170 THE CREATIVE INVESTMENT TEAM
The problem in the fast-paced investment world is that we get
stuck in the closed mode. We are always being asked to do more
with less. We always have deadlines. The markets are always hec-
tic. The pace is frantic. The mind races—and, as Theodore Roethke
said, “A mind too active is no mind at all.” The stress levels tend
to freeze us in repetitive patterns. Jack Treynor, an original thinker
in the investment world, has an opinion on this. Jack notes about
our habitual behavior that “patterns in the way active managers
manage tend to become grooves—irrespective of their merits”
(“Zero Sum,” Financial Analyst Journal, Jan./Feb. 1994). In other
words, investors get stuck in ruts. Art Zeikel, formerly of Merrill
Lynch, makes a similar point in an article in the Financial Analyst
Journal (“Organizing for Creativity,” Nov./Dec. 1983). He says that
professional investors go to the same schools, read the same books
and reports, and follow the same valuation guidelines, so it’s no
wonder that they tend to reach the same conclusions—and tend to
get the same mediocre results.
How do we as investors learn to change gears? How do we
train ourselves to tap into the benefits of the open mode?
As with most change, the first step is awareness. We need to
understand that there are two modes, and we need to be aware of
the importance of the open mode. Edward Jenner never would have
discovered the vaccine for smallpox if he had focused only on sick
people. His research with them was getting him nowhere. Fortu-
nately, he was able to shift to the open mode and notice that dairy
maids never contracted smallpox. This led him to the hypothesis
that they were somehow protected against the disease. In fact, most
of them had contracted the harmless cowpox, which then conferred
immunity from the deadly smallpox.
Jenner’s success resulted from his capacity to try something
different. He did not endlessly repeat an unsuccessful pattern. He
interrupted it and tried a new and—as it turned out—successful
approach. In our high-speed world, it is increasingly difficult to
slow down and see things anew. Einstein himself said that he wasn’t14-25 ware 170 1/19/01, 1:15 PM