The Default Will Always Be One-Size-Fits-All
Posted by Liz Strauss · 4 Comments
Schools and businesses have figured out quantitative. They are left-brain, data-based environments — skills and strategies are about execution and mastery. All eyes are on the bottom line. The bottom line is the new permanent record. The bottom line is the ulitmate test.
Schools and businesses fail miserably at everything else. They cannot create. They cannot support or nurture true flexible and innovative thinking. They cannot produce leaders who can forge an unknown, never traveled path.
It’s not that schools and businesses don’t want to do so or that they do not attempt. It is that most cannot do so. They hit a wall and turn back.
That is a sad thing for artists, musicians, dancers, mathematicians, visionaries, stategists, and society — all of whom might benefit from a mentor or an outlet — all of whom might receive the benefits of their combined creative genius.
Schools and businesses fail miserably at qualitative.
The saddest part is most ALWAYS WILL.
The default setting will always be one-size-fits-all.
Why One Size Is the Default
Why is that? Why do schools and businesses get stuck in the quantitative?
Find your answer. I’ll wait.
Did you decide it’s skewed priorities?
Was your thought that it’s tradition?
Could you have put it off to the corrupt thinking of humanity?
Those all might be explanations.
The real answer isn’t nearly so emotional.
It’s logistics, plain and simple.
Schools and businesses are stuck on the one-size-fits-all default because they can’t find the toggle switch. Most don’t know to look for it and those that do, didn’t have a clue where it is or how it might work.
Hey, that’s totally understandable, if you take a moment to think it through.
You can’t get qualitative focus to be the mainstream when
there’s no such thing as perfect.
you can’t put excellence in a contract.
you can’t measure customer feelings.
everyone brings an individual world view.
you have 21 six year olds to manage while you teach them how to read.
because to move beyond quantitative requires deep mastery of variables and mental flexibility. Every learner, every customer, every fan becomes an individual with individual needs and desires to be met with individually tailored solutions.
Every subject becomes an exception with exceptional circumstances. The time for every single discussion expands exponentially beyond the time any school or enterprise can afford or comprehend.
To do that educators and business people would have to think in right-brain patterns and use deeply synthesized knowledge that they didn’t get in left-brained schools.
How could they? How many teachers in the world can see the difference between A work and A+++ work?
One-size-fits-all is the natural and logical default for any group. It is far easier, far less expensive, far more timely and far more efficient to manage to commonalities than to differences.
There is no other logical answer.
Creativity, innovation, interpersonal skills are not one-size-fits-all skills or talents. To teach them, respect them, and value them openly, we will need to reset the default daily.
It’s important to know that, if reaching people as individuals is our goal.
Liz Strauss
Unfortunately, the bottom line of any for-profit business in a capitalist democracy is, well, the bottom line. Dollars and cents, that’s what really matters. Anything that doesn’t directly lead to immediate additional dollars and cents is extraneous overhead that needs to be surgically removed.
Over and over again I’ve seen creative, caring executives get hammered by a board of directors that has a 3 month window on getting their ROI out of any proposal. That kind of mentality literally sucks the lifeblood out of the creative process, and ultimately, the business itself.
Wall Street makes the rules, business need executives that can execute to meet those rules. Schools need to be able to provide those kinds of executives. The demand is a narrow default, so schools put programs in place to meet that demand. I don’t think that you need to look beyond a simple supply and demand model to find the true source of the problem.
But, if you listen carefully you can hear the winds of change starting to blow.
The people that adhere to these old models will soon die off like the dinosaurs they are. Those that survive are the ones that will find their way to places like this. Creativity will be the new ‘in’, boards of directors will start looking for execs that can look long term, and invest in creative models that will assure long term growth. Schools will recognize that, and adjust their curriculum to provide those kinds of individuals. Supply and demand reigns supreme once again, and all is right in the world.
Ooohmmm….
Hi David,
I would love to think so. I have a son who is creative and the world would be his. His degree will be economics. What he could do by pairing both.
But I’m totally serious. People can’t watch what they can’t see. I and they can’t measure what they can’t watch. That’s where the problem will always be. That’s where the door swings wide wide open for charlatans and quacks.
Then the folks who were nervous about going there will shut the door again.
It’s happened before in schools . . . I’ve seen it twice since I gradutated college.
It’s sad, but group is the default.
The “abstract” is difficult for many managers to grasp. I am not certain that they want to learn how to grab hold if it. Sometimes it is just easier for them to ignore what could be, isn’t it? Sad …
Hi David,
The abstract may even be something they’re taught to ignore or avoid. How many elephants in how many rooms have you seem people refuse to see? Is that fear? What is that? Lake of imagination?
I truly don’t understand a life in which there is no abstract.