The next Principle of the emerging Fusion Era uses a gardening metaphor to dig into one of the reasons why so many of our so-called Bright Ideas fail to pan out. Like any metaphor, it can hit problems, as we'll explore in Pushback. When I first wrote about this in The Local Economy Revolution, I was thinking specifically about communities and local economies. But I've learned over the years that it has implications for organizations - and us, individually, too.
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Try it On
Think about three different times when you had to learn something new. Maybe it was a sport, a piece of music, being patient with an elderly relative, managing a team.... we learn a lot of stuff, so the possibilities are endless.
For each one, think through the process of learning that thing, and pay attention specifically to how easy or difficult you found learning to do that. Maybe the music came to you pretty easily, but patience with the elderly relative was a real struggle. Maybe alegebra was a breeze, but trigonometry just about killed you. Or vice versa.
With each thing, after you have decided whether it was relatively easy or difficult for you, dig a little deeper into your recollection. Ask yourself:
How much of that ease or difficulty seemed to come from who you fundamentally are (I'm naturally patient or empathetic, I liked math from the time I was little), and
How much of that ease or difficulty seems to have something to do with the context or surroundings in which that learning happened? Maybe your parents loved math puzzles, or your trig teacher was great and you hated your algebra teacher.
We're getting close to that old concept of nature vs. nurture, but as we'll see, the implications are deeper than that.