[Michael Dell at eighteen] decided not to divulge that dream to anyone "because they probably would have thought I was crazy. But, to me, the opportunity was clear." - Overachievement, by John Eliot
That dream was to be number one in the computer industry and Dell could envision PCs in every home.
His parents had been alerted by university authorities that their son's grades were tumbling and that he hadn't been attending class. They were at the Austin airport and on their way for a surprise visit! Dell managed to stash all the computers he was working on behind the shower curtain in his roommate's bathroom before his parents arrived. "You've got to stop this computer stuff and concentrate on school," his father announced. "Get your priorities straight. What do you want to do with your life?" Dell's answer: "I want to compete with IBM." His father didn't think that was very funny. - Overachievement, by John Eliot
In Confronting Reality, Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan's new book, they trace three different business model shifts in the two decades of the PC industry. The first was introduced by Apple, the second was led by a coalition of IBM, Microsoft and Intel. And the "third seismic shift came in 1984 when a college student was testing a new business model for PCs from his - yes - dorm room...Dell's business model made all the others in the industry obsolete...Dell has way more cash coming in than any of its rivals. At the beginning of 2004, it was generating more than a billion dollars a quarter in cash flow."
Educational reform must, at its core, make schools into places that cultivate creativity. Americans revel in the legendary stories of young creators like Michael Dell building businesses in dorm rooms or in garages in their spare time. The question is: Why are they doing these things in their spare time? Isn't this the real stuff of education in the Creative Age? - America's Looming Creativity Crisis, by Richard Florida in Harvard Business Review, October 2004 (abstract only, sub required)
What sets people like Michael Dell apart isn't necessarily going to be taught in any typical educational institution any time soon. After his success in the U.S., Michael Dell was told his direct model would "never" work in the U.K. and repeatedly told the same thing in just about every country he entered subsequently.
They [exceptional thinkers] know that the world tilts toward the conventional, that what most governs our lives is the inertia of circumstances and that most people, particularly those in authority (and the media that props them up) are biased toward what they know best, what they already believe, as if no one is allowed to believe otherwise. - Overachievement
Schools, as are most institutions, just by the very nature of being 'institutional' may never be encouraging "cultivators of creativity." Author John Eliot, Ph.D., who is on the faculty at Rice University and an adjunct professor at SMU Cox School of Business Leadership Center is the rare ray of sunshine to his students. Students seek Eliot out because he's the only one that listens to their "unrealistic" ideas and "wild" dreams.
And just because "How to Think Unconventionally and Exceptionally 101" isn't being "taught" formally in accredited institutions doesn't mean that all is lost - there is plenty of opportunity to teach yourself to be an "exceptional thinker."
You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him find it within himself. - Galileo
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have never put a book on my "Crossroads Reads" book recommendations list after only a few hours of (enthusiastic) perusal, but Overachievement: The New Model for Exceptional Performance by John Eliot, is clearly an exception. (Yeah, I don't like the title, but it's not exactly what you'd think it's about.) Here are a few small tidbits:
The first, and perhaps best, definition of an exceptional thinker is someone who sees the world and his place in it differently from everyone else. Others look at them and simply shake their head. Unconventional thinkers strike most people as strange, even a little crazy. But great performers in all fields seem immune to what outsiders think about them...History, though, shows us that the people who end up changing the world - the great political, social, scientific, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries - are always nuts, until they're right, and then they're geniuses...
That the world is overflowing with mind-boggling problems that must be solved (poverty and terrorism immediately come to mind) is something that everyone can agree upon. But how do such problems get solved if everyone is limited to being "normal" and doing things the way they've always been done?
My parents brought me up to think that we could all change the world. - Richard Branson
It used to be that companies were threatened by having too many unconventional thinkers around. Corporations saw themselves as one big family or team, and such mavericks would only cause problems. In this era of globalization, where competition is worldwide, the mavericks have come into their own. "There are no longer any boundaries for where the talent is, and where and how it can be deployed," explains American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault. "The battle at home and around the world is going to be for ideas and non-traditional thinking, and we have to look at the entire global marketplace as the playing field."
We have become a nation of "experts."...If I were limited to only one tip on how to become a better performer, it would be simply: Ignore the experts.
[I just have to slip in this quote:
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few. - Shunryu Suzuki]
[W]hen I ask my students or clients what their dream is, they squirm and blush and say things as, "Well, I don't know if I really want to get into that," or "You're going to think I'm crazy if I tell you." When they finally spill the beans, they preface it with, "OK, but don't laugh." People these days seem to talk about their sex lives or personal family matters like they talk about the weather, but dare not utter a world about what really stirs their soul...Revealing your ultimate dream has become one of the few things not fit to mention in polite company. Talking about dreams may be the last taboo.
The future belongs to those that believe in the beauty of their dreams. - Eleanor Roosevelt
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