Diego just put up an absolutely inspired post over at Harvard Online about Travis Pastrana. Who cares about the MBA debate when there is innovation stuff like this to think about! Really, what degree you have doesn't matter, and having a degree does not even matter in many cases, it is what people do and think that counts. Diego's Harvard MBA has apparently not hurt him one bit. Read the post and watch the film with it. He uses a 28 second video of a crazy stunt to extract some "metacool" lessons for our time. A taste:
2. Use planning to minimize the stupid risks. even Travis is wearing a helmet for this one. And notice that this is his third-time-charmed attempt. Now more than ever, when the price of failing is so high, it's a good idea to minimize secondary risks even as we embrace big leaps. That might mean building an extra prototype, running another market test, or getting out in the field with customers more than usual. These days your big or small leaps really need to work, so a little extra midnight oil is probably worth it. There's enough risk out there as it is, why not cut out all the dumb risks to better focus on the big ones?
I can't even tell you how much both you and Diego rock. Travis Pastrana is one of Tres' ultimate heros. Travis (in the form of an action figure) prepares for all kinds of stunts here in the wilds of Panama. And while we won't have "real" motorcycles on site, there is no reason that we can't work out all of the details of a stunt with our miniature versions. It is a great way to learn how to deal with the details associated with big risks.
Posted by: Panamomma | April 09, 2009 at 07:12 AM