Never be so stubborn about what you think you’ve learned about success.(Ad: Register domains for 1 year at Rs 365 Only!)
My first work for Integrated Media Practice during my MA course in Mass Communication and Journalism at Mangalore University’s Department of Mass Communication and Journalism involved changing the page design of Campus Courier by using QuarkXpress. It was a long, tedious effort, but ultimately accepted.
Afterward, I admit to being somewhat smug. I knew some were not for change. Part of this smugness came from the fact that some of my groupmates had come from earlier campus courier assignments that had purported to use the same copy design on QuarkXpress, but were (in my then mind) not practicing it correctly. Several of the practices introduced early into our project, were not much like QuarkXpress as commonly discussed in the class (or practiced by newspaper copy editors), and did contribute to some early adoption issues we encountered. By shifting towards a more typical QuarkXpress descriptions of those practices, we got attracted, and ultimately success.
Now I knew what QuarkXpress is.
So, on my next project, I tried to introduce those new features as in the last project only to find that they were now completely wrong for the team. I concluded that the problem was context-specific.You see where this is going. It was four issue (five if you count the ideas that seeded the first), before I began to realise that you can’t separate context from implementation of practices or otherwise. Each time I found certain principles carried over, but I also found that while there were similarities in implementation (to a greater or lesser degree) there was little (nothing really) that when cookie-cutter applied in the new situation netted the same results as on the previous issues.
And this was for the marginally successful practices. It took me even longer to realise that this mind-set was appropriate for the most successful practices as well. Just because something was a smashing success didn’t mean it was immune to this re-examination on the next project.
There have been several more projects other than Campus Courier since then, but I still struggle with this today. While rationally I feel that I would be willing to abandon or modify any practice if it wasn’t helping us. I bring into each new project, and an inevitable ‘Aha’ moment when I realise how that prejudice is blinding me to what will help most. Mainly that moment just happens sooner.
I believe that this pattern applies to practices, values, and even principles: what works for us in the past, what we feel makes us successful, or even who we are is based somewhat on the accident of experience (or chance), and may prove disastrous when blindly followed in an inappropriate circumstance. Prejudicial thinking is difficult to notice in oneself. How much harder it is to detect when reinforced by culture, early experience, and prior positive outcomes.
These days, I believe the key difference between practice, value and principle (something much talked about at one time in the classes) is simply how likely we are to adjust them if things are going wrong for us (i.e. practices change a lot, principles rarely). But none should be immune from our consideration when our actions result in negative outcomes.
Experience tells me not to look for advice on starting projects, but plans to work it out for myself; Start each project with a blank process sheet. View the ideal process as a seamless flow of projects from the one who assigned to one of us who does the project. Find what’s gumming up that flow; apply the contents of your experience toolbox to the rough spots until things run smooth. Never stop looking for new things to add to your idea.
Always know what your goal is. Never stop learning. Never believe you’ve got it all figured out. Most importantly: never be so stubborn about what you think you’ve learned about success, that you aren’t willing to change. It is for this that the practices we cling to most stubbornly in inappropriate circumstances are the ones that have served us best in past situations.
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