A520.3.3RB
Constraints to productivity, innovation and creativity exist everywhere in our lives. There are so many mental, physical, or spiritual constraints that haunt my work center and its creativity, that sometimes even mundane tasks become difficult. Innovation is a difficult idea to spark and to energize teams to develop in the military. I spend most of my time trying to get my troops to think and act differently. Old adages, axioms, mottos, and ways-of-old often limit creativity and innovation. The hierarchal micro-society of the military usually place artificial constraints on creativity and restricts "new thinking" through this stereotyping based on past experiences (Whetten, 2010) way of thinking. This is true in most forms of government even at the city level. Take for example in the post Katrina reconstruction of New Orleans, city planners where struggling to come up with a unified plan. They instead turned to the a collective of 9,000 residents to aid in the redesigned. This plan ultimately provided a positive plan that had the collective buy-in (Cea, 2017). Even great geniuses and some of the greatest minds that have ever lived have had constraints; take for Johannes Kepler, a brilliant scientist who put his work on hold and become a laughing stock because his mother was accused of witchcraft in the early 1600's (Landauer, 2001). Kepler's work helped us define how planets orbits work, setting the stage for future Astronomer to develop complex theories we still use today. His constraint on his creativity was his mother's trial.
My constraints and restraints setup obstacles that have been with me for years and years limiting me from solving creative simple and advanced problems. One of those particular barriers is education; throughout my military career I struggled with the lack of education in the subject or the matter and therefore did not posses the intellect to work through problems. I believed that the role of the enlisted space operator was too much of a barrier that the military and myself put in the way of innovation. I believed that I could not be as educated on the satellite, payload or subject as perhaps an officer that had a degree from MIT and therefore could never solve advanced problems in my field. This was an artificial barrier that I put in place. This barrier was overcame when I started to gain my education, as I worked through my undergrad program I started to think differently about this barrier. I started to understand that "education did not make you an intellect." I started to grasp the idea of a life long learner. Throughout my first graduate program in Space Sciences, I really started to understand that this barrier is artificial and intellect is not gained from a degree rather develops critical thinking skills. It is not about the degree but about the journey and the process of creativity that is gained from a graduate degree. Upon completion of tearing down this barrier I did not feel inferior or equal to the officer instead I felt disappointed that I had learned this lesson earlier in my career.
References
Cea, J. L., & Rimington, J. (2017, Summer). Creating BREAKOUT innovation.Stanford Social Innovation Review, 15, 32-39.
Landauer, L. B. (2001). Johannes Kepler. In N. Schlager & J. Lauer (Eds.), Science and Its Times (Vol. 3, pp. 375-377). Detroit: Gale.
Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing Management Skills (Ninth Edition). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education
No comments:
Post a Comment