Narayana Murthy’s speech at NYU which was excerpted in today’s Economic Times set me thinking on how receptive we are to learnings from chance events.
Most of us have grown in a learning / professional environment which is primarily western in orientation; these reinforce the importance of the outcome to the exclusion to everything else along the way. Being focused on the task at hand is of primary importance.
A corollary of being goal oriented is that we are so obsessed with the end product, that we miss out on any interesting sidelights we come across. We learn to ignore the process and interesting side paths.
One of the key requirements to being receptive to chance occurrences is the openness to flirt with the unknown. The courage to explore people, lands and events that are unpredictable; knowing they may end up leading nowhere.
It also calls for getting comfortable with doodling. Typically, blank spaces frighten us and we seek to immediately fill it up with something. Left blank, there is chance that more interesting ideas and thoughts accidentally occupy that space. These ideas may not always lead to Penicillin but, hey, you never know.
Most of us have grown in a learning / professional environment which is primarily western in orientation; these reinforce the importance of the outcome to the exclusion to everything else along the way. Being focused on the task at hand is of primary importance.
A corollary of being goal oriented is that we are so obsessed with the end product, that we miss out on any interesting sidelights we come across. We learn to ignore the process and interesting side paths.
One of the key requirements to being receptive to chance occurrences is the openness to flirt with the unknown. The courage to explore people, lands and events that are unpredictable; knowing they may end up leading nowhere.
It also calls for getting comfortable with doodling. Typically, blank spaces frighten us and we seek to immediately fill it up with something. Left blank, there is chance that more interesting ideas and thoughts accidentally occupy that space. These ideas may not always lead to Penicillin but, hey, you never know.
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