We are going to kick off a series of things that inspired me during our internal Strategic Insights Summit. We will start with what David Corsaro taught us about learning how to solve problems like a magician.
David gets on stage and starts by sharing his passion for magic and for gathering insights. He shares how he has been doing magic for years, been on Penn and Teller, and performed for countless people. After some initial framing, it’s time for the first trick. He has us all follow along and asks us to copy his movements with our hands. The audience is locked in. We are doing everything he says. Then, he does the next movement, and no one in the audience can do it. We are flabbergasted, watching him do something we physically can’t do.
He then begins to break down the trick. He has us go step by step to see what happened. I don’t want to give away his secrets. However, I will share the takeaway he left us with. That takeaway is to be careful of your assumptions, and to ensure you question everything. The entire audience had made one simple assumption, and that is what had doomed us to fail.
Let’s connect this to work. Have you ever been in a situation where something didn’t go well, and you later realized it’s because you made an incorrect assumption? I have. It’s so easy to do this, especially when life is moving so quickly. It’s also easy, because we are programmed to fall into a routine. Think about it. How many times have you heard, “Well, that’s just how we do it,” as if it were a law written in stone?
The world is moving and changing faster than ever before. If we are going to build something for a new kind of future, we need to be constantly challenging ourselves and the status quo. This all starts with recognizing and challenging the assumptions we make.
The challenge- What assumptions will you challenge today?
Have a jolly good day,
Andrew Embry
Striking Matches 