you also needs innovation.
Amit Kalantri
The difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful ones know that the most unprofitable thing ever manufactured is an excuse.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
At the heart of all sales and marketing is the ability to create demand even in the absence of logic.
Jay Samit
Lifelong learning is no longer a luxury but a necessity for employment.
Jay Samit
Do what no one else can do and you will become what no one else can become.
Matshona Dhliwayo
All the tools, techniques and technology in the world are nothing without the head, heart and hands to use them wisely, kindly and mindfully
Rasheed Ogunlaru
In a world full of game players, the only way to set yourself apart is to be a game changer.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The willingness to be a champion for stupid ideas is the key to greater creativity, innovation, fulfillment, inspiration, motivation and success.
Richie Norton (The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret)
Daring never goes out of style.
Talismanist Giebra (Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.)
As I would learn later on, developed countries will always welcome the Einsteins of this world -- those individuals whose talents are already recognized and deemed to have value. This welcome doesn't usually extend to the poor and uneducated people seeking to enter the country. But the truth, supported by the facts of history and the richness of immigrant contribution to America's distinction in the world, is that the most entrepreneurial, innovative, motivated citizen is the one who has been given an opportunity and wants to repay the debt.
Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa (Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon)
Innovation Big pain, no shame being same-to-same
Praveen Kumar
Every threat to the status quo is an opportunity in disguise.
Jay Samit
You have a choice: pursue your dreams, or be hired by someone else to help them fulfill their dreams.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Creativity isn't meant to introduce complexity it is expected to add simplicity.
Amit Kalantri
Talent silences your competition; genius deafens them.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Adaptability and innovation are the root of victory. Chaos and fear are the birth of defeat.
Alpha Four
I am filled with conviction that the interests of humanity would be best served if the United States remained true to its traditions and kept out of “entangling alliances.
Nikola Tesla (My Inventions)
If we want to avert an impending calamity and a state of things which may transform this globe into an inferno, we should push the development of flying machines and wireless transmission of energy without an instant’s delay and with all the power and resources of the nation.
Nikola Tesla (My Inventions)
Those people who live in an Independent nation should know how important it is to support independence not only in the government but also in arts, literature, films, newspapers, and business. Innovation, growth, and self-motivation comes from independent artists, journalists, authors, and inventors; not from the Big What which has held 90% of the market since the 1900s. Encourage innovation by supporting the Indies. That's where new opportunities are found!
Kailin Gow
All great people of history, all the heroes and leaders and innovators who lit humanity’s way out of darkness and ignorance, forged within themselves the courage to overcome their internal conflicts when it mattered most. In many ways, they are just like us: They worried. They procrastinated. They sometimes had lower opinions of their fellow human beings. But what made them celebrated, what pushed society forward, what gave birth to their legend, was their sheer will to overcome such impulses and to faithfully, actively, and lovingly fight for a better life for themselves and others. Let us learn from them, let us master ourselves, and let us now add our own chapter of courage to the good book of humanity.
Brendon Burchard (The Motivation Manifesto: 9 Declarations to Claim Your Personal Power)
The way to be irreplaceable is to become a social innovator. Start projects that motivate you to save the world and simultaneously make you money (and create mindshare) for your company. Social innovation makes magic happen.
Richie Norton (Résumés Are Dead and What to Do About It)
I don't like museums, I like labs.
Amit Kalantri
All businesses -- no matter if they make dog food or software -- don't sell products, they sell solutions.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
To be successful, innovation is not just about value creation, but value capture.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
You'll never know how close you are to victory if you give up.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
The most important tool you have on a resume is language.
Jay Samit
No one who ever led a nation got there by following the path of another.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Speed to fail should be every entrepreneur's motto. When you finally find the one idea that can't be killed, go with it.
Jay Samit
Insight and drive are all the skills you need. Everything else can be hired.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Success doesn't teach as many lessons as failure
Jay Samit
It is not incumbent on the world to conform to your vision of change. It is up to you to explain the future in terms that those living in the past and present can follow.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance.
Orville Wright, American Inventor and Aviation Pioneer
Don't expect others to hand success to you. Create it - with heart, energy and enterprise - and you'll make it come true
Rasheed Ogunlaru
If records refuse to be broken, shatter them.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Your money habits and investment strategy is not all about what you do, but much about who you are. Become the person it takes to do, succeed, and innovate.
Ini-Amah Lambert (Cracking the Stock Market Code: How to Make Money in Shares)
Untamed thinking turns your reality into a wild expedition.
Talismanist Giebra (Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.)
Like many entrepreneurs, Bushnell had no shame about distorting reality in order to motivate people.
Walter Isaacson (The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution)
Some of the things you think are impossible to do can be done even by you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The work that business offers just isn’t fulfilling, so instead of being motivated to innovate, reinvent, reimagine, and outperform, most of us are dully uninspired, dispirited, frustrated, suffocated, and downright stymied.
Umair Haque (Betterness: Economics for Humans)
I am billionaire bold bright omnipotent lively determined to go within to win opening my omnific eyes to realize wisdom innovation naturalizes… My cascading flow of financial love lavishly streams gold bars as I realize gold is intrinsic wealth as my intuitive imagination is my intrinsic innovations…
Robert A. Wilson (Holiday Wisdom)
Years hence it will be possible for nations to fight without armies, ships or guns, by weapons far more terrible, to the destructive action and range of which there is virtually no limit. A city, at any distance whatsoever from the enemy, can be destroyed by him and no power on earth can stop him from doing so.
Nikola Tesla (My Inventions)
Our bodies are of such complexity of structure, the motions we perform are so numerous and involved, and the external impressions on our sense organs to such a degree delicate and elusive that it is hard for the average person to grasp this fact.
Nikola Tesla (My Inventions)
The Transhumanist Party aims to motivate and mobilize both female and male scientists and engineers to take on additional responsibilities as rational politicians. It does not mean replacing democracy with technocracy. It means that our government needs help in making the right policies and investing in science, health, and technology for the improvement of the human condition and the long-term survival of the human race.
Newton Lee (The Transhumanism Handbook)
Be natural at heart and new in mind.
Amit Kalantri
Creativity means bringing simplicity to the existing.
Amit Kalantri
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time.
Maurice Duffy
The majority of people are not willing to risk what they have built for the opportunity to have something better.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Would you rather work forty hours a week at a job you hate or eighty hours a week doing work you love?
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Starting each day with a positive mindset is the most important step of your journey to discovering opportunity.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
A career is just a longer trip with a whole lot more baggage.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
A free and open Internet is a despot's worst enemy.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Our world's future is far more malleable and controllable than most people realize.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
An average idea enthusiastically embraced will go farther than a genius idea no one gets.
Jay Samit (Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation)
Silicon Valley is not a perfect meritocracy, but it is open to all who are highly motivated. For example, there is a dearth of women, Hispanics, and African Americans in Silicon Valley.
Deborah Perry Piscione (Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Everyone Else Can Learn from the Innovation Capital of the World)
One of his motivating passions was to build a lasting company. At age twelve, when he got a summer job at Hewlett-Packard, he learned that a properly run company could spawn innovation far more than any single creative individual. " I discovered that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company," he recalled." The whole notion of how you build a company is fascinating. When i got the chance to come back to Apple, I realized that I would be useless without the company, and that's why I decided to stay and rebuild it.
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
I'm drawn again and again to obsessives. I like them. I like the idea that someone could push away all the concerns and details that make up everyday life and just zero in on one thing - the thing that fits the contours of his or her imagination. Obsessives lead us astray sometimes. Can't see the bigger picture. Serve not just the world's but also their own narrow interests. But I don't think we get progress or innovation or joy or beauty without obsessives.
Malcolm Gladwell (The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War)
Religion arose as an effort to explicate the inexplicable, control the uncontrollable, make bearable the unbearable. Belief in a higher power became the most powerful innovation in late human evolution. Tribes with religion had an advantage over those without. They had direction and purpose, motivation and a mission. The survival value of religion was so spectacular that the thirst for belief became embedded in the human genome.
Douglas Preston (Blasphemy (Wyman Ford Series Book 2))
Your dreams can change the environment which was not conducive for it at first! However it is a good initiative for the dreams that would change one society to be nursed in another environment, before being transplanted to strive in its original environment for the change process to begin!
Israelmore Ayivor (The Great Hand Book of Quotes)
Game developers know better than anyone else how to inspire extreme effort and reward hard work. They know how to facilitate cooperation and collaboration at previously unimaginable scales. And they are continuously innovating new ways to motivate players to stick with harder challenges, for longer, and in much bigger groups. These crucial twenty-first-century skills can help all of us find new ways to make a deep and lasting impact on the world around us.
Jane McGonigal (Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World)
Only through annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about someday, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife.
Nikola Tesla (My Inventions)
Children have an elemental hunger for knowledge and understanding, for mental food and stimulation. They do not need to be told or “motivated” to explore or play, for play, like all creative or proto-creative activities, is deeply pleasurable in itself. Both the innovative and the imitative impulses come together in pretend play, often using toys or dolls or miniature replicas of real-world objects to act out new scenarios or rehearse and replay old ones. Children are drawn to narrative, not only soliciting and enjoying stories from others, but creating them themselves. Storytelling and mythmaking are primary human activities, a fundamental way of making sense of our world. Intelligence, imagination, talent, and creativity will get nowhere without a basis of knowledge and skills, and for this education must be sufficiently structured and focused. But an education too rigid, too formulaic, too lacking in narrative, may kill the once-active, inquisitive mind of a child. Education has to achieve a balance between structure and freedom, and each child’s needs may be extremely variable.
Oliver Sacks (The River of Consciousness)
Necessity is the mother of invention;Copying the original,improving,perfecting and innovating to make more adaptable to present;Plagraism with good motives, it will spread with good result. Franchising is a form of copying to make the business to run in its form. You don't want to be copy, put it in the bowl. Originality has its origin; it depends to your intention.
vhalsky
I consider myself a “social ecologist,” concerned with man’s man-made environment the way the natural ecologist studies the biological environment.....the discipline itself boasts an old and distinguished lineage. Its greatest document is Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. But no one is as close to me in temperament, concepts, and approach as the mid-Victorian Englishman Walter Bagehot. Living (as I have) in an age of great social change, Bagehot first saw the emergence of new institutions: civil service and cabinet government, as cores of a functioning democracy, and banking as the center of a functioning economy. A hundred years after Bagehot, I was first to identify management as the new social institution of the emerging society of organizations and, a little later, to spot the emergence of knowledge as the new central resource, and knowledge workers as the new ruling class of a society that is not only “postindustrial” but postsocialist and, increasingly, post-capitalist. As it had been for Bagehot, for me too the tension between the need for continuity and the need for innovation and change was central to society and civilization.
Peter F. Drucker (The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done)
Throw in the valley’s rich history of computer science breakthroughs, and you’ve set the stage for the geeky-hippie hybrid ideology that has long defined Silicon Valley. Central to that ideology is a wide-eyed techno-optimism, a belief that every person and company can truly change the world through innovative thinking. Copying ideas or product features is frowned upon as a betrayal of the zeitgeist and an act that is beneath the moral code of a true entrepreneur. It’s all about “pure” innovation, creating a totally original product that generates what Steve Jobs called a “dent in the universe.” Startups that grow up in this kind of environment tend to be mission-driven. They start with a novel idea or idealistic goal, and they build a company around that. Company mission statements are clean and lofty, detached from earthly concerns or financial motivations.
Kai-Fu Lee (AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order)
CEO Gil Amelio stumbled. Ellison may have been baffled when Jobs insisted that he was not motivated by money, but it was partly true. He had neither Ellison’s conspicuous consumption needs nor Gates’s philanthropic impulses nor the competitive urge to see how high on the Forbes list he could get. Instead his ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually: building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, indeed a notch above, people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett, and David Packard. And the best way to achieve all this was to return to Apple and reclaim his kingdom. And yet when the cup of power neared his lips, he became strangely hesitant, reluctant, perhaps coy. He returned to Apple officially in January 1997 as a part-time advisor, as he had told Amelio he would. He began to assert himself in some personnel areas, especially in protecting his people who had made the transition from NeXT. But in most other ways he was unusually passive. The decision not to ask him to join the board offended him, and he felt demeaned
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
With the invention of the city and its powerful combination of economies of scale coupled to innovation and wealth creation came the great divisions of society. Our present social network structures barely existed in their present form until urban communities evolved. Hunter-gatherers were significantly less hierarchical, more egalitarian and community oriented than we are. The struggle and tension between unbridled individual self-enhancement and the care and concern for the less fortunate has been a major thread running throughout human history, especially over the past two hundred years. Nevertheless, it seems that without the motive of self-interest our entrepreneurial free market economy would collapse. The system we have evolved critically relies on people continually wanting new cars and new cell phones, new widgets and gadgets, new clothes and new washing machines, new thrills, new entertainment, and pretty much new everything, even when they already have enough of “everything.” It may not be a pretty picture and it doesn’t work for everyone, but so far, it’s worked remarkably well for most of us, and apparently most of us seem to want it to continue. Whether it can is a topic I’ll return to in the last chapter.
Geoffrey West (Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life, in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies)
The Crowd Follower: I don’t believe it? The Risk Taker: What exactly you don’t believe? The completion of the project or the process of completion. The Crowd Follower: I don’t believe this can be done this way. No one ever thought of such method, it is beyond my belief. The Risk Taker: Exactly! Your belief was in the failure, you believed its impossible, & when the work progressed, you started questioning the process? The Crowd Follower: I need to know how they made it possible? The Risk Taker: It’s very simple, unlike you. They started with a clean thought process & a missing ingredient, you know what was missing? The belief that it is impossible. They believed it’s possible, & they kept trying & improvising during the process. The absence of a dis-belief resulted in a new method. They discussed the set-backs/failures in a positive manner on making it more effective, and not to declare the project as failure & stop work. It’s the thought process which provides a positive or negative result, when you start negatively you are already working towards proving your point that it’s impossible, didn’t I tell you so? However positive thoughts generates a positive energy that produces improvisation & innovation required to succeed
Shahenshah Hafeez Khan
Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.
Seth Godin (Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?: And Other Provocations, 2006-2012)
When I was growing up it was still acceptable—not to me but in social terms—to say that one was not interested in science and did not see the point in bothering with it. This is no longer the case. Let me be clear. I am not promoting the idea that all young people should grow up to be scientists. I do not see that as an ideal situation, as the world needs people with a wide variety of skills. But I am advocating that all young people should be familiar with and confident around scientific subjects, whatever they choose to do. They need to be scientifically literate, and inspired to engage with developments in science and technology in order to learn more. A world where only a tiny super-elite are capable of understanding advanced science and technology and its applications would be, to my mind, a dangerous and limited one. I seriously doubt whether long-range beneficial projects such as cleaning up the oceans or curing diseases in the developing world would be given priority. Worse, we could find that technology is used against us and that we might have no power to stop it. I don’t believe in boundaries, either for what we can do in our personal lives or for what life and intelligence can accomplish in our universe. We stand at a threshold of important discoveries in all areas of science. Without doubt, our world will change enormously in the next fifty years. We will find out what happened at the Big Bang. We will come to understand how life began on Earth. We may even discover whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. While the chances of communicating with an intelligent extra-terrestrial species may be slim, the importance of such a discovery means we must not give up trying. We will continue to explore our cosmic habitat, sending robots and humans into space. We cannot continue to look inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. Through scientific endeavour and technological innovation, we must look outwards to the wider universe, while also striving to fix the problems on Earth. And I am optimistic that we will ultimately create viable habitats for the human race on other planets. We will transcend the Earth and learn to exist in space. This is not the end of the story, but just the beginning of what I hope will be billions of years of life flourishing in the cosmos. And one final point—we never really know where the next great scientific discovery will come from, nor who will make it. Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audience possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be. So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.
Stephen Hawking (Brief Answers to the Big Questions)