Do you teach this one important life skill every innovator had to your child?

We often look at something but rarely see it. We often listen but rarely hear; we often touch a thing without feeling it. When will we notice things deeply?    When we actively engage in the world with full consciousness, we start noticing the tiniest details.

When American Express chairmen went to Europe, he saw that travelers have a tough time in encasing the cheque of banks. While every executive looked at this, he only saw it and came up with the idea of Traveller’s cheque.

George Crum, a chef at a New York hotel is known for potato fries. One day a customer irritated him by keeping on sending back the fried potatoes saying that they are not crispy enough. He took the incident with curiosity and made the slices as thin as possible, friend them and doused with salt. Thus the potato chip was born from deep observation. The chef converted an incident into an opportunity by seeing the customer need.

So how teenagers can develop this important skill of active engagement and curious observation?

Let us do a simple experiment and learn from that.

Choose a place of your choice. It can be a busy marketplace, street, park, woods, garden, and restaurant, anything of your choice. Sit or walk with at most concentration without using your mobile or talking. Just observe the outside world. At the end of the hour, note down your observation using the following form. Try to recollect your observation. Repeat the same exercise after a week and note down the details again. Check yourself about your improvement in observation.  Write to us for any queries and for knowing how to take the next step in improving this important observation skill.

Download the tool for observation skill development

Author

MANIKANDAN S T

Designing the Learning Experience

Mentor at Miyav Kids