Myers as an artist and musician who had consulted with businesses through the Myers Institute for Creative Studies; Ray as a social psychologist and business professor who started bringing creativity into classes in the early sixties. We had each repeatedly observed that without the involvement of some very deep personal sources of creativity, idea-generating techniques used alone could produce confusion - or at best, short-term gains. As with the proverbial Chinese meal, an hour later and you’re hungry again.

After receiving my Ph.D. in 1974, I left Utah with a nice little list of innovations under my belt, but I was keenly aware that I’d only done all this in the service of a larger mutual goal. Like my classmates, the work I’d championed had taken hold largely because of the protective, eclectic, intensely challenging environment I’d been in. The leaders of my department understood that to create a fertile laboratory, they had to assemble different kinds of thinkers and then encourage their autonomy. They had to offer feedback when needed but also had to be willing to stand back and give us room.

I felt embarrassed and afraid that my colleagues wouldn’t keep me on the research team. My thoughts spiraled out to what I would do next, after dropping out of graduate school. This unhelpful reaction points to why each of us must learn how to take a deep breath, think again, and hypothesize anew. That simple self-management task is part of the science of failing well.

I carried my bug book with me all the time, making notes when I’d notice things about the bug named Jim. Then, one day, I had a turning point in discovering my encodings. I was asked to research, learn, and teach the team about networked personal computing and its strategic implications for HP. I became enthralled with researching and trying to understand something big and new. And even more, I found myself entranced with the challenge of how to convert my understanding into digestible concepts. I’d started to discover an encoding that would animate me for the rest of my life: the ability to take a mass of information and make sense of it, to go from “chaos to concept.” Then came the day of epiphany, when I got to share my learnings with our internal team. I discovered that I had a peculiar capability for packaging and teaching concepts to other people in ways that would stick.

My attempts to mold him failed, and I felt increasingly frustrated. He thought I’d fire him. Fortunately, for him and me, I began to grasp that he had not failed me; rather, I had failed him by putting him in a role out of frame with his encodings. Furthermore, I felt somewhat responsible for his future; I did not want to see this wonderful young man start his professional life getting fired. So, I began making a series of iterative steps, testing him with different tasks that drew upon what I sensed to be his intellectual gifts, and he showed signs of flourishing.