creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties

You’ve heard the parable about the boiled frogs right?  If you stick a frog in a pot of boiling water it will jump out or at least try to.  If you stick the frog in room temperature water and gradually begin to increase the water temperature the frog won’t move.  Even once the water starts to boil the frog won’t try and jump out.  Why? Because the frog’s internal apparatus for sensing threats is based on sudden changes in its environment not gradual ones.

This got me thinking about 2 things:

1.  Sometimes it’s hard for us to see the gradual erosion in things as a real problem mostly because our internal apparatus typically responds to sudden changes like departmental blow ups, major decreases in attendance, broken pipes with water gushing out of them and stuff like that.  It’s the gradual erosion of things that end up boiling the frogs though.

2. A scene from the movie “Dodgeball” with Vince Vaughn where Kate (the lawyer) is in Peter’s office discussing the future of Peter’s gym Average Joe’s:

Peter:  Hang on a second, you’re saying this place here is in default?”
Kate: “No, you’re in foreclosure. You were in default during the six months we sent you delinquency notices.”
Peter: “I thought that those were just warnings.”
Kate: “They were warnings.”
Peter: “Well, no one warned me.”

If I can’t slow down enough to see erosion in my world/team/org/church/whatever, it’s probably because my internal apparatus for sensing a problem is based on sudden changes and not gradual ones.

Are you boiling frogs?