Thought provoking and valuable. I have no doubt your point about lots of this being male centric is valid. I guess I wonder how we can use this way of thinking to help bring both more women and more older people into productive roles in our economy.
Some specifics that occur to me:
The generation effect is largely imposed not real. Its a way of explaining and grouping for analysis not actually a real view of how people think and behave.
Never been very convinced by the 3 kinds of innovation part of Clayton Christensen's thinking. Older people may be more disruptive for two reasons:
1. The more you learn, the less certain you are of anything. So much more prepared to challenge established thinking.
2. Older people may already be secure. They don’t want to bet their gains on disruptive innovation. On the other hand, they are less worried about putting their future path at risk. Remember young people are always told they need to go through stages to be successful. Why would they rip up the path that they have been told is the way to the future?
So much food for thought and so much depends on the individual. The best thing we can do is keep an open mind and keep learning.
You're so right about the generation effect being "imposed".
The relationship between age and the willingness to challenge things is so complex. It's true many older people are more confident and willing to challenge established thinking. But once you have a mortgage and people depending on you (children, grand-children... ?), how much can you afford to risk losing?
"The best thing we can do is keep an open mind and keep learning." 👍
Great article, thank you for sharing! It resonated for me, because at 55, I've created a satirical internet persona that plays in the domain of age and innovation (search "old coder guy") and have done a lot of thinking about this question. One element that has come up repeatedly in discussions with friends and colleagues is the paradox that while deeper knowledge is certainly hugely helpful for generating good and valid ideas, experience also increases the tendency to kill untested ideas with whatabouts. To be clear, this experience-grounded hesitation isn't usually "wrong", but it certainly has the affect of reducing the willingness to attempt, and thus the total number of attempts. If this question is being looked at from the point of view of an individual participant trying to optimize reward vs risk, then trust experience. However, if the perspective is that of an organization, community, region that is trying to increase their total volume of innovation, then I believe you need more optimists throwing more darts. Pairing old and young is probably the best of all worlds.
It could mean that there are fewer attempts but a higher percentage of successful ones! In which case there could be as many innovations (just less waste)?
Un sujet que je trouve fascinant depuis des années. Une référence qui m'a semblé assez convaincante sur le sujet, les travaux de David Galenson, bien résumés ici : Why Arguing About An Entrepreneur's Age Misses The Point https://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2012/12/04/why-arguing-about-an-entrepreneurs-age-misses-the-point/?sh=312ab22afedf
Intéressant. J'ai commandé le livre :)
Lateitia
Thought provoking and valuable. I have no doubt your point about lots of this being male centric is valid. I guess I wonder how we can use this way of thinking to help bring both more women and more older people into productive roles in our economy.
Some specifics that occur to me:
The generation effect is largely imposed not real. Its a way of explaining and grouping for analysis not actually a real view of how people think and behave.
Never been very convinced by the 3 kinds of innovation part of Clayton Christensen's thinking. Older people may be more disruptive for two reasons:
1. The more you learn, the less certain you are of anything. So much more prepared to challenge established thinking.
2. Older people may already be secure. They don’t want to bet their gains on disruptive innovation. On the other hand, they are less worried about putting their future path at risk. Remember young people are always told they need to go through stages to be successful. Why would they rip up the path that they have been told is the way to the future?
So much food for thought and so much depends on the individual. The best thing we can do is keep an open mind and keep learning.
Thanks Kenny!
You're so right about the generation effect being "imposed".
The relationship between age and the willingness to challenge things is so complex. It's true many older people are more confident and willing to challenge established thinking. But once you have a mortgage and people depending on you (children, grand-children... ?), how much can you afford to risk losing?
"The best thing we can do is keep an open mind and keep learning." 👍
Great article, thank you for sharing! It resonated for me, because at 55, I've created a satirical internet persona that plays in the domain of age and innovation (search "old coder guy") and have done a lot of thinking about this question. One element that has come up repeatedly in discussions with friends and colleagues is the paradox that while deeper knowledge is certainly hugely helpful for generating good and valid ideas, experience also increases the tendency to kill untested ideas with whatabouts. To be clear, this experience-grounded hesitation isn't usually "wrong", but it certainly has the affect of reducing the willingness to attempt, and thus the total number of attempts. If this question is being looked at from the point of view of an individual participant trying to optimize reward vs risk, then trust experience. However, if the perspective is that of an organization, community, region that is trying to increase their total volume of innovation, then I believe you need more optimists throwing more darts. Pairing old and young is probably the best of all worlds.
You're certainly right about "whatabouts" :)
It could mean that there are fewer attempts but a higher percentage of successful ones! In which case there could be as many innovations (just less waste)?
Comme d'habitude ta newsletter me régale !
Merci Valerie !