We have been extremely fortunate to have been able to attract some remarkable guests on OutsideVoices Podcast from the worlds of business, academia, sports, science and the arts, and all of these guests are world-class in their chosen field.
We ask our guests the same three questions, which get to the heart of what it takes as a leader to create an innovation ecosystem in your organization, irrespective of what business you are in, and where you are located. The guests are given these questions in advance so that they can reflect on them and the answers are invariably very insightful. The first of these three questions, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About Recently?” is the topic for this wrap up episode. The other two questions are featured in subsequent episodes.
The inspiration for the first question came from Charlie Munger, who in many respects constitutes one of the main wellsprings of inspiration for OutsideVoices.
Several years ago Charlie Munger made the following statement: “a year in which you do not change your mind on some big idea that is important to you is a wasted year”. This question gets to the heart of the unconscious biases that we as individuals all suffer from. Many of us go through life seeking confirmatory evidence to reinforce our decisions. Sometimes however, we are able to overcome this confirmation bias and change our minds on something big. From a business point of view it is key that you are able to overcome the organisational biases like “not invented here” syndrome, groupthink, the halo effect, stereotyping: this is how we can start to look at the market differently, to build our innovation muscles, to innovate around multiple value drivers, o change our perspective and the perspectives of those around us. So this is why we ask our guests this question, and the answers are fascinating.