Moving somewhere new at the age of 40 is instructive. When I moved to Perth, suburbs appeared as unconnected hubs, shopping centres as islands in a sea of roads and high streets as unexpected delights behind unknown corners. With no points to reference, the first walk from new home to new school felt dislocating. The first attempt to travel 500m to the local shops from memory ended in failure.
Slowly, I started to make connections. The walk to school no longer felt so alien. I knew how to get to the shops by myself. I looked beyond our suburb to discover new parts of Perth, first using satnav but, over time, travelling with no help at all. ECHO and the Bunnymen ‘People are Strange’ stopped ringing in my head. I started linking two places: travelling not only from home to destination and back, but from one destination to another. And – one journey at a time - Perth became my home.
You see, when I moved to Perth, the way ahead was – quite literally – unclear. Every new experience was a piece that steadily completed the puzzle. I found C only because I had discovered A and B beforehand. Each new route revealed another.
So it is with any change. The way ahead is never clear. The bend in the road only reveals itself to the traveller. The finish line isn’t there waiting as we start. It would be wonderful to move mountains down unobstructed roads in a perfectly linear way, but our humanness makes that impossible: we’re so much better at taking steps than leaps.
So, all hail to amateur innovators. Praise for having a go. Kudos to the uninitiated who create a bot from scratch. Credit to the untrained who give design thinking a punt. Their willingness to try without a clear destination is what creates change. For, through our small, flawed steps forward, a new bend in the road is revealed; a fresh way of thinking is divulged; a shift in mindset is normalised and so the dominoes fall.
Read more:
Grown-up innovation for grown-up law firms:
https://www.freerangelawyers.com/grown-up-innovation-for-grown-up-law-firms/
https://www.freerangelawyers.com/innovation-how-to-do-it-part-2/
