“We all know the saying it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And everyone knows that, but I think there is a corollary: If everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up. It’s better to fix problems than to prevent them. And the natural tendency for managers is to try and prevent error and overplan things.”
— Ed Catmull, President of Pixar
Several of us at IEE are frequent readers of Signals vs. Noise, the weblog by 37signals. While they may dwell in a different category (web-based apps for organizations), we share membership in the field of design…In fact I think the reason we see so many paralells between their work and ours is that we are both in the business of designing solutions.
This quote from the Pixar president points out a mistake that is really easy to make on this end, and one we definitely have made a few times over the past year. A major focus for us as we roll out the 2010-2011 Power2Achieve material is to not overplan but rather to give teachers and administrators what they need to put their expertise into practice as they teach students to use top-flight character development tools.
Sidenote: I have a great friend who loves to shout “SON!” whenever he’s excited about something (he’s also a fine educator at Archbishop Carroll High School in D.C., shout-out to JJ Gregg). I’m not sure he’s talking about the acronym I may or may not have just coined, but maybe I’ll start shouting it to people around our office when we get dangerously close to overplanning (in fairness, I may be the most guilty of us all).
As I think back to my time as a classroom teacher, this quote definitely would have applied during those days as well.
How does it resonate with you?
(p.s. if you also enjoy Signals vs. Noise or are just looking for a really great read, check out Rework, the second book by the founders of 37Signals, Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson…we LOVE it).
Carla Berryman 4:46 pm on July 14, 2010 Permalink |
Hey there Kyle,
Just wanted to share my thoughts with you…keep on…keeping on!
We all know the saying it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And everyone knows that, but I think there is a corollary: If everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up. It’s better to fix problems than to prevent them. And the natural tendency for managers is to try and prevent error and overplan things.”
— Ed Catmull, President of Pixar
How does this resonate with me? I live in the land of “do it now ask for forgiveness later.” I feel that this is out of necessity simply because if I don’t get the ball rolling, then nothing will ever happen. When thinking about it’s better to fix problems then to prevent them, I would agree; however, there can never be a “problem” if people are to afraid to take a risk and get things in motion. Let me pose this question, would you rather work with “bright, willful, ornery goats-or dumb, obedient, docile, plodding sheep”? (Barth, 2001) According to Barth he believes the education profession “is repelling many of the goats, who, though they have a stomach for tin cans, have little appetite for mindless compliance with the heavy-handed ‘tougher’ standards. And we are attracting many sheep who can and will comply, but with little distinction.”
I think this goes back to trying to prevent errors ~vs.~ fixing problems. Those old goats may create problems for fixing and granting forgiveness may end up being part of the solution; but, at least they are willing to try new and innovative ideas. The sheep on the other hand, well they will be happy to comply with whatever is laid before them, not willing to take a risk, therefore in and of itself creating a problem.
You should check-out Learning by Heart -Roland S. Barth 2001
I love this quote from the book as well:
“If it’s true that character is what you do when no one is looking, then learning is what you do when you’re not graded for it.”
~PEACE~
Mrs.Carla Berryman
4th grade teacher
St. Paul Catholic School
San Antonio, TX