When I recently appeared as an author at Google, I spent a lot of time planning the presentation. Four years after writing “principles of applied stupidity,” I finally figured out what I was trying to do with the book. In addressing the concept of “stupidity,” I was addressing the emotional issue of departing from what the teacher is telling you to do in a classroom. Coming up with a different answer is shamed as being “stupid,” as it is very much the goal of standard government-designed-and-funded classroom learning to create a uniform consensus of what is the “right answer.”
I am trying to re-establish the emotional paradigms of thinking more like a two year old, i.e., of approaching the world in a very open minded fashion, and not worrying about being “wrong,” making mistakes,” or “failing.” Those last three word-concepts are artificial manipulative psychological punishments for not conforming to the classroom group. They are not natural ways of approaching the world, nor are they natural ways of using your mind as a problem solving tool.
Companies everywhere are coming to see that the value in their employees is not in a military sort of collective conformity and obedience, but in accessing and coordinating each employees’ unique problem solving ability. If you want to maximize this effort, I can help you.
Undoing the cumulative effects of a hundred trillion dollars (and the hundred years) spent on classroom-style indoctrination is a big goal, but . . . I have to start somewhere.
