Why We Don't Like Creativity

[jmm99]

with Azrael and Gilgamesh, you were starting to convert me to your Worldview.

OK, I'll STFU and be a good boy.

Regards

Mike

[Bob's World]

I just ran across this quote from Bruce Lee on innovation. It pretty much sums up my thoughts on this topic as well:

"Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is essentially your own."

[Bill Moore]

A lot of people only know of Bruce Lee's movie star persona, but he more than any other martial artists broke the hold of the traditionalists on Asian Martial Arts by challenging the traditionalists. His book the Tao of Jeet Kune Do is well worth the read. His philosophy equally pertains to strategy, military art, etc. Some choice quotes:

“Using no way as a way, having no limitation as limitation.”

“Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.”

“Having totality means being capable of following "what is," because "what is" is constantly moving and constantly changing. If one is anchored to a particular view, one will not be able to follow the swift movement of "what is.”

[Bob's World]

Bill,

Good stuff, and completely relevant to the paradigm and challenges of strategic thinking faced by those in the national security business in the emerging strategic environment.

Clearly much of the understanding and approaches that brought us to this place where the US can actually credibly call itself a global leader and have to deal with the myriad challenges associated with the rapidly evolving strategic environment are still valid. Equally clear should be the realization that much of it is not.

We must have the wisdom and the courage to retain that which is still valid, to delete what is no longer valid, and to add what we create in the course of our open-minded pursuit of understanding and adapting to the environment as actually is, rather than as we wish it to be.

Bruce was not just a theorist, but an operator as well, and was equally innovative in his approach to training, nutrition and competition to be able to accomplish personally what he already envisioned. I suspect he toppled or surpassed more than a few "experts" who were so comfortable in the rightness of their superior position that they were blind to the value of the changes they saw Bruce visualizing and operationalizing right in front of their faces.

Bruce Lee joins Albert Einstein and James Madison on my short list of thinkers who are particularly relevant to guiding strategic thinking in the current environment. (The standard host of military guys are all still on the shelf, but they tend to default to "war is war" and too often render what is otherwise very brilliant thinking into narrow corners of their own design that limits their applicability to our emerging challenges. They represent the body of work where one must evaluate with fresh eyes what must stay, what must go or evolve, and where the gaps are that one must fill. The thinking, and the thinking about thinking, of the three guys listed above are helpful in making that lonely journey).