About Karl Albrecht

"I believe that ideas are the ultimate form of wealth, whether we're talking about a business enterprise, a community, a social institution, a government, or a nation. Ideas are the magical capital that animates all other forms of capital.

"Ideas move the world — the best and the worst of them. The nineteenth century writer Victor Hugo said,

'There is one thing stronger than all the armies of the world; and that is an idea whose time has come.'

"The ideas we create, nurture, support, teach, and preach define us as a people. We move forward as a species when we honor and respect the rights of all human beings to do their own thinking. And we regress as a species when we try to silence, oppress, punish, or persecute those whose ideas do not fit with our comfortable story of reality.

"I freely admit to being addicted to ideas. My heroes and mentors have always been the 'big idea' people, whose lives testify to their commitment to open-mindedness, imagination, global thinking, curiosity, creativity, possibility thinking, tolerance, and the courage to innovate.

"Charles Kettering, one of America's most prolific inventors, who became Vice President of General Motors and founded the Sloan-Kettering Institute, believed that our culture stifles innovation rather than stimulates it. According to Kettering,

'Human beings are so constituted as to see what is wrong with a new thing, not what is right. To verify this, you have only to submit a new idea to a committee. They will obliterate ninety percent of rightness for the sake of ten percent of wrongness. The possibilities a new idea opens up are not recognized, because not one [person] in a thousand has any imagination.'

Kettering also admonished the engineers on his staff, "Problems are the price of progress. Don't bring me anything but problems. Good news weakens me."

"My colleagues sometimes describe me as 'constitutionally incapable of specializing in one thing per lifetime.' They often say 'His specialty seems to be the lack of a specialty.' On most days, I take that as a rather high compliment — although it has made building a career somewhat more challenging than it otherwise might have been.

"Science fiction writer and futurist Robert Heinlein declared,

'A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.'

"I believe that intelligent, talented, and motivated people can do more than one thing well. When we turn our minds to new challenges — in a spirit of humility and willingness to learn — we might even outsmart the encamped experts who know what can't be done. The Zen master Shunryu Suzuki said,

'In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few. The most important thing an expert needs to learn is how to think like a beginner.'

"Big-idea thinking has always been in short supply, and we need it now more than ever. Too many executives are mired in the nuts and bolts of their operations to provide the kind of grand vision and inspiration that are critically needed in these confusing times. Too many entrepreneurs are trapped in the minutiae, working 'in the business' and not 'on the business.' Too many social sector leaders and public service leaders are caught up in politics and procedures. We can get the big things done if we set our minds to the challenges."  ~ Himself

What I've Done and What I Can Do for You