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When Goals Go Wrong
How Being Too Specific Can Derail Innovation
We have learned to admire the goal-oriented person: the character who states what they want and then goes out and gets it. And to be sure, there is something about a person that actually does what they say that is remarkable enough today to be remembered and admired.
This technique is great for self-development, sales targets, gym workouts and such like. But when your goal is innovation, disruption and change, you cannot be so specific.
Wait! But why?
Well, it’s got a lot to do with the nature of creativity itself. When we create, we meld existing information together in a new way, to create a new configuration or result from that information.
But what exactly does ‘new’ mean in this context? Often, it merely means a new iteration of an existing pattern. Humans are great at patterns. It is the key skill that allowed us to kick start scientific study, invent all the wonderful stuff around us and build this civilisation.
Because we can recognise patterns, we can predict things. Not always entirely accurately, but in certain spheres, accurately enough to say, if we repeat this action A, we will always get this result, Z. This way of thinking has proved so beguiling that we have based an entire education and…
