Detachments
As I was driving to work the other day, I was listening to NPR and the show Marketplace which was doing a special on Innovations. The piece was about the business of Foundations and how they grant money to non-profits. One of the experts being interviewed come upon the idea that non-profits need a little more than a “mission” statement to drive them and that they should be more “objective oriented” (read for profit management practices).
Duh! of course.
I am a huge proponent of “best practices” and to that end why not use some of the management lessons learned from the for-profit World and apply them to the non-profit World? Is this really Innovation?
Now, the bigger and more important insight for me upon listening to this story and others similar stories is that we have created these “artificial detachments” that at the end of the day have done a disservice to the advancement of human progress. Non-profit - For-Profit; Religious-Humanists; Consumption/Living-Environment; Businesses- rest of society, etc…
I understand that humans need to dissect things in order to understand our World better, but we are all in this together and we live in one Earth that cannot be replaced on a whim. Just to make the point: The environment IS living and consuming. Our daily comings and goings are not taking place in a “virtual World”; they are taking place in our physical environment and as we “do” we “cause immediate effects.”
We do a disservice, when we become so “stove piped” that we cannot adopt ideas from others without calling them Innovative. The adoption of best practices and ideas from “others” should be part of our daily rituals. Further, we also do a massive disservice to ourselves when we loose sight of how integrated everything is and needs to be.
As innovators we need to be aware of the holistic nature of everything and need to deploy a mindset that captures all ideas wherever they may be. This is what I do – I try to live in the world of others and explore their ways of doing things.
Like someone once said, if you really want to understand someone “you must walk a mile in their shoes and hear the beating of their hearts”
Duh! of course.
I am a huge proponent of “best practices” and to that end why not use some of the management lessons learned from the for-profit World and apply them to the non-profit World? Is this really Innovation?
Now, the bigger and more important insight for me upon listening to this story and others similar stories is that we have created these “artificial detachments” that at the end of the day have done a disservice to the advancement of human progress. Non-profit - For-Profit; Religious-Humanists; Consumption/Living-Environment; Businesses- rest of society, etc…
I understand that humans need to dissect things in order to understand our World better, but we are all in this together and we live in one Earth that cannot be replaced on a whim. Just to make the point: The environment IS living and consuming. Our daily comings and goings are not taking place in a “virtual World”; they are taking place in our physical environment and as we “do” we “cause immediate effects.”
We do a disservice, when we become so “stove piped” that we cannot adopt ideas from others without calling them Innovative. The adoption of best practices and ideas from “others” should be part of our daily rituals. Further, we also do a massive disservice to ourselves when we loose sight of how integrated everything is and needs to be.
As innovators we need to be aware of the holistic nature of everything and need to deploy a mindset that captures all ideas wherever they may be. This is what I do – I try to live in the world of others and explore their ways of doing things.
Like someone once said, if you really want to understand someone “you must walk a mile in their shoes and hear the beating of their hearts”
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