Remember Paul Arden, the author whose book I’ve read in the long-haul flight earlier? Well, this is one of his thought that really moves me. I don’t want to just copy paste it, so I decided to mix it with my perspective and contextualize it with our profession as consultants. So, here it is…
It’s Wrong To Be Right
Being right is based upon knowledge and experience and is often provable. However, knowledge comes from the past, so it’s safe and it’s also out of date. It’s the opposite of originality and creativity. Being right is also being boring, your mind is closed, you are not open to new ideas, you are become defensive on your rightness, which is arrogant. Well sometimes arrogance is a valuable tool but if only used very sparingly.
Have you ever been in a debate, discussion, or brainstorming, or whatever, and your counterpart started to say ‘based on my previous experience…’ or ‘based on this proven book…’ or ‘according to the best practice…’, well experience and reference is your credential, but it’s also old memory, the book might proven, but sometimes not in our case, and there is no such thing as best practice, there is only common practice, which by the way invented by someone like us. And maybe you should leave such boring discussion. I’m not saying quoting are bad, this is what I’m doing right now, passing Arden’s idea to you. What I’m trying to say that, get the perspective not the content.
Clients don’t want to know how much you know or how good you are in the past, but how can you solve their problem and take them to the place where they wanted to be. It is about to solve current problem with current perspective, and the best tool to be in that perspective is to set your mind free and unleash your true capacity.
It’s Right To Be Wrong
Start being wrong, and you’ll see the invisible, and beginning to do the impossible, suddenly anything is possible. Of course being wrong have it own risk, people will be reluctant to throw silly ideas because they afraid what others might think. Some risks have a future, and some people call them wrong, but being right is like walking backwards proving where we’ve been.
Being wrong isn’t in the future, or in the past. Being wrong isn’t anywhere but being here. The best place to be…
Benjamin Franklin once said, I haven’t failed, I’ve had 10.000 ideas that didn’t work the way I expected, and my greatest invention came from coincidence. So did Edison who once said ‘success is 99% failures’, Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Archimedes, Avicenna, and many other great inventors found the invention from things that are unlikely to be expected. But if Franklin just gave up at his 9.999 attempt, someone else in history will replacing his name for the very same invention. The paths are made by our hands, and God decides what become of them, do the best and let Him do the rest (so proverbs says). All of them understood that failures and mistakes are a precondition of success.
You will not get fired for making mistakes, you’ll probably get fired for not having initiative, or not learning from your mistakes. Mistakes are good, as long as you learn from them, the person who doesn’t make mistake is unlikely to make anything. If you do get fired because you make mistake, then it is not a good company for you to work for. So what happen with ‘do the best’ thing? Aren’t we made to compete? Aren’t we should deliver in high performance manner? Well, that is another thing, we excel and grow by our ambition, it is something that you must have to reach the top and conquer the world. But if you think being mediocre is enough, there are many places which accept mediocrity and people there stay happy. If you think being mediocre is enough, then why should we strive for excellence. Your choice…
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