International Institute For Global Leadership
Issue #217 *Janauary 2020
www.global-leadership.com
Asheville, NC USA
Guest Editorial
Where Good Ideas Come From
Charles Kihia Mwangi (Kenya)
kihiacm@yahoo.com
The Author of “Where Good Ideas Come From” points out the areas on natural science, history, technology that one can use to identify environments conducive to innovation. Good Ideas that lay foundation to innovative solutions come from the adjacent possible, liquid networks, slow hunch, Error, Expatiation, Platforms and Serendipity. It is an entertaining book full of classical examples and thoughtful content. Below are a few key points!
Good Ideas are inevitably, constrained by the parts and skills that surround them. We have a natural tendency to romanticize breakthrough innovations, imagining momentous ideas transcending their surroundings, a gifted mind somehow seeing over the detritus of old ideas and ossified tradition. We take the ideas we’ve inherited or that we’ve stumbled across, and we jigger them together into some new shape.
Good Ideas come from the Liquid networks. The question is how to push your brain toward those more creative networks. The answer, as it happens, is delightfully fractal: to make your mind more innovative, you have to place it inside environments that share that same network signature: networks of ideas or people that mimic the neural networks of a mind exploring the boundaries of the adjacent possible. Certain environments enhance the brain’s natural capacity to make new links of association.
Good Ideas come from the slow hunch. Keeping a slow hunch alive poses challenges on multiple scales. For starters, you have to preserve the hunch in your memory, in the dense network of your neurons. Most slow hunches never last long enough to turn into something useful, because they pass in and out of the memory too quickly, precisely because they possess a certain murkiness. You get feeling that there’s an interesting avenue to explore, a problem that might someday lead you to a solution, but then you get distracted by more pressing matters and the hunch disappears. So part of the secret of hunch cultivation is simple: write everything down.
Good Ideas Come From Error. The error is needed to set off the truth, much as dark background is required for exhibiting the brightness of a picture. When we’re wrong, we have to challenge our assumptions, adopt new strategies. Being wrong on its own doesn’t unlock new doors in the adjacent possible, but it does force us to look for them.
Good Ideas come from Expatiation. Expatiation can be described as like when organism develops a trait optimized for a specific use, but then the trait gets hijacked for a completely different function. The initial transformation is almost accidental; a tool sculpted by evolutionary pressures for one purpose turns out to have an un-expected property that helps the organism survive in a new way. A match you light to illuminate a darkened room turn out to have a completely different use when you open a doorway and discover a room with a pile of logs and a fireplace in it. A tool that helps you see in one context ends up helping you keep warm in another. That’s the essence of Expatiation.
Good Ideas Comes from Platforms. The most generative platforms come in stacks, most conspicuously in the layered platform of the Web. Platforms have a natural appetite for trash, waste and abandoned goods. Innovation thrives in discarded spaces. Emergent platforms derive much of their creativity from the inventive and economical reuse of existing resources and as any urbanite will tell you, the most expensive resource in a big city is real estate.
Good Ideas comes from Serendipity. I happen to believe that the Web, as a medium has pushed the culture toward more serendipitous encounters. The simple fact that information “browsing” and “Surfing” are now mainstream pursuits makes a strong case for a rise in serendipity, compared to cultures dominated by books or mass media. Generative platforms require all the patterns of innovation to create a space where hunches and serendipitous collisions and expatiations and recycling can thrive.
(Charles is our most recent IIGL Graduate!)
What Others Are Saying
David Banner (USA/WI)
dbanner@mwt.net
IIGL is a wonderful organization that I have been a donor to for many years. I am now serving on the Board. This organization provides excellent leadership training to young people from many African countries, such as Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone,. My experience with the organization is this: they walk their talk. They provide training opportunities for young people who might wish to become entrepreneurs or managers in their home country.
David K. Banner, PhD, was Professor of Leadership at the Dahl School of Business, Viterbo University, La Crosse, WI. He now mentors PhD students in Organization and Management at Walden University in Minneapolis. From 2003-2007, he was the Director of the MBA program at Viterbo, essentially starting the program from scratch, recruiting students, setting up a Board of Advisors, hiring and mentoring faculty and getting the program accredited. He is the author of 6 books, 30 journal articles, and 35 conference papers on transformational leadership, self-management, new paradigm organization design, ethics and integrity in business and related topics. In his varied career, he has been an aerospace engineer for NASA, a management consultant for Peat, Marwick, Mitchell, an entrepreneur, a university professor and an author. His focus of social change is local: since arriving in Viroqua, WI, he has run for Mayor of the city (and almost won as a newcomer!), served as a County Board member for 2 years, been on the Historical Society Committee, the Board of the Waldorf school (Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School), a founding member and Board member of the Waldorf high School (Youth Initiative High School), Maple Valley Cooperative Board , the Viroqua Food Coop Board and started the Transition Town Initiative here and ran it for 2 years.
(David is a current board member, mentor and long term contributor).
What our Students are Reading
Happiness is a Choice $9.99
Barry Neil Kaufman, therapist, author, motivational speaker, and founder of the Option Institute shows you how you can use the traits of happy people to change your life quickly, and easily. His shortcuts to happiness include: making happiness the priority; accepting your personal authenticity, the freedom to be yourself; learning to discard regrets about the past and worries about the future, and so much more.
Students/Graduates In Action
Congratulations to Noeline Kirabo for speaking at TED Women 2019 Talks!
IIGL Graduate and Past President Noeline Kirabo (Uganda) noelinekirabo@gmail.com was one of the key note Speakers at the TED Women 2019 Talks held in Palm Springs, CA in early December! Noeline presented in the Wayfinders Session. She shared, “I showed up; I gave it my best and more importantly I ministered life to many based on individual feedback. It was a life transforming experience that is hard to put into words. One thing I am certain of is that something in me shifted and the unstoppable me was unleashed in a new way!” Congratulations Noeline! Check out the blog.ted.com for more information!
Valuable Resources for Personal & Planetary Transformation
Institute for Global Transformation
Ifgt.net
The Institute for Global Transformation’s vision is a world working together to utilize the power, love and wisdom of higher consciousness to benefit humanity and the planet.
Their mission is to support individual transformations in consciousness and in the way humanity interacts with one another so as to bring about positive change in the world, individually and collectively. Their Values include:
Creativity: They value processes that align our creativity with universal wisdom.
Collaboration and Partnering: They collaborate, partner, and share resources with those who have a similar vision for humanity and the planet.
Service: They affirm service as a demonstration of an evolutionary impetus of the soul and as a conscious expression of the oneness of all things.
Innovation: They build and encourage new methods, applications, and concepts.
Integrity: They foster and support open, honest and ethical actions in all relationships and activities.
News
2019 IIGL Holiday Book Drive Results
Thank you to those who participated in our Annual IIGL Holiday Book Drive. We received 11 new donations in December which brought in over $1,400 for IIGL! We hope you enjoyed your holiday season and all the best for 2020!
2020 Annual Meeting Date Set
The Board of Directors announced that the 2020 IIGL Annual Meeting will be held on May 9th! All Active Students, Graduates and Financial Contributors are invited to attend via teleconference. We will share more details on how to participate in a few months.
New IIGL Email Group List Formed
IIGL has a new email group list on Google! The previous list on Yahoo was discontinued by them. Email Deb at iigl.globalleadership@gmail.com if you would like to be added to the new list.
IIGL Book Sales Continue…
The IIGL Board of Directors shared that the IIGL book, “Creating Your Path Through Leadership” book sales continue to provide a Royalty payment to IIGL each month. It has also helped new potential donors understand more about IIGL! The book is available both on Kindle and in Paperback on Amazon.com! Check it out! Here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1…
Meet Our New Students
We had no new students this month
To view complete profiles, Click Here
Visionary Leadership
Student Progress
We had 10 students from 5 countries complete a total of 36 books in December. These students were from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
Paa Kwesi Inkumsah (Ghana)
* The Power of Failure
Charles Kihia Mwangi (Kenya)
* The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
* The Great Game of Business
* The Leader who had No Title
* The Outliers
* The Power of Failure
* The Road Less Traveled
* Where Great Leaders come From
Amaugo Blessing Chidimma (Nigeria)
* Success through a Positive Mental Attitude
Oluwatosin Adeosun Isaac (Nigeria)
* How to Make Collaboration Work
* The Leadership Pill
Sunday Obarinu (Nigeria)
* Goal Setting 101
Emmanuel Ojimah (Nigeria)
* The 5 Second Rule
* The Rules of Work
* The War Consciousness
Okorie Eusebius Tobechukwu (Nigeria)
* Success through a Positive Mental Attitude
* Goals
* Goal Setting 101
Elie Bizimana (Rwanda)
* I am Malala
Aloys Hakizimana (Rwanda)
* Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Thomas Shereni (Zimbabwe)
* Ageless Power, Timeless Mind
* Attitude is Everything
* Be All you can Be
* Creating your Path through Leadership
* Goal Setting
* How to Sell Yourself
* How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
* IACOCCA
* Leadership Secrets of Atilla the Hun
* Making the Most of your Time
* The 5 Second Rule
* The Art of War
* The Leader who had No Title
* The Magic of Thinking Big
* The Monk who Sold his Ferrari
* Time Power
Graduates
The following Students completed one level of study this month or more!
Charles Kihia Mwangi (Kenya) completed Levels Six and Seven; Congratulations on becoming IIGL’s 29th Graduate!
Emmanuel Ojimah (Nigeria) completed Level Five
Okorie Eusebius Tobechukwu (Nigeria) completed Level One
Anita Kiddu Muhanguzi (Uganda) completed Level Three
Thomas Shereni (Zimbabwe) completed Level Four, Five and Six
Statistics
New Enrollments
1 enrolled in December
49 enrolled in 2019
Book Assessments
36 in December
171 in 2019
Books Shipped
9 in December
42 in 2019
Cost of Books
$172.97 in December
$825.61 in 2019
You Make It Possible
We extend a special thanks to the following individuals and/or organizations who contributed to IIGL last month. Your ongoing support makes this work possible.
Deb Silver (Israel)
Pierre Wittmann (Thailand)
Lynne Murguia (USA/AZ)
Lorraine Leon (USA/CA) in honor of Wanda Gail Campbell and Mike Tilley
Naomi Stauber (USA/FL)
John Hornecker (USA/NC)
Michael Lightweaver (USA/NC)
Judith Royer (USA/SC)
David Banner (USA/WI)
Heidi and Ed Fallone (USA/WI)
Evelyn Garfinkel (USA/WI)
Laurel Patterson (USA/WI)
Jill Plavnick (USA/WI)
Deb Rosen (USA/WI)
Charles Rudolph (USA/WI)
Patrice Zorn (USA/WI)
Make A Difference
Dream Team 22
Please join Dream Team 22 as our goal is to have 220 people contributing $22 per month. We understand that money is energy and that to sustain and build IIGL we need a lot of people pouring their energy into this endeavor on a regular basis. We also know that not everyone can afford to commit $22 a month – especially our students, who live in countries with economies in which this amount can be equal to a weeks’ salary. So we are offering two options for those who wish to become a part of the Dream Team. One can commit to a $22 a month contribution or to spending 22 seconds each day holding the vision of IIGL becoming financially sustainable by the end of 2018.
Will you join the Dream Team and help us create an energetic foundation to support the transformational work of IIGL? You can really make a difference in the world by making a modest contribution of time or money. To make the $22 a month commitment or a one time donation, click the link below. To become a member of the Dream Team 22 by committing 22 second a day to help us hold the vision, contact Deb for details: drosen2@wi.rr.com
Checks on US banks, payable to the International Institute For Global Leadership, can be mailed to IIGL, 11537 N. Lake Shore Drive, Mequon, WI 53092 USA. Contributions may also be made by credit card by clicking the link below. Contributions are tax deductible under the 501 (c) 3 tax code of the United States Internal Revenue Service.
To Contribute By Paypal, go to www.paypal.com and make donation to iigl.globalleadership@gmail.com
To Contribute By Credit Card, go to global-leadership.com