One of the keys to Innovation & Creating the Future. You have to be willing to…And a Call to Arms for all Leaders in 2020.

You have to be willing to destroy. I am willing to destroy. It’s a part of the creative process. Just like Jeremy Gutsche talks about in ‘Exploiting Chaos.’

One of the keys to Innovation — You have to be willing to destroy.

It turns out that most people do not think of themselves as creative. Can’t blame them — they went to school. They just went to the wrong school. (Yes, they shouldn’t have gone to Harvard. You got it.)

Our Great Nation’s School System does an absolutely fabulous job of squeezing all the creativity out of us like a turnip. It’ s no wonder why we feel like we’ve got no creativity at work or at home — we don’t! Nope!

The sad / funny / ironic part of it all is we had plenty of creativity when we were 4 years old. It’s innate, a trait borne in all of us. If you’re ever not feeling creative, go hang around a 4 year old for awhile. She’ll show you! She’ll even teach you! She’ll teach you the things you’ve long since forgotten due to “proper schooling,” you know, the type they teach you at the Harvard Business School. Proper. Schooling.

The part that the parents aren’t telling you is that our Great Nation’s School System was designed off of the 19th Century’s Industrial Age model. Its hours are designed to match 8 to 5 production schedules. Its design is to wash / rinse / repeat with the kid. Its design is to have all the kids learn in just this one way when kids learn in different modalities. (All of us do. Duh.) Its design is to conform to it in the top-down, corporation, HAL 9000-style vs. the learning modality conform to fit the kid. We force the kid to say OK to the computer vs. the computer saying OK to the kid. It’s so ironic that we conform to the software when the parents were the ones who wrote the code!

So, here, right now, in 2020, this is why we have no idea how to do on-demand learning in K-12: it’s not our culture. K-12 on-demand education is not people like us doing things like this. We never knew it. It’s not a tech problem. Obviously. If we zoom WAY out, and are flying in our SR-71 over the Soviet Union at 80,000 ft greatly upsetting both Putin and our Russian parents, we discover that this is a culture problem.

Tech is not our problem. The SR-71 is 1960’s technology.

We have laptops. We have iPads. We have tech. Tech is not the problem. Our methods and behaviors are the problem. We’ve forgotten what the point of it all is. What are we here for? Why are we even doing this at all? To get the kids out of our hair? To ship them off to the top-down, Soviet-style, Harvard Business School so that they can go to work for the investment bank doing work they hate for people they don’t like and get handcuffed with great pay and benefits!? So that we get bragging rights back home about our kid who works at Goldman? What!? Why? What is it all for!?

What if he wanted to be an electrician?

What if he wanted be an electrician? I say, Go be an electrician! We need you and your mastery of electricity! We do not need more top-down, Soviet-style investment bankers and their PPT pitch decks. (Wait a minute: that top-down, Soviet-style, thou-shalt-conform-to-this-thing sounds an awful lot like our Great Nations’s Education System! Gasp!)

Colleges and Universities have no compunction at all about selling our kids — and the parents — $5,000 courses all done online — all without professional instruction! And then the kids miss out on a cool teacher who is enthusiastic for the material. The bloody hell!? I thought teachers were important in this country? Turns out only some of them are. You know, these few here. The others are replaced by web apps and AI. Thank you, you’re no longer needed here. Please don’t let the door hit you on the way out. The computer’s got this. It’ll take it from here. Yet K-12 cannot figure it out? How come?

2020 has scared the hell out of many, many people, not the least of which are our educators. I should know: I am an educator. Only I’m not scared. I’m open and curious. I do not fear my living. I do not fear for my job. I do not fear for my paycheck. I do not fear the COVID. I do not fear the parents and pseudo-authority figures like politicians who make it all up and fudge the numbers as they go along. If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that the emperor clearly has zero clothes. Especially if you work for the CDC. Or, the Harvard Business School.

# Calling All Leaders and pseudo-authority figures: It’s OK to admit you don’t know!

If you don’t know what the COVID is or its implications for the future, simply state that you don’t know. Yes, even if you went to Harvard. (Especially if you went to Harvard!) If you don’t know why people riot, simply state you don’t know why people riot. If you don’t know how best to achieve / earn 6-pack abs, simply state you don’t know how best to achieve 6-pack abs. If you don’t know what the stock market is going to do tomorrow, simply state you don’t know what the stock market is going to do tomorrow. (Warren Buffett plainly states he has no idea what the stock market is going to do tomorrow. And, coolly, he does not care. That’s like, high school cool. Who knew that Warren Buffett, a 90 year old man, is too cool for school!?)

Finally, we can be honest with one another and stop bullshitting each other. Finally!

Parents and other pseudo-authority figures, please don’t worry: we kids know what’s really going on. We’re WAY smarter than you think and really want to give us credit for. We’re also WAY more creative than you are. And we can hear you talking downstairs in hushed tones about the money. We got this. We might be kids, but we got this.

So, please stop with the lies designed to obfuscate & spare our feelings. We’re also stronger than you think. Please, just finally be emotionally honest with us. We can take it! No truth is too harsh. I promise.

Why?

Because there’s nothing funnier than the Truth.

Those who laugh, last*.

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