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About the Author:
Ralph D. Winter is a senior mission thinker who has been actively involved from the beginning of the massive mission transition from simply thinking in terms of countries or individuals to thinking in terms of peoples. He is founder of the
U.S. Center for World Mission,
and is currently chancellor of
William Carey
International University. |
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There would seem to be a close affinity between the phenomenon of invention and the discernment of mission frontiers. Recently I read a review of a book which I think readers of a journal on frontiers of mission ought to take seriously.
Juice: The Creative Fuel that Drives World-Class Inventors, by Evin I. Schwartz (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004) is a book that is notable, according the review I read, because it points out that discovering a problem is more than half of the solution. Or, that solutions are not as difficult as the recognition of a problem in the first place.
The book is one long series of engrossing real life stories, but it is also carefully systematized because the contents themselves are very revealing:
1. Creating Possibilities
2. Pinpointing Problems
3. Recognizing Patterns
4. Channeling Chance
5. Transcending Boundaries
6. Detecting Barriers
7. Applying Analogies
8. Visualizing Results
9. Embracing Failure
10. Multiplying Insights
11. Thinking Systematically
If you want a taste of the writing style, try this from the Prologue entitled, "What Drives Invention."
Most popular notions of what an inventor is ??depict inventors as irrationally passionate, emotionally unstable, or downright mad. Inventors are only a little bit like that ?? to focus [on those traits] would be a distraction ?? [our] focus is on their strategic thinking patterns, the series of 'Aha!' moments that leads to the final products we recognize as inventions ...
Where and when do inventors come up with breakthrough ideas? They do it everywhere and all the time. They're assigning themselves problems at bedtime and dreaming new ideas as they sleep; they're having epiphanies in the shower; they're incubating concepts while driving; they're brainstorming while exercising on treadmills, riding bikes, climbing mountains, and jogging through canyons; they're informally bouncing possibilities off of colleagues; they're reading constantly; they're observing everything around them, looking for clues; and they're often absorbed in their own thoughts ...
But they'd be the first to tell you that most of their ideas aren't brilliant. They need to generate a lot of ideas to come up with the fewer viable ones ?? Invention is a set of strategic thinking tools that you can teach, learn, and practice, just as you can with other skills like cooking, acting, or sailing.
That last sentence is the most important, even though the author goes on to complain that invention is not usually something that is taught. Why not? That is one reason for the International Journal of Frontier Missions . |
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