Business to the Buddha

Learning… and possibility thinking

Written by

KRD Pravin

in







Today, after a long time I was watching Television, the channel was Fox History and program – building the ultimate: roller coaster. This program was a story of development of roller coasters, a very good and informative program. What struck to me was one development which was taken from the world war II German defense system. This system was a breakthrough in material for the wheel of the coaster. I started wondering, how these roller coaster designers took one thing (about 20 years old) from one place to different place and with some success. My take from this is – we can learn from anywhere; only basic need is willingness to learn and being open to possibilities. I heard some author earlier used a term – ‘possibility thinking’. This concept has been reinforced often to me. I have worked on TRIZ– the theory of inventive problem solving – and have worked on application of TRIZ (a very engineering based problem solving method) to social sector innovation and medical science etc. The concept of TRIZ is similar and very structured.

Half full, half empty, possibility thinking, optimism, pessimism
Possibility thinking
Let me give one analogy – a glass is half-full. An optimist says – the glass is half full, a pessimist says – the glass is half empty and the possibility thinker says there is room for more water in the glass. Going one step further – what if the glass is not there? Some would say – Glass IS (many possibilities). In my opinion this is possibility thinking; when you say Glass IS, you open opportunities to think more and more about what can be? The challenge is to switch back and forth from structured to more creative thinking.

Coming back to the point of learning, the idea I want to reinforce is – we can learn from anywhere; only basic need is willingness to learn and being open to possibilities. The idea of this blog – Business to the Buddha was similar concept.

References –
1. Fox history schedule – http://www.foxhistory.com/Schedule/Daily.aspx
2. Glass half full – http://www.zazzle.com/glass_half_full_23_poster-228602679415734701

Comments

4 responses to “Learning… and possibility thinking”

  1. Every problem is a nail… if you only have hammer in your tool box! | Business to the Buddha

    […] engineering mind’. To save my face I can say I was just questioning my assumptions, you may check possibility thinking and questioning assumptions blog. Let me come to the “classic personality” type. […]

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  2. Change is the only constant! « Business to the Buddha

    […] connected and changes being made. The dots are my earlier post on – ‘game changers’ and ‘Learning… and possibility thinking’. I took these cues and have decided to change the design of my blog. You see! Change is the only […]

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  3. ‘Balancing act’ « Business to the Buddha

    […] The other important lesson to learn from the story is – one can learn from wherever one wants to learn from and no one is old or young to learn from. This is what an earlier blog suggested – Learning… and possibility thinking. […]

    Reply
  4. Uncertainties and acceptance – Business to the Buddha

    […] Following the process brings certainty of outcome whereas questioning assumptions bring opportunities. Uncertainty many times brings opportunities. One has to be aware of the uncertainties, accept the situation and find out options. When we look at situations, accept the situation(instead of fighting it), look for options, and be creative we have a whole world of possibilities. […]

    Reply

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