【第257回】R. Babineaux and J. Krumboltz, “fail fast, fail often”

To tell the truth, I was not interested in the presentation by Dr. Krumboltz,  when I attended at Keio Mita campus in 2001. At that time, I was a university student of bachelor course, that is to say, I hadn’t had any business experience and started my business career yet. It has passed more than twelve years since then. The more I have experienced my career and life, the deeper I understand what planned happenstance theory is. This latest his book is also very amazing, then I’m NOW totally interested in his masterpieces.

The “not yet” view is not only wrong, it presents a surefire way to block you from the beneficial effects of happenstance. When you focus on the shortcomings in your life, drag your feet, and belabor your bad habits and neuroses, you see nothing but your own misery. You become blind to opportunities and don’t take actions that lead to change. (Kindle ver No. 77)

We sometimes tend to be focused on shortcomings in our lives. According to authors, such “not yet” view narrows our viewpoint. Then, it becomes difficult for us to find a chance, even when there are some positive possibilities in front of us.

How to avoid using “not yet” view? According to authors, there are several hints when we consider about our motivation factors.

... just thinking for a few minutes about writing for external rewards reduced the creative performance of people who loved to write. These results provide a telling example of how sacrificing personal joy for external rewards can produce a significant drop in the inventiveness of one’s work. (Kindle ver No. 129)

When we try to see positive issues, we had better not seek for external rewards. Because external rewards lessen our internal motivation to do something, however we liked it before. Though utilizing external rewards is useful to motivate someone at a short term, it will be bad for people to maintain their high internal motivation.

... to sustain motivation and performance, it is important to structure each day to include progress at work that is enjoyable and meaningful. It is not the size of the progress that is important but the frequency. (Kindle ver No. 214)

If we want to care for our important internal motivation, we try to use not the size but the frequency. Then we have to think about how to increase the number of making a little progress. And it is also important for us to feel a little progress by ourselves, in order not to be bored with our efforts.

In order to be care for our internal motivation, authors tell us several points to do new things relating to our attitudes.

By approaching things as a curious beginner, you not only put yourself in the optimum frame of mind to learn and grow, but you also open yourself to unexpected opportunities and experiences. (Kindle ver No. 456)

We have several own experiences. Though each experience is a treasure for us to live, it sometimes prevents us from learning new important things and taking unknown actions. It is important for us to be open our mind, to be flexible to be changed, and to prepare chances which will occur to us suddenly.

Dweck comments, “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control. They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.” (Kindle ver No. 476)

It is, of course, better for us to have a good intelligence by nature. Utilizing such talents will enable us to make our life happier and more meaningful. But based on a result of psychological test, make attention to have excellent natural intelligence to a child decreases internal motivation of them. On the other hand, when a child is made attention to their making effort, they feel that they can control to be successful. We had better be focused on an effort not on a natural intelligence, especially when we say something positive comments to younger children.

It is important for us not only to care for our attitude, but also to care for our action.

Many people have fallen into the habit of doubting their curiosity and taking themselves out of pursing their passions. They fall prey to the illusion that trying something requires a commitment and long-term plan. But the truth is that life is so complex, the world so dynamic, and people so richly multifaceted, that it is often impossible to predict even the broadest outlines of how events will unfold. The one thing you can be sure of is that you will have a more fascinating and fulfilling life if you explore what intrigues you. Of coure, time is limited. You can’t try everything, but you can experiment with some new possibilities. (Kindle ver No. 617)

When we start to something, we tend to think that we have to finish it completely or continue very long time. It will make us feel guilty or commitment to do it, then we’ll hesitate to do something new to us. But we will be able to change our decisions in order for us to adjust to our changing environment. To start something is only an experiment to test our own will and adjust to current environment. If it doesn’t to fit us and environment, we can change it, because we have a free hand.

Here’s the rub: People are multifaceted and have interests that are continually changing. What challenges and excites you one year may be different in the next -- it may even change from day to day. So the idea that you can be described by characteristics that are stable over time is pretty silly. (Kindle ver No. 759)

Our identity is composed of not one character but several characters. Though it feels to be stable from the viewpoint of long-term, it is moving dynamic from that of short-term. And, short-term dynamic challenges are making our identity flexible and rich. Based on a dynamic approach to our identity, we had better seek for our own hidden interests an talents to be developed by our daily casual challenges.

When we want to be focused on dynamic approach, we understand that making a precise plan beforehand is not reasonable.

Dorsey’s phenomenal success came about because he avoided detailed planning. In fact, instead of “deciding” upon a particular career and committing himself to it, he was open to trying many different things over the years -- programming, botanical illustration, fashion design, message therapy. Not all of the career possibilities worked out, but he quickly transitioned to the next thing he wanted to try. Of course, not all of us will be as financially successful as Jack Dorsey. But everyone can follow their curiosity and pursue what they enjoy. Ultimately, success comes from building a life that is right for you, not from meeting the expectations of others. (Kindle ver No. 1020)

Jack Dorsey, as you know, is one of the founders of Twitter. Through showing his career history, authors suggest the importance of dynamic approach to our career. I think they also indicates that integrating our own experiences and interests to current job and career is important, because many experiences themselves don’t have any meanings to our career.

Authors named their dynamic career “The Lean Approach to Careers”, and show six important tips as below.

1. Make the smallest viable action plan -- just enough to take the next positive action.2. Be good at taking small steps that allow you to try and learn about many things.3. Perform experiments to confirm or disprove your assumptions about occupations that you are curious about.4. Be prepared to change course; expect to make many small adjustments, as well as some big ones.5. Avoid big investments in education, training, and preparation until you have learned as much as possible.6. Keep your plans informal.(Kindle ver No. 1029)

From the viewpoint of “The Lean Approach to Careers”, we have to rethink  about our view of making decisions.

When faced with a tough decision -- e.g., whatever you should accept a job, move to a new city, or commit to a long-term project -- find an easy exploratory step you can take that will allow you to gather more information and broaden your perspective. Then ask yourself, “Am I willing to take this step to find out more?” (Kindle ver No. 1706)

At first, we should make big and complex decision into small and simple ones. It is tough for us to answer former problem, but it will be easier for us to answer latter one. Based on theories of internal motivation, when we make some small steps answering small questions, our motivation is getting higher and higher. Then such small steps will be a big change from the viewpoint of long-term.

When you find yourself in a confusing situation with many possible choices to consider, sometimes the best thing to do is to find a key step you can take that will simplify things and move them forward. (Kindle ver No. 1790)

To simplify big problems and to make first step quickly is the most important things to make new actions.

It is important for us to make actions by ourselves, but also to make us motivated by the power of community.

We use the word “community” rather than the word “networking” because we want to suggest a different way to think about personal relationships. Traditional business networking, with its focus on seeking people who can provide resources that you need -- sales leads, business referrals, professional introductions -- can feel cold and artificial. People recognize when you are interacting with them as a means to get something and will rightfully be wary of you. In contrast, when your goal is to build a community, you commune with others; you converse intimately in order to share the fullness of your humanity -- mutual joy, enthusiasm, curiosity, values, feeling, whimsy, and aspirations. (Kindle ver No. 2180) 

I totally agree this suggestion by authors. From a cold “network” there are less rich conversations and interactions, but from a warm “community” there are them. Adding this implication, we can make our life and career be diverse and meaningful from the interactions in our communities.

Brad Stone, “the everything store”
Sheryl Sandberg, “LEAN IN”
“Steve Jobs”, Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, 2011
Luck is no accident 2nd edition（John D. Krumboltz, Impact Publishers, 2010）
“Creative Decision Making –Using Positive Uncertainty- ”(Gelatt, H.B. and Gelatt, Carol ,Crisp Series, 2003)