Having recently become a mother, I spend quite a bit of time thinking of how I should raise my child – the values to instill, the advice to give, and the habits to encourage – such that she is enabled to survive and succeed in the challenges life throws at her as well as enjoy life. I recently listened to Risto Siilasmaa’s talk at the HundrED Innovation Summit (video) which touched on many of the values and ideals I had been thinking about. In his speech, Risto presents six values or practices that we as parents should encourage our kids to have, which I share in this post. As Risto Siilasmaa also points out, these values also apply to running companies or leading people – areas that also interest me greatly.
So what are these six values?
1. Instill a sense of ownership: When you have a sense of ownership, you care, you act, and you do things that are beyond what is expected. Risto uses rental vs own car to illustrate this – when you rent a car you hardly ever take it for a wash, you feel that that is somebody else’s problem, but when it is your own, you care for it. The same principle applies to many things. Risto advises that we should encourage our kids to have a sense of ownership about the world, society, environment, people close to them, and the work that they choose to undertake – in that way, they will care and be encouraged to act.
2. Take a long-term view, not just look at the short-term: We should teach our kids to understand that the short gains maybe long-term losses. We should encourage kids to stop just looking at the tips of their shoes but lift up their heads and look to the horizon. Encourage them to ask themselves, “Am I being too short-sighted, should I be looking longer into the future?” To me, this ability to look ahead also allows them to create alternatives for their lives (see value no.5). Not only that, but also be able to take calculated risks.
3. Have respectful suspicion: Risto advises that we must nurture a strong and healthy suspicion in our kids, help them think that things could be done better than the way they have been done in the past, that perhaps the way things have been done before is not optimal. Encourage them to challenge themselves and others to come up with better ways of doing things. And if we can instill that in our kids, they will challenge us as well and help us improve. Here I would add that, not only parents but teachers as well should encourage kids to have respectful suspicion and not see it as disrespect, i.e., that teachers or elders should not be questioned.
4. Be a paranoid optimist: Being an optimist means that one approaches life thinking that there is always a way out, things will work out, you will survive no matter the challenge faced. While being a paranoid, one thinks forward, plans for what can go wrong, prepares, mitigates, and has alternatives. Although it might seem contradictory as Risto admits, its a balance we should teach our kids to have. As a paranoid you are worried about what might go wrong and plan for that – and because of that, things will go wrong less often because you plan and do small things everyday to reduce things going the wrong way. This increases the likelihood of things going well and this experience of things going well, gives you fuel for the optimism. “Being a paranoid optimist as a life philosophy, creates good balance.”
5. Demand alternatives: “There should always be alternatives”, Risto says. “If you are making a decision without any alternatives then you are not making a decision”. We should encourage our kids to imagine other futures and choose which one you want to take, rather than seeing or thinking that there is only one way available. Having alternatives and choosing which way to go can create value.
6. Experiment: The world is changing fundamentally. With the speed of change and advances in technology the world is becoming a complex place, what Risto explains is a combination of complications and unpredictability. How then do we then teach our kids to survive in this complexity – by experimenting. We have to help them build an inclination to experiment. They should demand alternatives which means they need create alternatives which means they experiment. In this way they learn – evolve.