Food for Thought No. 6
This week we focus on creativity, how to think about solving the big crises affecting us and second-order thinking.
Hi,
Here is your weekly GC Food for Thought newsletter - curated insights to help you thrive in a world grappling with uncertainty and exponential change.
Every Sunday morning this summer, you'll receive GC's 3-2-1 newsletter with 3 ideas to explore, 2 things to read, and one question for you.
Hi everyone,
Labour Day is literally around the corner. I hope you were able to savour the present a little bit this week.
I know this week was a particularly intense week in the world on a number of fronts - from fires in California to Hurricane Laura hitting the US, to the deeply upsetting news on Jacob Blake's death, to the intense Republican convention, there are a lot of hard and big problems to solve in the world.
This week we focus on creativity, how to think about solving the big crises affecting us and second-order thinking.
EXPLORE
I. The "trifecta" and living in a complex, adaptive system.
"A trifecta in horse racing is when you accurately predict win place and show. It is when you get three bets correct. We’ve had the opposite happen in 2020. We’ve had three things go wrong at the same time. ...We are witnessing 1918 (pandemic) plus 1929 (economic crisis) plus 1968 (racial crisis) all at the same time. Of course they are related. The economic crisis was brought on by the pandemic. And the racial crisis has been made worse by both."
- Fred Wilson, AVC
I agree with Fred that all these crises are related, and I would add a fourth crisis -our climate crisis - is related too. We should not be surprised that all these crises are happening in relative proximity to each other - the world is tightly interconnected today as we are living in a complex, adaptive ecosystem.
Geoffrey West, a previous Gamechanger guest, and brilliant visionary physicist explains that:
"We have to recognize our world is highly-complex and continuously adaptive. It has a vast number of agents all interacting with each other, and those interactions drive the system’s continuous evolution."
The interconnectedness of our global networks today is much tighter versus the level of connectivity of our networks back in 1918, 1929 and 1968.
Watch Geoffrey’s explanation on complex adaptive systems here and read a deep dive on his insights on scale, cities and exponential growth here.
II. Creativity, divergent thinking and honouring Sir Ken Robinson.
This week one of my favourite thinkers on creativity and education passed away, the wonderful Sir Ken Robinson. His TED talk, "Do Schools Kill Creativity" was one of the most-watched TED talks with 66MM views.
His talk inspired me to create this program Get Curious Now a few years ago, for kids of all ages (including adults) to learn that they can take a curiosity or passion and manifest it into creativity in 6 weeks. I experienced profound joy seeing so many people transforming their mindset and expectations of their own creativity, with much thanks to Sir Ken’s inspiration.
Sir Ken Robinson argued that schools focus most of their time on rote memorization and knowledge-mastery. He provided compelling evidence that not only do schools do a poor job of promoting creativity, they actually kill it through a system designed to produce students in a factory-style output. Sir Ken stressed schools don't promote divergent thinking, a more unstructured approach that generates a number of potential solutions to a problem rather than convergent thinking, applying a fixed set of rules to arrive at a single answer to a problem.
Based on the trifecta crises above, we need this type of creative, divergent thinking more than ever.
"Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely, and that we avert some of the scenarios that we've talked about. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way -- we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it."
-Sir Ken Robinson
Watch his famous TED talk here
III. Second-order thinking and the rise of the Toronto tech ecosystem.
The rise of Toronto’s tech ecosystem feels like a lesson in second-order thinking.
Second-order thinking means taking into account unintended and long-term consequences that may stem from our original action. It's asking the question of 'and then what' to trace down the implications of the immediate impacts and implications of a decision. Think in terms of a complex-adaptive ecosystem and network effects - each action, such as a business or policy decision, often plays out in totally unexpected ways.
The contrast between the US and Canada has become increasingly stark. A great example of this is our immigration policy relating to tech workers. Another great example is our focus on having a greater social safety net in our education and health systems, creating more liv-able (and love-able) cities in Canada, especially Toronto.
While far from perfect, Canada certainly feels more tolerant and we are benefiting globally from this.
As an immigrant myself to this country, one who comes from a highly polarized, volatile society, South Africa, I see the second order effects first hand. I am extremely grateful to live in a country that is multi-cultural, treats people on the whole with more dignity, has a social safety net and is welcoming to skilled workers from abroad.
Read more on how the US immigration policy is causing more top talent to move north in this Wired article, Tech Workers Are Living the American Dream—in Canada
And with all that said, we too have a long way to go on combatting one of the biggest crises we mentioned earlier - systemic racism.
Listen to my talk with Jen Holness, award winning tv producer and President, Hungry Eyes on how we can help do more on being anti-racist in our own backyard, Canada.
READ
I. Solving crises in a complex adaptive system.
I really enjoyed this week’s newsletter from Nikhil Basu Trivedi on climate crisis and decarbonization
Another interesting read this week on the “ interconnected of crises” is an article in NYT on how racism and climate are connected in certain cities. How Decades of Racist Housing Left Neighbourhoods Sweltering in the New York Times.
Thanks to David, a brilliant Gamechanger reader, for recommending a great thinker on disruption and complex adaptive systems, Tony Seba. His latest book Rethinking Humanity, causes us to rethink how fundamental the changes are that we are facing. Read more about his take on this shift we are facing here.
Of course, I would be remiss to not add Geoffrey West’s book Scale as a must read on this topic.
II. Creativity and Divergent Thinking in School and Management
Since back to school is less than a week away, Sir Ken Robinson’s book, You, Your, Child and School feels like an appropriate read this week. This topic is certainly top of mind.
Peter Diamandis has a compelling take on Why school needs to radically change for an exponential future.
And a last read thanks to Roger Martin on divergent thinking, takes us back to Aristotle who of course believes wholeheartedly in the scientific method but recognizes its not for everything. He too sees the role on invention and persuasion in the realm of possibilities. Read the HBR article on Why Management is More than a Science in Harvard Business Review and read Aristotle’s lesser known book on invention and persuasion.
REFLECT
"Most of the things about which we make decisions, and into which we therefore inquire, present us with alternative possibilities....All our actions have a contingent character; hardly any of them are determined by necessity,”
-Aristotle
How can you bring more divergent thinking, as opposed to convergent thinking, to your problem-solving?
How would an abundant, non linear mindset vs. a scarce, linear mindset shift the way you think about the future and solving crises?
Share your thoughts with us on twitter @gamechanger_co.
Thanks for tuning in.
Wishing everyone a great last week of summer - soak it up, be present and enjoy these last days before Labour day weekend. See you next Sunday!
See you next weekend.
Best,
Candice
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P.S. You can watch all previous Gamechanger sessions and see highlights on our website. We'll land in your inbox 1x a week. No spam, we promise.
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