Smart failure for a fast-changing world
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0:00 - 0:04Over the past six months, I've spent my time
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0:04 - 0:07traveling. I think I've done 60,000 miles,
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0:07 - 0:10but without leaving my desk.
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0:10 - 0:13And the reason I can do that is because I'm actually two people.
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0:13 - 0:16I look like one person but I'm two people. I'm Eddie who is here,
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0:16 - 0:20and at the same time, my alter ego is a big green boxy
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0:20 - 0:24avatar nicknamed Cyber Frank.
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0:24 - 0:27So that's what I spend my time doing. I'd like to start,
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0:27 - 0:30if it's possible, with a test, because I do business stuff,
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0:30 - 0:34so it's important that we focus on outcomes.
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0:34 - 0:35And then I struggled, because I was thinking to myself,
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0:35 - 0:38"What should I talk? What should I do? It's a TED audience.
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0:38 - 0:41It's got to be stretching. How am I going to make — ?"
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0:41 - 0:44So I just hope I've got the level of difficulty right.
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0:44 - 0:46So let's just walk our way through this.
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0:46 - 0:49Please could you work this through with me? You can shout out the answer if you like.
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0:49 - 0:52The question is, which of these horizontal lines is longer?
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0:52 - 0:53The answer is?
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0:53 - 0:55Audience: The same.Eddie Obeng: The same.
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0:55 - 0:57No, they're not the same. (Laughter)
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0:57 - 1:01They're not the same. The top one is 10 percent longer than the bottom one.
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1:01 - 1:04So why did you tell me they were the same? Do you remember when we were kids at school,
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1:04 - 1:07about that big, they played the same trick on us?
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1:07 - 1:09It was to teach us parallax. Do you remember?
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1:09 - 1:12And you got, you said, "It's the same!" And you got it wrong.
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1:12 - 1:16You remember? And you learned the answer, and you've carried this answer in your head for 10, 20, 30, 40 years:
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1:16 - 1:20The answer is the same. The answer is the same. So when you're asked what the lengths are,
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1:20 - 1:22you say they're the same, but they're not the same, because I've changed it.
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1:22 - 1:26And this is what I'm trying to explain has happened to us in the 21st century.
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1:26 - 1:29Somebody or something has changed the rules
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1:29 - 1:31about how our world works.
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1:31 - 1:34When I'm joking, I try and explain it happened at midnight,
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1:34 - 1:38you see, while we were asleep, but it was midnight 15 years ago. Okay?
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1:38 - 1:40You didn't notice it? But basically, what they do is,
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1:40 - 1:43they switched all the rules round, so that the way to
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1:43 - 1:46successfully run a business, an organization, or even a country,
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1:46 - 1:49has been deleted, flipped, and it's a completely new
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1:49 - 1:53— you think I'm joking, don't you — there's a completely new set of rules in operation. (Laughter)
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1:53 - 1:55Did you notice that? I mean, you missed this one.
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1:55 - 1:57You probably — No, you didn't. Okay. (Laughter)
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1:57 - 2:01My simple idea is that what's happened is,
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2:01 - 2:05the real 21st century around us isn't so obvious to us,
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2:05 - 2:08so instead we spend our time responding rationally
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2:08 - 2:12to a world which we understand and recognize,
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2:12 - 2:14but which no longer exists.
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2:14 - 2:16You don't believe me, do you? Okay. (Applause)
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2:16 - 2:21So let me take you on a little journey of many of the things I don't understand.
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2:21 - 2:24If you search Amazon for the word "creativity,"
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2:24 - 2:26you'll discover something like 90,000 books.
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2:26 - 2:29If you go on Google and you look for "innovation + creativity,"
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2:29 - 2:33you get 30 million hits. If you add the word "consultants," it doubles to 60 million. (Laughter)
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2:33 - 2:36Are you with me? And yet, statistically, what you discover
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2:36 - 2:39is that about one in 100,000 ideas is found making money
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2:39 - 2:42or delivering benefits two years after its inception.
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2:42 - 2:45It makes no sense. Companies make their expensive executives
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2:45 - 2:48spend ages carefully preparing forecasts and budgets
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2:48 - 2:52which are obsolete or need changing before they can be published.
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2:52 - 2:56How is that possible? If you look at the visions we have,
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2:56 - 2:58the visions of how we're going to change the world,
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2:58 - 3:00the key thing is implementation. We have the vision.
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3:00 - 3:02We've got to make it happen.
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3:02 - 3:05We've spent decades professionalizing implementation.
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3:05 - 3:07People are supposed to be good at making stuff happen.
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3:07 - 3:12However, if I use as an example a family of five
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3:12 - 3:15going on holiday, if you can imagine this,
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3:15 - 3:19all the way from London all the way across to Hong Kong,
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3:19 - 3:23what I want you to think about is their budget is only 3,000 pounds of expenses.
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3:23 - 3:26What actually happens is, if I compare this to the average
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3:26 - 3:32real project, average real successful project,
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3:32 - 3:36the family actually end up in Makassar, South Sulawesi,
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3:36 - 3:39at a cost of 4,000 pounds,
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3:39 - 3:42whilst leaving two of the children behind. (Laughter)
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3:42 - 3:46What I'm trying to explain to you is, there are things which don't make sense to us.
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3:46 - 3:50It gets even worse than that. Let me just walk you through this one.
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3:50 - 3:53This is a quote, and I'll just pick words out of it.
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3:53 - 3:56It says -- I'll put on the voice -- "In summary, your Majesty,
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3:56 - 4:00the failure to foresee the timing, extent and severity
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4:00 - 4:04of the crisis was due to the lack of creativity
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4:04 - 4:07and the number of bright minds," or something like that.
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4:07 - 4:11This was a group of eminent economists apologizing to the Queen of England
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4:11 - 4:13when she asked the question,
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4:13 - 4:16"Why did no one tell us that the crisis was coming?" (Laughter)
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4:16 - 4:19I'll never get my knighthood. I'll never get my knighthood. (Laughter)
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4:19 - 4:21That's not the important point. The thing you have to remember is,
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4:21 - 4:25these are eminent economists, some of the smartest people
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4:25 - 4:28on the planet. Do you see the challenge? (Laughter)
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4:28 - 4:33It's scary. My friend and mentor, Tim Brown of IDEO,
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4:33 - 4:37he explains that design must get big, and he's right.
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4:37 - 4:40He wisely explains this to us. He says design thinking
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4:40 - 4:42must tackle big systems for the challenges we have.
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4:42 - 4:44He's absolutely right.
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4:44 - 4:48And then I ask myself, "Why was it ever small?"
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4:48 - 4:52Isn't it weird? You know, if collaboration is so cool,
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4:52 - 4:54is cross-functional working is so amazing,
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4:54 - 4:59why did we build these huge hierarchies? What's going on?
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4:59 - 5:03You see, I think what's happened, perhaps, is that
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5:03 - 5:07we've not noticed that change I described earlier.
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5:07 - 5:10What we do know is that the world has accelerated.
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5:10 - 5:12Cyberspace moves everything at the speed of light.
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5:12 - 5:15Technology accelerates things exponentially.
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5:15 - 5:17So if this is now, and that's the past,
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5:17 - 5:18and we start thinking about change, you know,
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5:18 - 5:21all governments are seeking change, you're here seeking change,
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5:21 - 5:24everybody's after change, it's really cool. (Laughter)
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5:24 - 5:28So what happens is, we get this wonderful whooshing acceleration and change.
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5:28 - 5:32The speed is accelerating. That's not the only thing.
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5:32 - 5:35At the same time, as we've done that, we've done something really weird.
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5:35 - 5:37We've doubled the population in 40 years,
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5:37 - 5:41put half of them in cities, then connected them all up so they can interact.
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5:41 - 5:44The density of the interaction of human beings is amazing.
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5:44 - 5:49There are charts which show all these movements of information. That density of information is amazing.
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5:49 - 5:50And then we've done a third thing.
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5:50 - 5:52you know, for those of you who have as an office
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5:52 - 5:58a little desk underneath the stairs, and you say, well this is my little desk under the stairs,
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5:58 - 6:04no! You are sitting at the headquarters of a global corporation if you're connected to the Internet.
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6:04 - 6:07What's happened is, we've changed the scale.
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6:07 - 6:10Size and scale are no longer the same.
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6:10 - 6:13And then add to that, every time you tweet,
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6:13 - 6:16over a third of your followers follow from a country
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6:16 - 6:19which is not your own.
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6:19 - 6:22Global is the new scale. We know that.
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6:22 - 6:26And so people say things like, "The world is now a turbulent place." Have you heard them saying things like that?
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6:26 - 6:29And they use it as a metaphor. Have you come across this?
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6:29 - 6:32And they think it's a metaphor, but this is not a metaphor.
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6:32 - 6:35It's reality. As a young engineering student, I remember
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6:35 - 6:39going to a demonstration where they basically,
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6:39 - 6:42the demonstrator did something quite intriguing.
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6:42 - 6:47What he did was, he got a transparent pipe — have you seen this demonstration before? —
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6:47 - 6:50he attached it to a tap. So effectively what you had was,
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6:50 - 6:53you had a situation where — I'll try and draw the tap
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6:53 - 6:56and the pipe, actually I'll skip the tap. The taps are hard.
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6:56 - 6:59Okay? So I'll write the word "tap." Is that okay? It's a tap. (Laughter)
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6:59 - 7:03Okay, so he attaches it to a transparent pipe, and he turns the water on.
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7:03 - 7:06And he says, do you notice anything? And the water is whooshing down this pipe.
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7:06 - 7:09I mean, this is not exciting stuff. Are you with me?
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7:09 - 7:13So the water goes up. He turns it back down. Great.
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7:13 - 7:17And he says, "Anything you notice?" No. Then he sticks a needle into the pipe,
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7:17 - 7:19and he connects this to a container, and he fills
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7:19 - 7:22the container up with green ink. You with me?
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7:22 - 7:26So guess what happens? A thin green line comes out
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7:26 - 7:30as it flows down the pipe. It's not that interesting.
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7:30 - 7:35And then he turns the water up a bit, so it starts coming back in. And nothing changes.
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7:35 - 7:38So he's changing the flow of the water, but it's just a boring green line.
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7:38 - 7:41He adds some more. He adds some more. And then something weird happens.
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7:41 - 7:46There's this little flicker, and then as he turns it ever so slightly more,
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7:46 - 7:49the whole of that green line disappears, and instead
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7:49 - 7:52there are these little sort of inky dust devils close to the needle.
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7:52 - 7:55They're called eddies. Not me. And they're violently dispersing the ink
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7:55 - 7:59so that it actually gets diluted out, and the color's gone.
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7:59 - 8:03What's happened in this world of pipe
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8:03 - 8:07is somebody has flipped it. They've changed the rules from laminar to turbulent.
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8:07 - 8:11All the rules are gone. In that environment, instantly,
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8:11 - 8:15all the possibilities which turbulence brings are available,
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8:15 - 8:18and it's not the same as laminar.
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8:18 - 8:22And if we didn't have that green ink, you'd never notice.
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8:22 - 8:26And I think this is our challenge, because somebody
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8:26 - 8:30has actually increased — and it's probably you guys with all your tech and stuff —
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8:30 - 8:34the speed, the scale and the density of interaction.
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8:34 - 8:36Now how do we cope and deal with that?
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8:36 - 8:39Well, we could just call it turbulence, or we could try and learn.
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8:39 - 8:44Yes, learn, but I know you guys grew up in the days when
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8:44 - 8:47there were actually these things called correct answers,
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8:47 - 8:50because of the answer you gave me to the horizontal line puzzle,
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8:50 - 8:52and you believe it will last forever.
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8:52 - 8:55So I'll put a little line up here which represents learning,
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8:55 - 8:57and that's how we used to do it. We could see things,
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8:57 - 9:00understand them, take the time to put them into practice.
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9:00 - 9:04Out here is the world. Now, what's happened to our pace
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9:04 - 9:07of learning as the world has accelerated? Well, if you work
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9:07 - 9:10for a corporation, you'll discover it's quite difficult to work
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9:10 - 9:13on stuff which your boss doesn't approve of, isn't in the strategy,
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9:13 - 9:15and anyway, you've got to go through your monthly meetings.
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9:15 - 9:21If you work in an institution, one day you will get them to make that decision.
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9:21 - 9:23And if you work in a market where people believe in cycles,
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9:23 - 9:26it's even funnier, because you have to wait all the way
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9:26 - 9:29for the cycle to fail before you go, "There's something wrong." You with me?
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9:29 - 9:35So it's likely that the line, in terms of learning, is pretty flat.
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9:35 - 9:39You with me? This point over here, the point at which
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9:39 - 9:43the lines cross over, the pace of change
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9:43 - 9:46overtakes the pace of learning,
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9:46 - 9:49and for me, that is what I was describing
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9:49 - 9:52when I was telling you about midnight.
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9:52 - 9:55So what does it do to us? Well, it completely transforms what we have to do,
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9:55 - 9:59many mistakes we make. We solve last year's problems
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9:59 - 10:02without thinking about the future. If you try and think about it,
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10:02 - 10:05the things you're solving now, what problems are they going to bring in the future?
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10:05 - 10:07If you haven't understood the world you're living in,
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10:07 - 10:11it's almost impossible to be absolutely certain that what you're going to deliver fits.
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10:11 - 10:14I'll give you an example, a quick one. Creativity and ideas,
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10:14 - 10:17I mentioned that earlier. All the CEOs around me, my clients, they want innovation,
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10:17 - 10:21so they seek innovation. They say to people, "Take risks and be creative!"
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10:21 - 10:24But unfortunately the words get transformed as they travel through the air.
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10:24 - 10:28Entering their ears, what they hear is, "Do crazy things and then I'll fire you." Why? (Laughter) Because —
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10:28 - 10:31Why? Because in the old world, okay, in the old world,
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10:31 - 10:34over here, getting stuff wrong was unacceptable.
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10:34 - 10:36If you got something wrong, you'd failed. How should you be treated?
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10:36 - 10:40Well, harshly, because you could have asked somebody who had experience.
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10:40 - 10:45So we learned the answer and we carried this in our heads for 20, 30 years, are you with me?
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10:45 - 10:47The answer is, don't do things which are different.
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10:47 - 10:50And then suddenly we tell them to and it doesn't work.
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10:50 - 10:52You see, in reality, there are two ways you can fail in our new world.
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10:52 - 10:56One, you're doing something that you should follow a procedure to, and it's a very difficult thing,
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10:56 - 10:59you're sloppy, you get it wrong. How should you be treated? You should probably be fired.
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10:59 - 11:03On the other hand, you're doing something new, no one's ever done before,
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11:03 - 11:05you get it completely wrong. How should you be treated?
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11:05 - 11:08Well, free pizzas! You should be treated better than the people who succeed.
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11:08 - 11:12It's called smart failure. Why? Because you can't put it on your C.V.
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11:12 - 11:15So what I want to leave you, then, is with the explanation
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11:15 - 11:18of why I actually traveled 60,000 miles from my desk.
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11:18 - 11:20When I realized the power of this new world,
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11:20 - 11:25I quit my safe teaching job, and set up a virtual business school,
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11:25 - 11:29the first in the world, in order to teach people how to make this happen,
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11:29 - 11:34and I used some of my learnings about some of the rules which I'd learned on myself.
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11:34 - 11:37If you're interested, worldaftermidnight.com, you'll find out more,
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11:37 - 11:40but I've applied them to myself for over a decade,
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11:40 - 11:44and I'm still here, and I still have my house, and the most important thing is,
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11:44 - 11:49I hope I've done enough to inject a little green ink into your lives,
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11:49 - 11:52so that when you go away and you're making your next
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11:52 - 11:56absolutely sensible and rational decision, you'll take some time to think,
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11:56 - 11:59"Hmm, I wonder whether this also makes sense
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11:59 - 12:02in our new world after midnight." Thank you very much.
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12:02 - 12:09(Applause)
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12:09 - 12:16Thank you, thank you. (Applause)
- Title:
- Smart failure for a fast-changing world
- Speaker:
- Eddie Obeng
- Description:
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The world is changing much more rapidly than most people realize, says business educator Eddie Obeng -- and creative output cannot keep up. In this spirited talk, he highlights three important changes we should understand for better productivity, and calls for a stronger culture of “smart failure."
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 12:37
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Smart failure for a fast-changing world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Smart failure for a fast-changing world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Smart failure for a fast-changing world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Smart failure for a fast-changing world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Smart failure for a fast-changing world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Smart failure for a fast-changing world | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Smart failure for a fast-changing world | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Smart failure for a fast-changing world |