Productive naivete and social responsibility
Shashi Nanjundaiah
Founding Dean | Professor | Nationally awarded | Strategic communicator | Editor | Solving world's problems, one curriculum at a time (yeah right!)
My learning in 2017 and goal for 2018
Learning is a combination of what happens, what they say, and what you hear.
Disclaimer: My learnings are rather entrepreneurial, but perhaps they are derivable in other situations too.
1. Real success is unique. I still don't believe in stars aligning. But I finally understand what it means in my own terms:
A success is the result of the alignment of a variety of controllable and uncontrollable factors. How many times in a lifetime do all stars align? And how many times do location, age (which I only define by 'productive naivete', that phase of professional innocence when fresh ideas are uncorrupted by various fears of failure), promoters, employees, stakeholders, and markets conspire to make something a resounding success?
Making full use of that unique star alignment is critical to continued success. By the uncontrollable nature of the alignment of favourable factors, routinizing them into a formula is impossible.
2. Define your own success. Success is a combination--of financial health, of social impact, and of inner satisfaction. For all three to align, the factors may not necessarily be individually at their maximum. Not everything needs to be mainstreamed, but maximum social impact comes with the ability of a successful idea to be mainstreamed.
3. Growth without responsibility should not even be a short-term goal. This sort-of integrates some values of #1 and #2 above. The trend of drawing monetization plans before an idea is implemented is fading. The real purpose of an idea is the difference it will make.
My goal for the next year is to make media education and training purposeful in providing the scrutiny and the balance that media practice needs. To achieve this objective, I intend to make each element and each function socially responsible and socially relevant. But to be honest, I wonder if I have too much experience to surge forth with the singular focus that's needed. Experience can distract from a focus--it is the naysayer you need but don't want. I miss my productive naivete today.