The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander (2000) is a really good read and offers tools in the way of practices that can provide opportunities for us to make personal evolutions to enhance not only ourselves but the lives we touch as well. I remember Dr. Bedard stating in an Action Research video that we are the “change agents" for the future of education and I see this book as another valuable resource to help me journey through this change evolution that I have already embarked upon since starting this EMDT program. As I read chapter to chapter I began to understand how the practices outlined in the book could work together to help me realize a vision that perhaps seemed unattainable at first, to improve how I reach my learners through the use of technology, which in itself is a big change from normal practices and comfort levels in my educational environment.
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| "It's All Invented," remove barriers... |
I will relate the principles that I am learning from this book to real application and hope that I too will be able to reorient myself in a universe of possibility. I work in a Medical Device corporate world where we are always being measured by the ability to be innovative (number of patents) and are asked constantly to think outside of the box without any guidance on how exactly to do this. I found the example of the nine dot square exercise explained in the chapter Its all Invented as an eye opening analogy and one that I think I will use when I train research and development teams. I will also encourage them to read the Art of Possibility book to help open their minds and separate themselves from the self imposed boundaries or the catchphrase “Its all invented,” that is explained in the book. We do tend to spend too much time thinking about what we can’t do versus putting our minds back into our creative childhood mentalities where we had no inhibitions and truly expressed ourselves. I particularly liked the statement from Zander that the frames our minds create, define – and – confine – what we perceive to be possible. This really ties well to the nine dot exercise in that if we read the instructions with the self imposed constraint, not written, that the 4 straight lines have to be connected without taking pen from paper within the square formed by the outer dots, there is no solution. If you remove the “Its all Invented” constraint, within the square formed by the outer dots, you reach the solution as you go outside of this framework to open space on the paper. A famous quote by Louis Binstock, confirms this analogy, “Very often we are our own worst enemy as we foolishly build stumbling blocks on the path that leads to success and happiness.” I will share the The Art of Possibility practices with my training audience as it becomes easy to relate this to innovation. As innovation is not usually a new product or service, it is taking an existing product or service and putting it into a different application or setting, hence thinking outside of all constraints within your mind.
