I watched my wife mixing vegetables in the blender for her two grandchildren. The mixture looked uniform, flowing, and above all had different vegetables with no big clumps. By mixing the vegetables that the children liked with little of the vegetables they did not like my wife was hopeful that would accept the meal with all its nutritional value.
This is what gave birth to the “story” of this post.
We say food for thought and as mixing is mostly good for food it could be the same for mixing the components of food thought.
We do mixing all the time such as
- Mixing fun with work
- Mixing managers with leaders
- Mixing creative thinking with logical thinking
- Mixing online teaching with offline teaching
- Mixing flexible hours with fixed hours Mixing work at home and on work location
- Blended leadership is an emerging concept with leaders leading online and offline
- The trend of some reputable universities worldwide is to mix academic teaching with industrial experience. Students may leave to attend a semester or two at reputed organizations to gain practical experience.
- Mixing of senses- this is a real example whereby people mix their senses and experience one sense through another sense.
Mixing of senses is called Synesthesia. To understand it more I share an interesting video with the readers:
Synesthesia: What Causes Mix-Up Of Senses?
The quality of mixes depends on the quality of the blender and the materials used for mixing. Like mixing old fruits with fresh ones may cause problems because of the acidity of old fruits so we must be careful what ideas we mix. For example, many people would object to mixing creative thinking with logical thinking as they are two different processes.
The quality of the blender counts also. The blender is mixing ideas in our brains. Be careful to take care of your brain mixer and keep it functioning with sharpness.
We are heading towards a world of mixed ideas.
I go for the variety, Charlotte.
Love your thinking “benefitting from the strength of each other.
I wish when we form teams we think the same way.
Nice observation and leading to nice post. Mixing of ideas may be considered as complementary or supplementary from diverse field . Like CNC machining is combination of machine tools , computer science and the software. In today’s world the scientific advancements are like to be when inputs from different world come together. Example is the smart mobile phone which is a phone, camera, mini PC ( if I am permitted to call it ) , Music system and host of application
Great examples, Vinod that serve as great reminders of what creative mixing can achieve.
I am expecting some unusual combination shall emerge soon.
Hello again Brother Ali
Some ideas like some foods blend well; some not-so-much.
For instance, fruit and ice cream blends well, vinegar and ice cream not-so-much.
For the not-so-much I might not be so bold as to say “Impossible mixture!” Or “Never mix them;” there miught be a kind of ice cream and a kind of vinegar that might be an interesting combintion like chili pwder and chocolate.
Rather, some combinations require . . .care. . . structure.
For instance, divergent thinking -the generation of ideas and convergent thinking, the evaluation of ideas when mixed willy-nilly -produce “That’s a dumb idea” and “We’re planning -new ideas aren’t helpful!” But when alternated blending in focused segments the mixture can produce spectacular results.
Similarly leadership -changing direction and geting everyone on board, and management getting the job done, can blend if done in the right sequence. If reversed “Let’s monitor the details” -“But we don’t know where we’re going1?” might create frustration.
I am concerned that we might blend ideas out of necessity without thought as to why and how. – on-line and off-line learning and working from home and working in the office require different strengths and skills which may or not exist in students or the workforce.
This may bring us to the ultimate blending -actions based upon urgency in changing circumstances requiring flexibility and agility and actions requiring care because of risk requiring careful consideration of consequences -even the unforeseen.
By the way my granddaughters’ first reaction to mixing foods -even to different foods touching on the plate is too reject them -if they choose to mix the foods – e.g. make their own tacos rather than Gramma making them -that seems to be OK.
Brother Alan Culler- you know well that I agree with you. Not all ideas are good for all situations. There must be some rationality.
Mixing fruits is good in general. But mixing rotten apples with fresh fruits is a wrong practice.
But we need our curiosity. We need to mix different things on trial and error basis. We need to experiment.
Same applies to mixed learning and hybrid work. They become useless if we do not train people on how to implement them and to use them purposefully.
At the end of the day the choice is ours.
How about ambidextrous thinkers, Charlotte who can switch between logical thinking and creative thinking?
Glad to tell you that the grandchildren loved their food. Mixing love and hate- what the grandchildren loved with what they hated because what they hated was of high nutritional value. Is it a distribution effect?
Thank you for you always make me think and rethink.
Mixing creative thinking with logical thinking could be through building a team of diverse thinkers. Each benefits form the strengths or the others.
Your wife’s strategy of mixing into known tastes a little of what the kids didn’t like seems like having deep wisdom embedded in a fairy tale. Stories allows us to understand what others have been thinking in dire situations. Or not so dire, as in getting your grandkids to eat brussels sprouts.
On that note – do we want the variety of differnt vegetables/thoughts or the sameness that a puree delivers?
Hi Charlotte, again
I sent today a post to BIZCATALYST titled The Arrangement of Thinking.
In the post I discuss what I have just noticed in your comment “Mixing creative thinking with logical thinking could be through building a team of diverse thinkers. Each benefits form the strengths or the others.”
To answer this issue convincingly, I used a metaphor from nature.