Innovation/Global Risk

Innovator: If the Duckling Can Do It – You Can Too!

By Shlomo Maital

 

 

 duckling leaps into the unknown – 30 m.

A BBC nature documentary, Planet Earth, has wonderful footage of birds, animals and plant life.  In one of the episodes, a female mandarin duck nests high in a tree, 30 meters above the forest floor. Her ducklings hatch. The mother duck leaves the nest, flies to the ground – and calls to them!  The ducklings must leap from the nest, to reach their mother, and land on the forest floor, and when they do she will lead them to the lake and to food.  One by one, the ducklings take the leap into the unknown. They cannot fly.  And they land hard. But amazingly, these balls of fluff bounce up, and follow their mother.  They all make it, including the last one, who seems fearful and hesitant – but this is a leap of life, because to remain alone in the nest is to die. 

   Innovation is like the ducklings’ leap of faith.  We don’t really know what lies in store, nor can we know.  We have faith in our own abilities and in the skills of those who leap with us.  We know that others have taken the leap before us, and many have survived.  And we know that the consequences of not taking the leap is to live, in a kind of death, without ever knowing if we could have made the leap successfully – a gnawing doubt that may be worse than death. 

    Check out the leap of the flying ducklings on the Internet.  Think of them when you face a key decision.  Take the leap.  The landing is softer than you think. The ducklings land on beds of soft leaves. The mother duck knows this.  Evolution has taught her that this is her best chance to reproduce and raise live ducklings.  Evolution has taught the ducklings that the best way to survive is to trust their mother and leap. 

     The little flying duckling reminds us that in the end, life is about whom to trust – ourselves, and those we love.   I wish I had seen that little duckling’s leap much earlier in my career.