Card #87 – ”Slay A Sacred Cow”

Card #87 – ”Slay A Sacred Cow” from the Creative Whack Pack

Available on the iOS App Store and as a physical deck of cards

There is a saying that Prussian King Frederick the Great (1712-1786) lost the Battle of Jena which was fought in 1806.

This means that for twenty years after his death, the army perpetuated his successful organization instead of adapting to meet the changes in the art of war. Had his generals questioned Frederick’s hallowed military tenets, they might have fared better against Napoleon.

Moral: many rules outlive the purpose for which they were intended.

Change is a basic factor of existence — things are never quite the same from one moment to the next.

Thus, a good creative thinking strategy is to question the rules.

Most people will say, “As a rule, if operation ‘X’ is done in a certain way, it will get these results.” Here, ‘X’ can be a marketing strategy, a choreoography system, an engineering process, a fund-raising technique, or a way to stuff a turkey.

The creative thinker will play with “X” and look for results outside the usual rules and guidelines. What worked last year is probably valid this year, but you won’t know for sure unless you challenge it.

Remember: every right idea is eventually the wrong idea. Innovation means not only generating new ideas, but escaping from obsolete ones as well.

As educator Rudolph Flesch put it,

“Creative thinking may simply mean the realization that there’s no particular virtue in doing things the way they’ve always been done.”

Physicist Tom Hirshfield is more direct: “If you don’t ask ‘why this?’ often enough, somebody will ask, ‘why you?’”

— What rule, way of thinking, or policy has been successful for you
in the past but may be limiting you now?

— What sacred cow can you slay in your issue?

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