"Low standards of experience leads to low expectations." Ingrid Bacci in her book The Art of Effortless Living".
She was writing about the strength and limitation of our visualisations. In other words, we can only visualise as grandly as the grandest experience we had in our personal engagement.
This presents a dire prognosis for many established businesses faced with the challenge to re-imagine what could be possible in their futures. If the leaders, the board members, have limited experience of wows, having risen through the ranks of their business, following the rules and playing things relatively safely, then how can we realistically expect them to envisage the wow?
Widening the experience of the wows seems like a reasonable course of action to take. This could start with encouraging schools and universities to teach more generalist (wide and shallow) subjects for greater exposure, and for students to take years off experiencing the world.
The same goes for people in business – taking time off to experience other things beyond the immediate industry.
The idea of taking one year off every seven years in business is also a worthwhile consideration. A year to recharge and refresh and try new things.
This is what Stefan Sagmeister is championing:
