There is ample evidence that we are all born creative, but the world beats it out of us as we grow up.
When you think about it, anything that is not a law of nature (gravity, weather, physics, science etc.) is nothing more than a common belief shared by society.
Money is a shared belief, as are national borders, man-made laws, religion, politics... the list goes on.
Society as we know it, would not function properly if we didn't agree to uphold and follow many of the rules, laws and traditions that make us modern humans.
However, how many of the concepts which we blindly follow and accept are actually holding us back? Many of these systems are of course necessary, but some of them are nothing more than tradition; or as I like to call it, peer pressure from dead people.
As with my earlier blog on Shoshin - The Beginner's Mind, I have once again been doing some reading, and have come across a fascinating topic called First Principles Thinking.
So what is First Principles Thinking?
First Principles Thinking is one of the best ways to 'reverse-engineer' our current ways of seeing the world - and that is to see our existing challenges and problems in a new light.
When you begin to understand this way of thinking, you can decide for yourself whether the existing methods of doing things still make sense. Most of the time they do not.
A good way to get your head around this concept, is to realise that children only think in first principles, simply because they do not yet carry the weight of other people's opinions (dogma) on their shoulders. Children are unburdened by the rules and prohibitions which eventually get placed upon them as they grow up.
When a child experiences the world for the first time, they only see it through fresh eyes. Everything is possible, nothing is against any laws of physics or reality. Cartoons are real, as is Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
Children's imaginations are the engine which drives them to try new things and learn everything they can about the world around them, using simple metaphors for the world which they have created by themselves. Their creativity knows no bounds. No question is too ridiculous and no idea is too ludicrous. They don't feel embarrassed by asking any dumb questions, unless a short-sighted parent or guardian punishes them for their curiosity.
As we get older, the reality of the world slowly kills off our creative engines. Our imagination starts to get rooted in what is 'possible', as opposed to what we could do better, and we begin to reason by analogy, not by curiosity.
We tell ourselves that we do things in a particular way because it’s how others are doing it. It's the accepted and established societal norm, and trying to do anything differently will upset too many people and cause too much friction. Essentially, it's a lot easier to reason by analogy than from first principles, because all of the hard work of thinking has already been done for us, and there is less chance of looking stupid if we fail.
This is especially true when it comes to maths, science and physics.
Think about it, there is no reason to reinvent the laws of physics, or recreate calculus from scratch. That work has already been done for us, and by far greater minds than our own. All we have to do is apply this preexisting knowledge, and not think twice about how it came to be.
The problem with the above way of thinking is that it makes us lazy and stops us from coming up with potentially better solutions to existing problems.
Get Your Ass to Mars
When Elon Musk was trying to get SpaceX off the ground (pun definitely intended), one of the first things he did, was question why going into space was so darn expensive.
Most of the responses he got, revolved around space-things having been done a particular way for decades, because those ways already worked and there was no need to change them.
The problem with this reasoning was that the technology which was used to put people into space in 2010 was actually created in the 1960s and 1970s and nobody dared update it, because messing with something as dangerous as space travel was insane.
One of the main reasons why SpaceX succeeded, was because Musk used First Principles Thinking to 'reinvent the wheel', and essentially audit what was actually necessary to put a rocket into space.
He discovered that modern, off the shelf technology, is actually far cheaper, and in many cases just as reliable as the majority of the components that were being used for the past sixty years.
What's more, many of these modern components are easily available to this day, and can be replaced for a fraction of the cost of what it would take to replace many Cold War-era parts.
In the end, the cost of sending a SpaceX rocket into space turned out to be up to ten times cheaper, easier, and far more advanced than using NASA's existing technologies. What's more, many of the major components could be reused for subsequent launches with minimal wear and tear.
This is just one example of how First Principles Thinking was used to turn existing, unchallenged beliefs and ideologies of their head, and 'reinvent the wheel', so to speak - but in ways which are far better and cheaper than ever before.
Another recent example of First Principles Thinking happened only a few years ago when the global pandemic forced many people to work from home. It created a complete paradigm shift in the way work was done, making it possible for many workers to do their jobs from the safety and comfort of their own bedrooms, and actually be much happier as a result.
The idea of going back into stuffy offices just because "that's the way things have always been done", now seems short-sighted and selfish by comparison, and it doesn't embrace all of the new potential that is possible thanks to modern network technologies.
Not to mention the reduction in pollution and congestion caused by traffic, as well as immeasurable improvements to people's health and their overall work-life balance.
It's almost Utopian in the ways in which working from home can help improve the lives of millions, and I strongly believe that only those short-sighted managers who are threatened by the awesome potential of this change, will shout the loudest to decry it.
Now it's your turn. Take a look around your own world and do a quick audit of some of the things that you do a certain way, simply because that's how these things have always been done. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how simply questioning the way certain things are done, will them seem unnecessary and archaic.
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