Con la llegada del verano y un leve descenso de la intensidad laboral he tenido durante las últimas semanas más tiempo para poder leer tanto libros completos como muchos interesantes resúmenes en la recomendable Blinkist. En ellos he descubierto algunas ideas que por contraintuitivas, al menos para mí, y por ir en contra del pensamiento mayoritario o cuestionar importantes “lugares comunes” me parecen especialmente interesantes (aunque No suscriba totalmente o en parte todas ellas) para compartirlas en esta breve entrada e, al igual que ha ocurrido en mi caso, invitar a pensar:
(Acompaño los “titulares” con breves extractos de los resúmenes de Blinkist y, en el último caso, del libro Sapiens)
1.- Los monopolios son buenos e impulsan la innovación
Eso defiende el cofundador de PayPal, Peter Thiel, en el libro Zero to One donde también recoge el interesante concepto de progreso vertical.
«When people hear the word “monopoly,” they tend to think of large, evil companies unfairly squeezing out the competition. This is inaccurate. Conventional wisdom holds that competition is the ideal economic stimulus, encouraging companies to improve on each others’ products. However, it’s actually monopolies that drive innovation. How can that be? First of all, if you have a monopoly, it doesn’t necessarily mean the competition is being treated unfairly. Rather, you’re just doing something so much better than them that they can’t survive. Similarly, if you create something new that no other company can copy, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Google clearly has a monopoly over the search-engine industry, having faced virtually no competition whatsoever in the twenty-first century. This might seem unfair to other companies who’d like to compete, but it’s certainly been good for everyone who likes using Google’s powerful search engine. What’s more, monopolies are good for society because they drive progress: they encourage other businesses to come up with better solutions and oust the current dominant company.»
2.- Las grandes ideas surgen de “muchas ideas»
Eso expone en Originals, Adam Grant consultor que ha asesorado a firmas como Google o Pixar:
«In other words, when it comes to quantity and quality, you can’t have one without the other«
«Another of Simonton’s findings demonstrated that even geniuses can’t tell which of their works will become timeless classics and which ones will flop. So, again, the more you produce, the better. Simonton found that Beethoven judged his work quite differently than later experts did. Comparing letters where Beethoven rated 70 of his own compositions with the evaluations of contemporary critics, Simonton calculated that Beethoven had disagreed with them about 33 percent of the time!»
3.- Leer es una parte esencial del trabajo
Esto que para mi no es en absoluto contraintutivo sí lo parece para una gran parte de los españoles, por suerte Marks Beale defiende lo contrario en 10 Days to Faster Reading
«People have the misconception that they shouldn’t be reading during working hours. However, the opposite is true! Reading is actually part of your job description.Businesspeople tend to think that they’ll appear to be slacking off if they read on the job. Relevant reading materials, however, can help you come up with new business ideas, stay up to date on the market and find ways to beat the competition. So never be afraid to read at work – it’s crucial!»
4.- Los «cisnes negros» existen y no los tenemos en cuenta, por ello somos muy malos prediciendo el futuro
El libro de Nassim Nicholas Taleb, El cisne negro, es ya un clásico que ha situado a su autor como uno de los grandes pensadores de nuestro tiempo, pero repasando mis notas en Blinkist sobre él, creo que proclama una idea muy poderosa y que no debemos olvidar:
«The key message in this book: Even though we’re constantly making predictions about the future, we’re actually terrible at it. We put far too much confidence in our knowledge and underestimate our ignorance. Our over-reliance on methods that seem to make sense, our basic inability to understand and define randomness, and even our biology, all contribute to poor decision making, and sometimes to “Black Swans” – events we believe to be impossible but which end up redefining our understanding of the world.Actionable advice:Be suspicious of “because.”Although it is absolutely in our nature to look for linear, causal relationships between events in order to make sense of this complex world, the reality is that we are absolutely pitiful at both making predictions of the future and establishing causes for the present. Rather than feeding our desire to see events in clear-cut cause and effect, it’s better to instead consider a number of possibilities without being married to any single one.Know what you don’t know.If you want to make meaningful predictions about the future – which, if you are buying insurance, making investments, attending college, changing jobs, conducting research, or just being a human, then you certainly do – then it’s simply not enough to take all of the “knowns” into consideration. This leaves you with only a partial understanding of the risks involved in your prediction. Instead, you should also be consciously aware of what you don’t know, so that you don’t unnecessarily limit the information that you are working with.»
5.- El homo sapiens gobierna el mundo porque es el único animal que puede creer en cosas que existen puramente en su propia imaginación
Y para terminar, de un excelente libro (muy recomendable): Sapiens, de animales a dioses, una breve historia de la humanidad de Yuval Noah Harari:
“ No hay dioses en el universo, no hay naciones, no hay dinero, ni derechos humanos, ni leyes, ni justicia fuera de la imaginación común de los seres humanos. “
«Cualquier cooperación humana a gran escala (ya sea un estado moderno, una iglesia medieval, una ciudad antigua o una tribu arcaica) está establecida sobre mitos comunes que sólo existen en la imaginación colectiva de la gente.»
Esta es la idea más provocadora y la que da pié a la tesis central del libro, pero junto a ella existen otras no menos contraintuitvas e interesantes para reflexionar como que el dinero es el sistema más perfecto de confianza mutua o que la revolución agrícola nos llevo, como individuos, a vivir mucho peor (hasta hace muy pocos años) que cuando éramos cazadores-recolectores.
Exelentes. Ideas. Aún. No. Alcanzo. A. Entender. Totalmente.
Leer. Es. Crecer
Gracias
Piedade Martins