Tim Kastelle discusses Scott Belsky’s vimeo talk about the idea generation trap. Here’s Tim’s description of what Belksy calls a project plateau: When ideas are new, we’re filled with energy and excitement.
However once we settle into trying to make the idea real, the levels of both excitement and energy go down – it starts to feel more like work. How do we respond to this? According to Belsky, the natural response is to look for the excitement of a new idea again – and succumbing to this temptation is deadly. If you do, you’ll end up with a lot of partially-executed ideas, which is functionally equivalent to having, well, no ideas at all.
Oh boy, that makes sense to me. Makes you wonder about the side effects of brainstorming or companies that are all about new ideas. Also interesting for anyone involved in leadership where there’s a tendency to favour excitement over steadier discipline.
It also reminded me of a reference in Wikipedia’s page on learning styles (and their defects) which includes this interesting observation:
Chris J Jackson’s neuropsychological hybrid model of learning in personality argues Sensation Seeking provides a core biological drive of curiosity, learning and exploration. A high drive to explore leads to dysfunctional learning consequences unless cognitions such as goal orientation, conscientiousness, deep learning and emotional intelligence re-express it in more complex ways to achieve functional outcomes such as high work performance.
I’m going to have to spend some time following that up.
Unless I get distracted…
