Monday, August 26, 2019

The Psychology of Persuasion



Parallel form of human automatic action is aptly demonstrated in an experiment by Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langer. A well known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason.People simply like to have reasons for what they do. Langer demonstrated this unsurprising fact by asking a small favor of people waiting in line to use a library copying machine:  There was a queue for the copying machine. The experimenter asked if they could go in front of someone. The likelihood of being given permission to queue-jump depended on how the request was phrased:
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” (a meaningful reason) –  The effectiveness of this request-plus-reason was nearly total: 94%  of those asked let her skip ahead of them in line.
Compare this success rate to the results when she made the request only:
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” (no reason) – 60% of those asked let her skip ahead of them in line.
At first glance, it appears that the crucial difference between the first request was the additional information provided by the words “because I’m in a rush.” But a third type of request tried by Langer showed that this was not the case. It seems that it was not the whole series of words, but the first one, “because,” that made the difference. Instead of including a real reason for compliance, Langer’s third type of request used the word “because” and then, adding nothing new,merely restated the obvious: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies? ". The result was that once again nearly all (93 percent) agreed, even though no real reason, no new information, was added to justify their compliance.

 “Just Because” 

When we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. 
Credits : “ Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini (Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University).
Share:

Thursday, August 22, 2019

The World's "Greatest Goal Achiever"

"To dare is to do ... to fear is to fail."  ~ John Goddard - The man who did it all 
John Goddard is the man who lived a life of no regrets, he is  most known for his amazing “Life List” of accomplishments. At the age of fifteen John Goddard listed 127 goals he wished to experience or achieve in his lifetime. The list is impressive and audacious, but the results have been truly incredible.
One rainy afternoon an inspired 15-year-old boy named John Goddard sat down at his kitchen table in Los Angeles and wrote three words at the top of a yellow pad: “My Life List.” Under that heading he wrote down 127 goals. Since then he has completed most of those goals. Look at the list of Goddard’s goals that appears below. These are not simple or easy goals. They include climbing the world’s major mountains, exploring vast waterways, running a mile in five minutes, reading the complete works of Shakespeare and reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. The goals completed are listed here.. ( https://www.johngoddard.info/life_list.htm) .
 "There are many wonderful things that will never be done if you do not do them."  ~Charles D. Gill
Credits:

1. https://www.chickensoup.com/book-story/36235/another-check-mark-on-the-list



Share:

Friday, August 16, 2019

WILL I BE BROKEN, OR WILL I PREVAIL?



 Men are born soft and supple;
dead, they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant;
dead, they are brittle and dry.
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.
The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.

—LAO TZU,  (Tao Te Ching, chapter 76, )

When chosen effectively, an identity can be flexible rather than  brittle. Like water flowing around an obstacle, your identity works with the changing circumstances rather than against them.  Lao Tzu talks about the cycle of life. When we were born, we were soft and supple. It is the same way with all living things. Even plants are born tender and pliant. But, then, we go through the cycle of life; we grow, we mature, we die. This is nature. Nature’s cycle of life. When you die, you become stiff and hard. When plants die, they become brittle and dry. Once again, that is the way of nature. (translation by Stephen Mitchell)
Be soft and be immortal.
Be the bully and be destroyed.
How many times must this lesson be taught?  ( translation by Jeremy M. Miller, 2013)

Credits:

Share:

The Number 1 Golden Rule To Stay Highly Motivated : The Goldilocks Rule

“The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.” 


The above figure explains that maximum motivation occurs when facing a challenge of just manageable difficulty. In psychology research this is known as the Yerkes–Dodson law, which describes the optimal level of arousal as the midpoint between boredom and anxiety/failure.
.
Elon Musk studied battery technology for more than a decade before starting Tesla. Twelve foolish publishers turned down J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter manuscript before someone agreed to pay her an advance of just £1,500 for the book that would become an international blockbuster.

Steve Martin’s comedy career is an excellent example of the Goldilocks Rule in practice. Each year, he expanded his comedy routine—but only by a minute or two. He was always adding new material, but he also kept a few jokes that were guaranteed to get laughs. There were just enough victories to keep him motivated and just enough mistakes to keep him working hard. When you’re starting a new habit, it’s important to keep the behavior as easy as possible so you can stick with it even when conditions aren’t perfect.

Two steps to motivation : If we want to break down the mystery of how to stay motivated for the long-term, we could simply say:
1. Stick to The Goldilocks Rule and work on tasks of just manageable difficulty.
2. Measure your progress and receive immediate feedback whenever possible.

Wanting to improve your life is easy. Sticking with it is a different story. If you want to stay motivated for good, then start with a challenge that is just manageable, measure your progress and repeat the process.

Credits :
1.  “Atomic Habits” by James Clear

2. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279109
3. https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/follow-this-1-rule-to-maintain-peak-motivation.html
Share:

Sunday, July 21, 2019

That's one small step for a man


-Neil  Armstrong ,Apollo 11 astronaut - the first person to walk on the Moon.

July 20, 2019, was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing when American astronaut Neil  Armstrong became the first person ever to plant boots on the dusty lunar surface.
Buzz Aldrin followed Armstrong about 20 minutes later on the moon wrote in his 2014 AMA….
"In all previous missions, if someone, a crew member, was to spacewalk, it was always the junior person, not the space commander who would stay inside" .

At least one team at NASA thought the junior person should go out first, Aldrin wrote, "but many people felt the great symbology of the commander [taking that responsibility]."
So Armstrong climbed down the ladder onto the moon's surface, shortly followed by his now-famous "one small step" line.

"The decision that was made was absolutely correct as far as who went out first, symbolically" .-Aldrin'


But how “ CHOOSING THE FIRST MAN ON THE MOON” happened..

The decision was taken by Deke  Slayton (NASA's first Chief of the Astronaut Office and Director of Flight Crew Operations, and was responsible for NASA crew assignments) on a pure protocol basis and Bob Gilruth( first director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center)  approved the same. Neither Armstrong pull his rank ,nor his opinion was asked and It was also fine with Aldrin  if it was to be Neil.

No one can argue that technologically stepping on the moon by a man is a gaint leap for mankind. From a managerial perspective it shows how successful orgnisations work and function. What is to be observed is the simple way to decide and procedure of implementations of the decisions. Such small step of decision making and implementation in an organization  make them a giant one like NASA.

-Credits:
https://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-8-7.html

https://www.businessinsider.in/The-Surprising-Reason-Neil-Armstrong-And-Not-Buzz-Aldrin-Was-The-First-Person-On-The-Moon/articleshow/38628778.cms

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2a5vg8/i_am_buzz_aldrin_engineer_american_astronaut_and/

Share:

Saturday, July 6, 2019

Addition by Subtraction



"Addition by Subtraction" is a phrase used by coaches to mean that sometimes your team can get better not by adding more talent, but by shedding some people or practices that are interfering with or inhibiting your success.

In his book “Atomic Habits” author  James Clear mentioned about  an article published in the New Yorker titled “Better All the Time,” where in James Suroweicki writes: “Japanese firms emphasized what came to be known as ‘lean production,’ relentlessly looking to remove waste of all kinds from the production process, down to redesigning workspaces, so workers didn’t have to waste time twisting and turning to reach their tools. The result was that Japanese factories were more efficient and Japanese products were more reliable than American ones. In 1974, service calls for American-made color televisions were five times as common as for Japanese televisions. By 1979, it took American workers three times as long to assemble their sets.”

This strategy can be stated as addition by subtraction. The Japanese companies looked for every point of friction in the manufacturing process and eliminated it. As they subtracted wasted effort, they added customers and revenue. Similarly, when we remove the points of friction that sap our time and energy, we can achieve more with less effort. “

On personal front one has  to identify those habits and shed those daily routines which spoil the health,wealth and peace of mind even if they are providing the pleasure and joy.

Some companies ,sport teams , organizations  have to adopt this strategy well before the game is over for them ,they have to shed those people (even if they are super stars) if they interfere with the success of a team , company or organization.


“1 Rule All Leaders Should Practice: Addition By Subtraction, As a manager, entrepreneur or CEO, you have to move bad people out. Only then can your company truly achieve growth and success. “ - By Tom Gimbel ,Founder and CEO, LaSalle Network. Read more @ -https://www.inc.com/tom-gimbel/1-rule-all-leaders-should-practice-addition-by-subtraction.html

Share:

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Strategy of the aggregation of marginal gains …


Since 1908, British riders had won just a single gold medal at the Olympic Games, and they had fared even worse in cycling’s biggest race, the Tour de France. In 110 years, no British cyclist had ever won the event. In fact, the performance of British riders had been so underwhelming that one of the top bike manufacturers in Europe refused to sell bikes to the team because they were afraid that it would hurt sales if other professionals saw the Britsh using their gear.

It is worth spending some time and analyse how British cyclists turned things around and achieved which British could not do in last 100 years. The history and outcome is available in the following link


The fortunes of  British Cycling changed one day in 2003. The organization, which was the governing body for professional cycling in Great Britain, had recently hired Dave Brailsford as its new performance director. At the time, professional cyclists in Great Britain had endured nearly one hundred years of mediocrity.

Just five years after Brailsford took over, the British Cycling team dominated the road and track cycling events at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where they won an astounding 60 percent of the gold medals available. Four years later, when the Olympic Games came to London, the Brits raised the bar as they set nine Olympic records and seven world records.That same year, Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. The next year, his teammate Chris Froome won the race, and he would go on to win again in 2015, 2016, and 2017, giving the British team five Tour de France victories in six years.During the ten-year span from 2007 to 2017, British cyclists won 178 world championships and sixty-six Olympic or Paralympic gold medals and captured five Tour de France victories in what is widely regarded as the most successful run in cycling history.

How does this happen? How does a team of previously ordinary  athletes transform into world champions with tiny changes that, at first glance, would seem to make a modest difference at best? Why do small improvements accumulate into such remarkable results,and how can you replicate this approach in your own life?

It is all due to “the aggregation of marginal gains” Strategy

 Brailsford had been hired to put British Cycling on a new trajectory. What made him different from previous coaches was his relentless commitment to a strategy that he referred to as “the aggregation of marginal gains,” which was the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. 

Brailsford said, “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.” Brailsford and his coaches began by making small adjustments  you might expect from a professional cycling team. They redesigned the bike seats to make them more comfortable and rubbed alcohol  on the tires for a better grip. They asked riders to wear electrically heated overshorts to maintain ideal muscle temperature while riding and used biofeedback sensors to monitor how each athlete responded to a particular workout. The team tested various fabrics in a wind tunnel and had their outdoor riders switch to indoor racing suits, which proved to be lighter and more aerodynamic.But they didn’t stop there. Brailsford and his team continued to find 1 percent improvements in overlooked and unexpected areas. They tested different types of massage gels to see which one led to the fastest muscle recovery. They hired a surgeon to teach each rider the best way to wash their hands to reduce the chances of catching a cold. They determined the type of pillow and mattress that led to the best night’s sleep for each rider. They even painted the inside of the  team truck white, which helped them spot little bits of dust that would normally slip by unnoticed but could degrade the performance of the finely tuned bikes. As these and hundreds of other small improvements accumulated, the results came faster than anyone could have imagined.

Source: “Atomic Habits” by James Clear

One can call this a compound effect, kaizen or strategy of the aggregation of marginal gains the results are going to come with much higher probability in a faster manner than one could guess.




Share:

Friday, June 28, 2019

You get in life what you tolerate





When you’re creating an environment to support your goals, remember that you get in life what you tolerate.

This is true in every area of your life—particularly within your relationships with family, friends, and colleagues. What you have decided to tolerate is also reflected in the situations and circumstances of your life right now. Put another way, you will get  in life what you accept and expect you are worthy of. If you tolerate disrespect, you will be disrespected. If you tolerate people being late and making you wait, people will show up late for you. If you tolerate being underpaid and  overworked, that will continue for you. If you tolerate your body being overweight, tired, and perpetually sick, it will be. It’s amazing how life will organize around the standards you set for yourself. Some people think they’re the victims of other people’s behavior, but in actuality, we have control over how  people treat us. Protect your emotional, mental, and physical space so you can live with peace, rather than in the chaos and stress the world will hurl upon you.

Source: “The Compound Effect”  by Darren Hardy 



Share:

Monday, June 24, 2019

Is it always not necessary to make it to the TOP?

Infamous Traffic Jam on Mount Everest ,Photo Credit : Climber Nirmal Purja, 19th May 2109

In an interview to Times of India Vamini Sethi who attempted the climb Mount Everest too caught in the jam and decided to return after making it to within 500m of the peak said “ For me , my life matterred most than the summit; many don’t understand that. And she said  successful summit involves you coming back in one piece, safe and sound. At the airport and official who saw my bags and Everest T shirt asked me if I made it to the top. I told him I couldn't. He showed me two names on a sheet. He said ‘Both their bodies are going on the same flight as you. They have made it to the top. You made it here’ . That send shivers down my spine, but it also reassured me that I made the right call’’.

Every one has  their own Mount Everest to  in their life to climb.

Think whether is it really essential to make it to to the top of every Mount Everest you are climbing in life  ? Are you prepared well?

Give a thought is it always necessary to make it to the top .

Source: Times of India



Share: