I’ve read SWA Magazine (Jul-Aug 2010 Edition), there’s my colleague review on a book about Venture Capital (VC), it’s a great writing and I am truly enjoy reading it, she always manage to make her readers literally read from beginning to the end. It’s about how you master the VC game that have been around for more than half a decade now. The interesting part is that great things don’t start with money, they start with ideas, innovations, creative thinking processes, out-of-the-box mentality, and being popular outliers. More interestingly the theme of this SWA edition is about crafting your talent to be a distinguished individual every company can’t resist to hire, which the trends of being an entrepreneur and being a professional now blended altogether to be an intrapreneur. Which every corporate citizen must have in order to answer the challenge.
I’m not going to talk about Intrapreneurship, it’s a 20 years old concept about being an owner of your given job within the company, to think, behave, and act like the founder. Now I would like to share you the five minds for the future (originated by Professor Howard Gardner, Harvard University scholar), that you must and need have to win in any kind of competition; education, workplace, social life, business, globalization, you name it. This so called 5 essential mindset will drive your mind into a more robust, holistic and comprehensive thinking system. These minds are as follow:
- The Discipline Mind
- The Synthesizing Mind
- The Creating Mind
- The Respectful Mind
- The Ethical Mind
The Discipline Mind is about to be great (not just good) at one specific area, if you want to be a consultant, try to be more specific like by saying “Hi, I’m a strategic HR consultant that helps company to win the talent war”, or “I’m a specialist in capital market, and I will help your company successful in IPO”. After the rise of renaissance, the education system is transformed into a more specific yet fundamental elements called the “Seven Liberal Arts” consist of Trivium (Three Discipline: Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic) and Quadrivium (Four Discipline: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy), so those who learn through this new education system are called “disciples” instead of “students”, because they learn discipline in reverse to just studying. And the graduates are called the Bachelor of Arts (for Trivium) and Master of Arts (for Quadrivium). They learn thinking skills not memorizing science, they create something new, not re-phrase the past. They become specialist of their own, they choose what they want to become, they mastering specific skills others don’t have, and creating their own niche to win the competition, each individual becomes master in their field.
The Synthesizing Mind is about how to create the ability to synthesize information, knowledge, and ideas into something that fits for him/herself and solve problems based on the synthesis. This skill is gained by practicing to see the thin red line, the connection from one event to another, crafting holistic and end-to-end storyline, and presenting it to be a worthy thesis. This skill is a great tool in issue based problem solving, to the light on distant tunnel, to find a way to get out of the dark, to pave the path so that we can lead to better solutions
The Creating Mind is simply being creative, see things differently, asking unusual question, become eccentric but still useful, and twisting perspectives to millions angles. Become innovator is a critical role, they innovate not only because they create something new or different, but also giving others the chance to create bigger things. There will be no Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin if there were no Orville and Wilbur Wright, no Apollo unless Kittyhawk created first. One thing lead to another, being innovative is not being to be on top, being innovative is like laying foundation for someone else’s house, we may not take full advantage of it, but achievement and recognition sure will pay the price.
The Respectful Mind, no matter how smart you are, with hundreds of honorary degrees from well-known universities won’t make you respected unless you respect other minds and ideas. Being challenged for your ideas is a part of your thinking process, whenever a thesis created it must be an antithesis on something, and there will be antithesis for your thesis. There is no such thing as a definite knowledge, not even in math, any equation is just another equations, what make them right if it is useful.
The Ethical Mind, last but not least, being ethical is like one saying “freedom without responsibility and courage without consideration is simply immaturity” because it will endanger not only one sub-system, but it will destroy mankind civilization. To have profitable business but destroying others is not great business, to make something big but lead to destruction is something that not to be proud of. Being ethical is an ultimate consideration after being creative. This mind will create greater good than just satisfying the shallow and narrow “me”.
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