Closed

Book number four on the altMBA reading list is Beautiful Constraint. The authors initially embarked on a journey to discover if those individuals or organizations that appear to become even more creative under constraints were one-offs or if there was something to be learned that would be shared with others. They discovered that there were similarities in terms of how creativity and innovation came about under constrained resources. 

The second chapter, Break Path Dependence, is all about how today's path (for good or bad) is based on yesterday's success and the need to continually ask questions about if the path is still serving us in order to not get stuck. This is an even bigger risk when we are being asked to do more. "To be open, we have to see what is making us closed and why", is the authors' recommendation for avoiding becoming dependent on a path that isn't helping us any longer. 

What I liked about this is it assumes we are all closed to something. Sometimes I can use words like naturally open or innovative into the language of how I describe myself and the ironic thing about that is it can make me closed to the fact that I am being closed. As humans we all have things we are closed toward. Understanding what and why are essential to continually progressing and finding new solutions to challenges we never dreamt of previously. The question of what is making me closed is definitely something I'm going to ask myself more often and from now on I'll keep digging until I find something.