For Real Innovation, Get a Beginner’s Mindset
Lego by jon trillana from The Noun Project
In his story about accidental leadership, Drew Dudley quotes a man named Mustapha, who referred to each day at work as his “first day of work.” Mind you, Mustapha had been working in that very job for 18 years:
“I go to work every day like it’s my first day. On your first day of work you dress your best, you listen the hardest, you are nice to everyone that you work with. On your first day you work to impress your new bosses and your new coworkers, and you hope and believe it will be a job you love. But we let that all start to go away on our second day.”
Whether you’re an agency of one or a corporate giant like Microsoft, losing what SalesForce.com CEO Marc Benioff calls “the beginner’s mind” can prove fatal. As you mature, you grow less open and spontaneous and you focus on protecting rather than innovating:
“Are you going to be that innovator again? The ones who are getting in trouble are the ones who lose that beginner’s mind…A beginner’s mind is one of the most difficult things to have…You need to have a beginner’s mind to create bold innovation.”
