you
a paradox is a statement that
contradicts itself but I want to offer
you an alternative that a paradox is an
apparent contradiction that we can
explain by looking upward and outward
and down and in there have been many
paradoxes described and throughout
history and philosophy and math some of
them explain some not but today I’m
going to share with you a couple of
everyday paradoxes and then a set of
values by which we can look at paradox
not as either/or but as both the both
side so I start with a story once upon a
time there was a farmer the farmer had
three sons the farmer loved his sons
dearly and the sons adored their father
one day the father told his sons that he
was going to leave to them his seventeen
cows in his will he also said to a
neighbor who respected and admired the
father and adored the sons would you
please look after my sons when I die the
neighbor graciously agreed because he
respected the father well unfortunately
one day the farmer did die and so the
sons took their seventeen cows that were
in the herd and divided them up by the
father’s will the oldest son was to get
half the middle son one-third and the
youngest one night but the math didn’t
work they couldn’t figure out what to do
at that time the neighbor walks by he
asked the sons what’s wrong they
explained their situation of the will
and the neighbor says to them I’ll be
back he goes home brings back a scrawny
old cow adds it to the seventeen to make
eighteen and asked the sons does it
solve your problem now so now the sons
do the division and it comes out just
fine
nine six two the sons are in jubilance
so the neighbor takes a scrawny cow and
goes home so what do we learn from this
we learned that complex systems can be
simpler than they first appear
significant things can be obscure and
essential so now let me share with you a
few paradoxes the first one is the
control paradox the control paradox says
we have to have command and control in
order to create uniformity towards a
direction but we have to relinquish
command and control in order to allow
new ideas to emerge but I say why not
have both through creative and
intelligent disobedience proverb says
raise a child and the way they should go
and when they get older they will not
depart from it as a child were taught
the rule of fire fire hurts us it burns
we must avoid fire get away from fire
but if we learn the value of fire we
understand that fire provides us heat
light warmth comfort energy so if we
value fire and that look at the rule of
fire we actually run to fire and embrace
it and not from it the diversity paradox
the diversity paradox says with less
diversity we can reach a solution
quicker but increase the diversity and
we allow for the emergence of new ideas
but it takes us a little time
but why not have both through wisdom of
the crowds where the whole is greater
than the parts
so one semester I’m teaching a class
that I’m going to run a half marathon at
the end of the semester 13.1 miles and
so I decided I’m gonna try this wisdom
of the crowds thing out so I asked the
students at the beginning of the
semester to make a prediction of how I’m
going to do at the end of the semester
in my run I say write it down on a piece
of paper and we’ll throw it into a
bucket I gave them two data points data
point number one the American record got
to keep things in perspective data point
number two what is the average time any
American has ever run in a half marathon
so that gave him about a 1 hour window
what I didn’t tell them is I was
training 5 days a week
what I didn’t tell them is at that time
the longest I had run was a 5k 3.1 miles
what I didn’t tell them is I ran track
in college all they knew is what they
saw so I took their predictions put him
in the bucket trained ran my half
marathon at the end of the semester I
pulled them all out and I averaged the
time their prediction 1 hour 35 minutes
and 29 seconds my time 1 hour 35 minutes
and 29 seconds why wisdom of the crowds
no one in that room had much running
experience they all looked at the
problem differently and with open eyes
the next paradox the customer paradox
the customer paradox says we have to
listen to our customer in order to
design a product that they will buy but
we shouldn’t listen to our customer
because by not listening to him we can
open up innovation and mergence and
great ideas but no why not have both
through co-creation and coopertition
there was a gentleman by the name of
Eric von Hippel at MIT and he talks
about the rise of the innovator in the
rise of the innovator he tells a story
of disk brakes on mountain bikes during
the summon summer months a mountain bike
riders would get on ski slopes and they
would ride their bikes down the ski
slopes and if you know anything about
physics and a little engineer and you
would know that aluminum rims on a bike
when they get hot that aluminum gets
soft and when rubber calipers push on
soft aluminum the brakes don’t work very
well so the mountain bikers go home they
take the disc brakes off their
motorcycles put them on their mountain
bikes go back to the slopes and have a
superior braking system Cannondale Trek
they recognize this
they take the idea put it on their
mountain bikes and sell it to you for a
premium right co-creation so now I’m
going to share a story with you about
the control paradox the fastest growing
infectious disease in the United States
and about 30,000 cases per year is Lyme
disease Lyme disease was discovered in
1977 in Lyme Connecticut what do we know
about Lyme disease well we get it from
ticks that ticks bite us and we get Lyme
disease where two ticks get it ticks eat
it rodents suck on rodents rodents eat
acorns acorns come from trees so what do
we know about all this what we know is
that we can actually predict the number
of cases of Lyme disease by a corn
production we also know that oak trees
produce acorns in a cyclical pattern
that every two to three years they
produce more so once we know how the
acorn production is producing in a given
grove of trees we can actually predict
the number of cases of Lyme disease and
tell you how many beds you might need in
a hospital so how do we solve this
problem let’s kill the ticks insecticide
let’s cut down trees let’s hunt
squirrels and kill them but all those
are single point solutions they don’t
really solve the system’s problem so
here’s my solution acorn pancakes there
was more acorns in evening ancient
Greece than there was rice and wheat and
if you google grandpas acorn recipes
you’ll find plenty
of a corn recipes
so maybe the solution isn’t to cut
things off but to actually become part
of the system itself
while Disney said if you have values
there are no hard questions so I end
today with a set of values by which you
can look at paradox value number one
complexity is simpler than it first
appears and simple things can exhibit
complex behavior
value number two large worlds are
smaller than we think
value three significant things are
essential and obscure
you
value for weak relationships bring
strength and security and the last value
things can be one and many
simultaneously so I ask you not to look
at paradox as a source of tension but as
an opportunity for creativity wisdom and
innovation welcome to the both side
thank you
[Applause]
a paradox is a statement that
contradicts itself but I want to offer
you an alternative that a paradox is an
apparent contradiction that we can
explain by looking upward and outward
and down and in there have been many
paradoxes described and throughout
history and philosophy and math some of
them explain some not but today I’m
going to share with you a couple of
everyday paradoxes and then a set of
values by which we can look at paradox
not as either/or but as both the both
side so I start with a story once upon a
time there was a farmer the farmer had
three sons the farmer loved his sons
dearly and the sons adored their father
one day the father told his sons that he
was going to leave to them his seventeen
cows in his will he also said to a
neighbor who respected and admired the
father and adored the sons would you
please look after my sons when I die the
neighbor graciously agreed because he
respected the father well unfortunately
one day the farmer did die and so the
sons took their seventeen cows that were
in the herd and divided them up by the
father’s will the oldest son was to get
half the middle son one-third and the
youngest one night but the math didn’t
work they couldn’t figure out what to do
at that time the neighbor walks by he
asked the sons what’s wrong they
explained their situation of the will
and the neighbor says to them I’ll be
back he goes home brings back a scrawny
old cow adds it to the seventeen to make
eighteen and asked the sons does it
solve your problem now so now the sons
do the division and it comes out just
fine
nine six two the sons are in jubilance
so the neighbor takes a scrawny cow and
goes home so what do we learn from this
we learned that complex systems can be
simpler than they first appear
significant things can be obscure and
essential so now let me share with you a
few paradoxes the first one is the
control paradox the control paradox says
we have to have command and control in
order to create uniformity towards a
direction but we have to relinquish
command and control in order to allow
new ideas to emerge but I say why not
have both through creative and
intelligent disobedience proverb says
raise a child and the way they should go
and when they get older they will not
depart from it as a child were taught
the rule of fire fire hurts us it burns
we must avoid fire get away from fire
but if we learn the value of fire we
understand that fire provides us heat
light warmth comfort energy so if we
value fire and that look at the rule of
fire we actually run to fire and embrace
it and not from it the diversity paradox
the diversity paradox says with less
diversity we can reach a solution
quicker but increase the diversity and
we allow for the emergence of new ideas
but it takes us a little time
but why not have both through wisdom of
the crowds where the whole is greater
than the parts
so one semester I’m teaching a class
that I’m going to run a half marathon at
the end of the semester 13.1 miles and
so I decided I’m gonna try this wisdom
of the crowds thing out so I asked the
students at the beginning of the
semester to make a prediction of how I’m
going to do at the end of the semester
in my run I say write it down on a piece
of paper and we’ll throw it into a
bucket I gave them two data points data
point number one the American record got
to keep things in perspective data point
number two what is the average time any
American has ever run in a half marathon
so that gave him about a 1 hour window
what I didn’t tell them is I was
training 5 days a week
what I didn’t tell them is at that time
the longest I had run was a 5k 3.1 miles
what I didn’t tell them is I ran track
in college all they knew is what they
saw so I took their predictions put him
in the bucket trained ran my half
marathon at the end of the semester I
pulled them all out and I averaged the
time their prediction 1 hour 35 minutes
and 29 seconds my time 1 hour 35 minutes
and 29 seconds why wisdom of the crowds
no one in that room had much running
experience they all looked at the
problem differently and with open eyes
the next paradox the customer paradox
the customer paradox says we have to
listen to our customer in order to
design a product that they will buy but
we shouldn’t listen to our customer
because by not listening to him we can
open up innovation and mergence and
great ideas but no why not have both
through co-creation and coopertition
there was a gentleman by the name of
Eric von Hippel at MIT and he talks
about the rise of the innovator in the
rise of the innovator he tells a story
of disk brakes on mountain bikes during
the summon summer months a mountain bike
riders would get on ski slopes and they
would ride their bikes down the ski
slopes and if you know anything about
physics and a little engineer and you
would know that aluminum rims on a bike
when they get hot that aluminum gets
soft and when rubber calipers push on
soft aluminum the brakes don’t work very
well so the mountain bikers go home they
take the disc brakes off their
motorcycles put them on their mountain
bikes go back to the slopes and have a
superior braking system Cannondale Trek
they recognize this
they take the idea put it on their
mountain bikes and sell it to you for a
premium right co-creation so now I’m
going to share a story with you about
the control paradox the fastest growing
infectious disease in the United States
and about 30,000 cases per year is Lyme
disease Lyme disease was discovered in
1977 in Lyme Connecticut what do we know
about Lyme disease well we get it from
ticks that ticks bite us and we get Lyme
disease where two ticks get it ticks eat
it rodents suck on rodents rodents eat
acorns acorns come from trees so what do
we know about all this what we know is
that we can actually predict the number
of cases of Lyme disease by a corn
production we also know that oak trees
produce acorns in a cyclical pattern
that every two to three years they
produce more so once we know how the
acorn production is producing in a given
grove of trees we can actually predict
the number of cases of Lyme disease and
tell you how many beds you might need in
a hospital so how do we solve this
problem let’s kill the ticks insecticide
let’s cut down trees let’s hunt
squirrels and kill them but all those
are single point solutions they don’t
really solve the system’s problem so
here’s my solution acorn pancakes there
was more acorns in evening ancient
Greece than there was rice and wheat and
if you google grandpas acorn recipes
you’ll find plenty
of a corn recipes
so maybe the solution isn’t to cut
things off but to actually become part
of the system itself
while Disney said if you have values
there are no hard questions so I end
today with a set of values by which you
can look at paradox value number one
complexity is simpler than it first
appears and simple things can exhibit
complex behavior
value number two large worlds are
smaller than we think
value three significant things are
essential and obscure
you
value for weak relationships bring
strength and security and the last value
things can be one and many
simultaneously so I ask you not to look
at paradox as a source of tension but as
an opportunity for creativity wisdom and
innovation welcome to the both side
thank you
[Applause]
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