#14. Rilke’s “Live the Questions Now” - For Wiser Answers to Emerge
Google Rilke’s famous quote. How does his advice to a young poet apply today to both young adults’ career plans (with AI “opportunities”) or your firm’s strategic thinking amidst our current, chaotic, global economy.
Our US culture is biased towards fast answers and quick-fix solutions. When times are good and our financial/digital economy is minting billionaires, why waste time on living into questions? “Go fast and break things”; get all that you can by trying harder; and too many are resorting to even dodgy, short-cut hacks.
But, do reflex answers - shaped by past conditions, experiences, beliefs, and solutions – always work in fast, big-changing times? Yes, for many daily, tactical challenges, but not for bigger, longer-term, strategic ones.
Reasons for “living into (some) questions”:
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To better understand the deeper root-causes that underly the 24/7/365 news noise which are mostly symptoms.
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To ponder what unique, best-value innovations a company (or person) should be delivering X years down the road to what best customers.
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And, for personal career decisions: how to choose an ascending employer v a dying one? And, more broadly: what is a best job/skill fit; and how best to continuously learn, unlearn and relearn on a competency path?
If you live into best, written questions, your selective perception will be primed. You will start to notice more relevant information and have more fruitful, targeted conversations. Better answers will eventually emerge for the questions. And, these answers will suggest new visions that will not be extrapolations of your past, inherited, conventional beliefs.
The new visions have a related strategy: “backcasting”. (Wikipedia the term.) When a best, new vision emerges, you can then start to experiment your way towards it.
Don’t ignore, however, current responsibilities. Doing both old and new stuff sounds tough. But, you only have to progress faster than competitors. Most of them will either being try harder at the past of frozen by uncertainties. To win, just keep experimenting forward, one step at a time.
Change is now happening faster than we can understand and cope with it. Will you forecast by extrapolating the past; backcast from the future; or be a deer in the headlights? Will you shoot from the hip based on conventional wisdom or live into the right, best questions to see new opportunities and make wise decisions?