My hometown is on lockdown due to a pandemic coronavirus.
Most of the time I am working from home spending significant time on reading, brainstorming, planning, and analyzing the past experiments and results.
At this moment, world leaders and politicians are forced to go to the bottom of this pandemic, they are paying a lot of attention for not spreading the coronavirus pandemic.
They are processing and absorbing every single information of this nasty virus in more depth.
We support and encourage our world leaders and politicians to act fast against this viral tsunami to curb it. We will do our best to wipe out this pandemic as global citizens.
History has taught us that this type of pandemic occurs from time to time in our lifetime but I still assume that the huge devastation it has created is a consequence of our ill-preparation and foundation.
All politicians and leaders are learning hard lessons and we are paying the price of not having a focused robust research and development priority.
Keep in mind—we have no medications or vaccines to protect us from coronavirus until now. The only tool we have is physical separation (social distancing) from one another. Therefore, we need to use physical separation to stop this virus from spreading further at this point.
There are no shortcuts and quick schemes in medical research, we have to invest and investigate continuously to improve human lives.
Despite our geographical boundaries, coronavirus has taught us how to bring people together to fight against such pandemics, and how to share information together to protect us.
Another lesson for policy makers: research successes of yesterday are not enough but we have to continuously and consistently look for the challenges of tomorrow.
And how are we going to do this exactly?
The answer is: by investing, by inventing, and by innovating unwaveringly.
My pique questions.
What sets us off when we look for long term consistent A-level research and development?
What sets us off when we become eager to cut research funding?
What stimulates our desire to add funding in sports, politics and entertainment by cutting funding in scientific research and development?
This is the time to grade our leaders and politicians especially in advanced countries whether they have a growth mindset or fixed mindset especially for medical research.
People and leadership with a growth mindset never cut funding in scientific research and development.
We appeal to all visionary leaders to invest in young novelty seeking curious minds who make new inventions and innovations as attitudes towards their lives.
Suddenly, my cell phone rang and my uncle Addy was on the line.
We chatted a little bit about coronavirus, lockdown and its impact in society as well as in our professional life.
My uncle Addy said, “One day my department head of research entered my office and told, ‘Addy’- he is a new scientist in our group, pointing to a very young guy who came with him to his office.”
To Addy’s surprise, the new scientist looked very young and inexperienced.
My uncle Addy has been working in a pharmaceutical company for the last 30 years as a principal scientist.
Addy was quite shocked and went to his boss’ office the next day and asked, “What degree and experience the new scientist has?”
His boss replied, “He doesn’t have any previous work experience but he will succeed in our group.”
“I hired him because we need somebody in our discovery group who is young and thinks in a different way than we think,” the research head said.
“Addy, you are 60 years old now, and I am 66 years old. It is no offense, but trying new things for us is very hard. We are a company of invention and innovation. As we become older, our brain mechanism slows us down especially for you and me to immerse in the novelty.” Addy’s boss added.
“For our department we need novelty. This is possible only with people having increased sensory sensitization who immerse, explore, and experiment,” he continuously added.
Research also shows that young people are more likely to take risks, stay on the ball, and approach new and unfamiliar things without anxiety.
At one point Addy’s boss said something very interesting that actually inspired him to hire him right off the bat.
Addy’s boss said, “I already told you, we are old now to run this innovation company through only our perspectives.”
“I asked our new employee the same conservative interview question- Where do you want to be in five years?”
He said, “I would not dream about this but I would ask myself- Where do I not want to be in five years?- I would make a list and just do that”.
During the interview he said, “New ideas and concepts are nothing more than the unusual combination of existing ideas.”
“If we are looking for a completely new invention and innovation, “right” and “wrong” are often a matter of perspective. My “right” or “my truth” is nothing but only a function of my perception,” he added.
The old way of doing things in a new way is today’s necessity and this is possible only by young fresh brains.
This is absolutely no offense for old people. We have to learn from their experiences how to be in our own lane but we have to also evolve through overtaking at the time of crisis.
Science doesn’t lie, it explores the hidden mysteries of time.
When we become older, our curiosity gradually dwindles.
We collect more experiences, we become stronger in our feelings, knowledge, and feel proud how things work.
We don’t seek novelty because we stop asking questions.
We no longer want to go into uncertain situations.
We hesitate to take advantage of “free of charge” health tests because we are more focussed on negative results.
We enjoy comfort.
We want to put all the money in bonds and treasury bills rather than stocks.
We watch the same television channel even though we have 100+ channels on our TV.
We read the same newspaper.
Our curiosity gets lost because of our similar experiences, and same patterns in life.
Ultimately we become unable to break it and our learning becomes self-stabilizing.
When we become old, there is more downside to peek, our knowledge creates certainties and they become habits, and they entrap our mental capacities.
This has serious repercussions especially for research oriented invention and innovation companies.
The only way out of this problem is, old folks have to work with young curious minds.
The most harmful tradition among all is old folks start to instruct young people to follow rules and prevent them from reading their own intuition and trust.
Old folks stop listening to the young folks because old folks feel proud with “ value the old, shun the new.”
I am not making up these statements. In 2004, discovery channel had done a study that says after age 49, curiosity dwindles.
One of my friends told me, “It took me 4 weeks of daily training to ride the bike with confidence with no accident, but for the same level of competence, it took only 9 days for my son.”
My friend is 42 years old and his son is 16 years old.
The fact is: this applies to everything.
Young minds enjoy unconventional tools, procedures, and ideas. They learn faster because their neurons connect faster in different directions which didn’t exist before.
When we see the present interview process, first thing we look for is professionalism, energy, and self-confidence.
We judge these things on academic degrees and previous work experiences.
We assume these past actions as measuring tools for success.
Most of the older interviewers don’t even look at the hobby section in interviewee’s curriculum vitae or resume.
I am not being judgemental, I’m simply reporting.
One of my friends, who is still under 30, is a very successful computer engineer in silicon valley, earns a six figure salary, and told me that we can pinpoint a smart and curious mind from the hobby section of their curriculum vitae or resume.
As he said, “This is extremely important if you are looking for a self-monitored and intellectually curious mind. Their potential talents are reflected in the hobby section of their CV and resume. Interviewer should be qualified to read that. Their degrees and past work experiences make them sincere routine employees but not curious innovative individuals.”
He told me that if the interviewee has an everyday habit of doing mediation and aerobic activity, you simply can’t ignore that. These small everyday habits as an inventor or innovator work as a lubricant for your innovation engine.
The other factor we attribute to the younger mind is that they carry many ideas and they are able to filter bad ideas faster than old minds.
As two time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling said, “If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which one to throw away.”
Young minds observe their environment like anthropologists.
This is a key to success particularly in innovation.
They are interested in people who don’t look, think, speak or act like they do themselves.
They try to get behind the thinking of the others by relentlessly asking amazing questions.
At age 30, the world’s richest man on the planet, Jeff Bezos, had a successful regular job as hedge-fund vice president, but he quitted the job and started Amazon. His mind worked as an anthropologist, an innovator mindset.
Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity at age 26.
At age 18, Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator.
At age 18, Alexander Graham Bell invented the first modern telephone.
At age 17, Robert Heft created the modern day 50 star American flag.
Remember, these are only a few drops in a sea.
Age is an important factor for invention and innovation.
Deep immersion and trying out new things, as it appears, gets harder and harder as we become older.
Because of our past history of experiences makes it harder to immerse ourselves in the novelty.
Science is clearly supporting these findings.
In the invention and innovation group, it is essential to include the younger minds.
Invention and innovation loves youth. Nurture it.
Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina