Monday, December 25, 2017

Design Thinking Resources #1: Overall process

This collection of resources is a response to the following question I get in my Design Thinking workshop: Please suggest some articles / books / videos for us for further study. Hence, the list is biased by what I cover in my workshops. I also carry a bias for stories which highlight the iterative nature of the design thinking process and bring out learning from failures.

    1.      Stanford D-School Resources: I have been benefited by the Stanford D-school Resources site which contains a rich set of resources: For example, check out the toolkit called The Bootcamp Bootleg and also you can go through a 1-hour short introductory online course called a Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking.

2.      ABC Nightline - IDEO Shopping cart: While this 8 minutes video is more than 15 years old, I feel it gives a good overview of the overall process. For example, the importance of going on the street and talking to customers/experts in actual context, fail fast principle, prototyping, testing with real customers, etc. The video stops at 2 iterations and that’s too few to tell us more about what happened next. For example, it doesn’t tell us whether it reached a point of getting significant investment. Moreover, some of the aspects such as the diversity of the team involved and the open culture of the organization may not be replicable in your context. Despite these limitations, it is still my favorite video for a beginner. IDEO folks like Tom Kelly, David Kelly, and Tim Brown have also written books on Design Thinking which are easy to read, full of examples and pictures. E.g. The art of innovation by Tom Kelley, The ten faces of innovation by Tom KelleyCreative confidence by Tom and David Kelley, Change by design by Tim Brown.  In case you like to listen to interviews, here is a good one from Tom Kelley on what design thinking is. 

3.      A watch for everyone including blind: Here is a good interview titled “How to build an end-user profile” of Hyungsoon Kim that highlights the importance of empathy and rapid prototyping in the journey of problem and solution discovery. In this interview, Kim gives more insights on the process he followed as the Founder of Eone in designing a watch for everyone including blind people. The interview starts around 1:42 in the video. I like the display of physical prototypes Kim created in this journey to get feedback from users at around 6:00 in the video. around You may also like Kim’s TEDx talk “Designing a watch for everyone”. Eone watch went through crowdsourcing process on kickstarter and is a successful product in the market. So if you like success stories, this is a good example. Kim has also written the product story in the article: How your product can benefit from user feedback.

4.      Husk Power Systems: In the Indian context, the story set in Bihar and narrated by Gyanesh Pandey is one of my favourites for following reasons: (1) It brings out the role of empathy in identification of a challenge area (2) It presents how the framing of challenge undergoes shifts as the awareness of the context grows – it is difficult to get the problem definition right when you are far off from the context (3) It highlights the role of experimentation in technology as well as business model (4) It shows how regulatory changes may have a huge influence on the business. The story of Husk Power is still unfolding after a decade of inception. Here is a 2015 NDTV interview of Manoj Sinha, a co-founder of HPS on how HPS is adapting to the solar energy wave in India and the creation of hybrid model.

5.      Addressing malnutrition in Vietnam: I feel that complex issues such as poverty, malnutrition, poor quality of education need an inside out approach. This means that the seeds of the solution need to come from the same context where the problem exists and the participation of the community plays a crucial role in experimenting, scaling and sustaining a change. This approach was championed by Jerry Sternin and highlighted by the story of how he and the local community addressed the malnutrition problem in Vietnam. Jerry Sternin has written a book, “The power of Positive Deviance” which presents the philosophy and the case studies.

6.      Infinite vision: “Eradicating needless blindness” may sound like an intimidating challenge especially in a country like India. However, Dr. Venkataswamy pursued this challenge for thirty years and created a world class hospital with empathy and experimentation deeply ingrained in its culture. The book “Infinite vision” by Pavithra Mehta and Suchitra Shenoy brings the Aravind Eye Care story to life. If you prefer a video, check out “Infinite vision: Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy”. (duration: 34:57). If you like a short introduction, check out: Aravind Eye Hospital (duration: 6:08). If you want to get an idea of how Aravind innovates, the book is the best resource.

7.      40 Design Thinking success stories: This is a collection of 40 stories related to Design Thinking collated by The Accidental Design Thinker. They are categorized into various sectors such as: Consumer packaged goods, Education, Financial Services, Heathcare, Journalism, Non-profits/NGOs, Retail, Technology, Transportation, Self-improvement. This categorization may help you find a story closer to your context. It is not clear what is the basis for calling a story successful and even if it is a success story, I would not jump to conclusion that the success was primarily due to Design Thinking. So please apply your own judgment.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

What is “Putting everything in its right place” according to Jiddu Krishnamurti?


I am currently visiting my wife in the beautiful campus of Sahyadri School located on top of Tiwai Hill about 70km north of Pune (The picture above is a view from the K-study center here). It is an ideal place to read, reflect and be with nature. This article is an outcome of reflection on one of the things Jiddu Krishnamurti (JK), the inspiration behind this school, said in a dialogue – the whole thing is “Putting everything in its right place. Once you put it in the right place, it is finished!” i.e. there is no more conflict in life. That sounds magical! How can conflict in all forms: worry, anxiety, anger, jealousy, frustration etc. vanish forever if one just puts things in its right place? There must be some catch in it.  Here is an attempt to demystify the magic.

I came across this conversation in “A dialogue between Krishnamurti and three scientists” from the book “A Jewel on a Silver Platter: Remembering Jiddu Krishnamurti” by Padmanabhan Krishna (PK). The dialogue occurred on August 28, 1977 between JK, and three scientists: PK, who was then a Professor of Physics at Banaras Hindu University, Asit Chandmal (AC) who was then working as a Computer Scientist in the US and David Bohm (DB) who was then a Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck College in London.

Here is an excerpt from the dialogue. I have omitted some lines and kept the necessary ones for brevity. For full conversation, please refer to the book.
AC: So, the whole thing is putting everything in its right place?

JK: Yes. 
AC: Thought in its right place, money, food, sex, - 
JK: Everything! Sir, look! If you put your socks and your trousers and your shirts, all jumbled up, it takes time to fetch the socks: but suppose, you put socks in the right place, coat in the right place and so on, you are free of the botheration. You go to it directly, you don’t waste energy. So, if you put everything in order inwardly, you conserve energy! 
AC: All such things have a tendency to go out of place and it’s only a constant clear perception of it which keeps it in its right place. 
JK: You don’t have to do it constantly. Once you put it in the right place it is finished! 
AC: Yes, but you put them on and you put them back in the right place. 
JK: Of course! Follow that up slowly. Not only physically, your handkerchiefs, your ties, your books, food, and all that, but also can you put everything in order psychologically? Put them in their place? You can’t! Because it’s such a vast jumble! So, as long as there is anything accumulated psychologically – hmm? – there can be no order inside, Right?
What is meant by psychological accumulation? Here is what JK says in another place (Ojai, 6th Public talk, 17th April 1977):
You know, our brain is registering almost everything, the noise, the words which are being used – it is registering like a tape. Now, is it possible for the brain not to register except that which is absolutely necessary? Why should I register your insult? Why? Why should I register your flattery? It is unnecessary. Why should I register any hurts? Unnecessary. Therefore, register only that which is necessary in order to operate in daily life – as a technician, a writer, and so on but psychologically, do not register anything else.
Now, imagine hangers in your wardrobe where you hang shirts, trousers, ties etc. What JK is hinting at perhaps is that there is an imaginary hanger called “me” in the mental wardrobe where we hang insults, hurts, flattery etc. A flattery would make the wardrobe look shinier and an insult would make it look duller. And that automatically triggers action that would keep the wardrobe shining in future. What if that hanger is more like a rainbow – almost like a holographic image of a hanger? Imagine hanging things on a rainbow. It doesn't make sense. It would end up triggering actions which are meaningless. 

Can you observe and check it for yourself? Can you observe your brain registering an insult or a hurt or a flattery? And if so, investigate if it is serving any useful purpose?

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Why does Ishiguro say Stevens the butler is a monster?

Remains of the day” is this year’s Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro’s one of the famous novels. It is about a buttoned-up British butler, Stevens, looking back at his life towards the end of his career. The character is beautifully depicted by Anthony Hopkins in the movie also titled “Remains of the day”. Throughout his work as a butler, Stevens had placed higher value on professional duties than on personal feelings and served his employer faithfully. Hence, I was surprised when Ishiguro referred to this mild mannered character as a kind of monster in a conversation with a fellow writer. Why would Ishiguro say that? Let’s see in this article.

Ishiguro’s comment comes in a conversation published in New Statesman (June 2015) with the writer Neil Gaiman titled “Let’s talk about genre”. Here is what Ishiguro says:

Creating an incredibly stuffy English butler in The Remains of the Day, I was very aware that I was taking something that I recognised to be a very small, negative set of impulses in myself – the fear of getting hurt in love, or that urge to just say, “I don’t want to figure out the political implications or the moral implications of my job, I’m just going to get on with my tiny patch”; those kinds of little urges we all recognise in ourselves – taking those and exaggerating them, and turning them into a kind of monstrous manifestation. The butler doesn’t look like a conventional monster, but I always thought that he was a kind of monster.
He then quotes a line from a fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman:

I’m reminded of something Lettie says in The Ocean at the End of the Lane: “Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are things people are scared of. Some of them are things that look like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometimes monsters are things people should be scared of, but they aren’t.”

In case of Stevens, the butler, Ishiguro is referring to the last category – monsters are things people should be scared of, but they aren’t. Now, what does Stevens do that qualifies him as a monster of this kind? This is 1920s and 30s. Stevens’ boss Lord Darlington doesn’t like the way the Germany gets treated after the defeat in the First World War. Hence, he is sympathetic towards Germans. He wants to help them. In the process, without fully aware of what he might be doing, he ends up supporting the Nazi movement. Stevens is the central character when it comes to taking care of all the guests at the Darlington Hall. He is not bothered what kind of political meeting is taking place at the Hall; he is doing his job with utmost faith. In fact, he believes that the real dignity of a butler lies in doing the job well by paying attention to every detail and keeping his employer happy. Of course, his boss is supporting a monstrous act and Stevens consciously ignores it. That makes him a supporter of a monstrous act and hence a monster himself.

In another interview titled “The texture of memory”, Ishiguro explains that butler is used as a metaphor here. There is a butler in each of us. Here is how he explains it:

In some political and moral ways, most of us are butlers (2:30). By that I mean, even in democratic countries, we find ourselves oddly far removed from the real power. Most of us do jobs – good jobs, little jobs. But most of us don’t run countries or multinational corporations. We fit in somewhere, if we are lucky, and we learn to do a little job and try to do it to the best of our abilities. Usually we offer up our contribution to somebody upstairs. We hope that the contribution is going to be used well. But we often can’t be sure. We offer it up to a company, or an employer, or may be a cause or a country. But in that sense we are all rather like butlers. So I was attracted to this figure who wanted to be so good at being a butler; everything was about serving his employer. But he thought it was beyond him to question how his contribution is being used. That leaves us all open to discovering at some stage that perhaps we contributed to something we don’t particularly approve of. But for most us that is our fate. We live in small worlds.

Once we get busy polishing up our image to fit into a system, we are lost in our small world. We systematically, without being aware of it, are ignoring to see the bigger picture. And once we are lost in our small world, the world made up of a set of beliefs and values, we are a victim of self-deception. We are creating stories, elaborate stories, to justify our acts and our existence. People trapped in self-deception are potentially monsters. Who knows what they may end up supporting? Be careful, you may be a monster too.

image source: en.wikipedia.org

Friday, December 1, 2017

Why does Daniel Kahneman refuse to advise individuals?

I have been a big fan of Daniel Kahneman and his work for over a decade. And the admiration has only grown over the years. However, there is an aspect of his position that puzzles me. Kahneman has been consistent in saying that his work on biases, beautifully captured in “Thinking, fast and slow”, is not of much use to individuals. Because, he feels, his thirty years of research hasn’t helped him become better at decision making. And yet, I find Kahneman demonstrates high degree awareness of potential biases in his thinking while answering interview questions. Isn’t that awareness an important element of good decision making? And could that be a result of internalizing his work? So, why does he refuse to advise individuals? I would like to explore it in this article.

 First, let’s see Kahneman’s position – Here is an excerpt from his interview for Council on Foreign Relations streamed live on April 18, 2017  (video embedded at the end of the article) – he was asked (15:41):
Q: You have people in this room who make a lot of important decisions, consequential decisions every day. So tell them how to improve their own decision making. We are going to do a little self-help here. How do they improve their own decisions?

Kahneman: When you talk to an individual, I refuse to answer that question. Because how little studying this problem has done for the quality of my decisions.

Q: You don’t think you make better decisions after the last thirty years?

Kahneman: No.
And then he turns to discuss organizations and how they can improve their decision making. And leaves the question of helping individual decision maker unaddressed.

Why does Kahneman refuse to advise individuals? We get some idea as he explains how he sees our thought process works in the beginning of the same interview (1:10). He says:
The claim in the book is that we are conscious of our conscious thoughts, we are conscious of our deliberations. Most of what happens in our mind, happens silently. And the most important things in our mind happen silently. We are just aware of the result, we are not aware of the process. The processes that we are aware of tend to be deliberative and sequential. But the associative network that lies behind all that and that brings ideas forward into consciousness, we are not really aware of.
Since we are aware of only the result and not the process, how could we ever improve our decision making? The cognitive biases that we carry are perhaps so deep rooted and intertwined with our memories in such a complex networked way that we have no access and know-how of improving them. Having said that, I find Kahneman himself extremely conscious of his potentially biased thinking process. For example, when someone asked him (26:20), “Do you feel good history is possible or are we doomed to confirmation bias?” Kahneman begins his answer by saying, “It is hard for me as an outsider to define what good history would be like.” That’s accepting ignorance of the definition of good history upfront. When someone else asked him (42:50), “Does diversity make for better decision making?”  He begins by saying, “Well, I really have no expertise in that and I am relying not even on primary sources…” and then gives a view. That’s admitting lack of expertise upfront. Later on while addressing a question on climate change denial (50:30), he admits that he believes in climate change because he believes in National Academy of Sciences which, in turn, believes in climate change. So his belief is based on what people he trusts believe in. It is an example of a Nobel Laureate scientist explaining the non-scientific manner in which his belief system works.

Now, this self-doubt is evident in not just one interview but all of Kahneman’s interviews that I have watched. And I have watched at least half a dozen hour long interviews. This kind of checking the quantity and quality of information before giving an answer is a hallmark of his thinking process. His intuitive answers may be susceptible to biases but his alertness about the possibility of a bias is very strong. And it is hard to believe that it is not influenced by his work.

Of course, interviews may not be a stressful situation for Kahneman. And, as he says in his book, the real test of your alertness is in stressful situations. He mentions in the book – “Questioning your intuitions is unpleasant when you face the stress of a big decision. More doubt is the last thing you want when you are in trouble.” So perhaps I am generalizing about Kahneman’s thinking process based on how he answers interview questions. And that may not be correct generalization.

I differ from Kahneman in following way. I feel that I may not be aware of the exact biases taking place in my fast, automatic, intuitive thinking process. However, if I carry awareness that it could be wrong due to inherent biases, that’s enough for creating an opening to listen to other views. And “Thinking, fast and slow” carries the potential to send that message to individuals. And it’s possible to cultivate alertness even in stressful situations. At least, that’s my experience. And, of course, I could be wrong!



Image source: YouTube video embedded above

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Testing a mindfulness hypothesis #1: Why does he always lie to me?


I feel that mindfulness is more of an investigation through the medium of awareness than just a practice. If so, then the question is: investigation into what? This is where mindfulness hypothesis comes to picture. Perhaps there are several versions of hypothesis that can be investigated. In this article, we take one version of the hypothesis and explore how it can be tested. The hypothesis is: Behind every sustained negative emotion, there is a cognitive illusion.

Let’s see if we can understand the terms in the hypothesis first. What’s a negative emotion? Anger, frustration, anxiety, stress, blame, guilt are some of the forms in which a negative emotion manifests. Whenever we carry a negative emotion, it feels heavier. In the absence of negative emotion, we feel lighter, we smile more etc. What’s a cognitive illusion? It
is a sustained gap between perception and reality. We are all familiar with optical illusions e.g. see the picture of Necker cube on the side. It has two ways in which it protrudes out – to the left and to the right. At a time, you can see only one of the two – not both. And whichever way you see, that’s what feels real. This is an example of an optical illusion. Similarly, we may feel one person right and the other person wrong in a situation and it could also be, like Necker cube, an illusion. You feel, one person is right because you see it only one way. A cognitive illusion typically involves misattribution – an incorrect cause-and-effect relationship created by thought process.

Let’s take an example that came up in my workshop. Whenever someone close to me (spouse or a close friend) lies to me – then I get upset. And when the person lies repeatedly, then I get mad. Now, mindfulness hypothesis says that since there is a negative emotion involved here (getting upset and mad), there is a cognitive illusion lurking behind. How would one begin to investigate into this situation? Note that before any such investigation can begin, a doubt should be entertained first, “Could I be wrong?” In the absence of this doubt, there is no beginning.  

Perhaps it would help to see how we learn about a magician’s magic. If you watch a YouTube video of a magician, and see the comments from viewers, many times, you will see people pointing out specific time e.g. 2:29 where the magician is doing some sleight of hand (e.g. see this blog on Penn and Teller Fool Us). Of course, if you watch the video in regular speed, it is difficult to see the trick. But if we run the video in slow motion then it becomes easier to see. Similarly, is there a way we can run the story in slow motion and check the “sleight of hand” of the thought?

One way to do this is to simulate the situation – in this case – spouse or friend lying to me – when I am seated in a cosy environment – say drinking a cup of coffee at home and see if the anger still simmers up. Watch how the tape of how he is doing this on purpose is playing again and again and how that still upsets us. This happens in spite of the fact that it is coming purely from memory. This simulation may help us see that springing up of a negative emotion may be an automatic process – almost mechanical.

Once we see this automaticity (if we see it), then we can ask the next question: Can the thought that led to my friend’s behaviour of lying to me be also an automatic response? How do I know if there was a choice involved? Some of these questions might lead us to observe the compulsions under which all of us are trapped. And we may see the futility of holding him responsible for the behaviour.

Of course, the crux lies in identifying such situations that upset us and carrying out these tests through run-time observation. Just carrying out an intellectual exercise would not help. One needs to pay attention to the train of thought as it moves around in these situations.

Monday, November 13, 2017

3 responses that hinder learning from the book of life


This year I got an opportunity to facilitate a two-day workshop on “Mindfulness on the go” in three different places – Kuppam (Andhra), Bangalore and Mumbai. The workshop follows an approach which is broadly called “learning from the book of life”. This means learning from one’s own life rather than according to a scripture or textbook. Many of the participants are open to this approach or at least curious to know more about it. However, some are not able to digest it easily. Here are three responses I have received from those who find this approach not so palatable.

1.      What about my favourite book of wisdom? Some people believe that the most profound wisdom is captured in some book such as Bhagavad Gita or Upanishads or some such scripture. In fact, some of them know such books by heart and they are able to recite several stanzas. However, when it comes to integrating any of the wisdom in their daily life, not much would have happened. Some have it in their to-do list to study their favourite book of wisdom, but haven’t got around to doing it yet. In any case, since they carry such a strong belief that real wisdom can only come from their favourite book of wisdom, they are not so open to learn from the book of life. There is nothing wrong with learning from a religious scripture. However, that’s different from learning from the book of life. And because of their fixedness on one particular book and its content, they are unable to appreciate learning from the book of life.

2.      Lost in the story in the book: Some people are interested in learning from the book of life. In fact, they are eager to narrate a story from the book e.g. how a close friend or spouse  lied to him consistently and how it is his right to be upset about it etc. Now, when you are learning from a book, before you get into the story, it is important to pay attention to the structure of the book. E.g. the book may be torn and may have lost a few pages, or the book may have loose pages which are jumbled up or the book may be translated and the translation may have errors etc. In fact, in case of book of life, thought process may be playing the role of a translator and a shorthand writer combined into one. And the story about which you are getting upset may be a result of some error in translation. Hence, it is important to pay attention to the process of how the book is being put together and presented to you. Getting upset about a jumbled up story has no meaning.

3.      “Touch me not” pages: Some people are interested in learning from the book of life. And they make a beginning in paying attention to the process and structure of the book. Until, the subject matter turns to something they are very protective about e.g. religious beliefs or political ideology or a relationship that has gone sour or some idea close to their heart. These pages become “touch me not” pages. There is no room for investigation because the story is frozen and the book is believed to be in perfect order in those pages. This limits the learning because perhaps some of the greatest nuggets of wisdom may be hidden in that area of the book.

In short, there are three responses which hinder learning from the book of life: One, a belief that real wisdom lies only in certain scriptures and nowhere else. Two, getting lost in the story (content) of the book and as a result losing track of the errors in the process and structure of the book and three, treating some of the pages as “touch me not” and refusing to investigate that area of the book.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Progress, process and possibility: 3 words and their new meanings


Self-investigation is a process that involves testing some of the long held beliefs. If some of the beliefs are seen to be false then that results into old words acquiring new meanings. In this article, I would like to present three such words: progress, process and possibility – which have acquired new meanings for me through the process of self-investigation.

Progress: Right from school days the word progress carried significance. Initially, it meant gaining height and weight and getting good marks in exams. Later on it meant getting into a good college, getting a good job, getting married, owning stuff like a house, a car etc. Somewhere along the way, I came across books by two spiritual teachers – J. Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi. JK said – root cause of human suffering is the process of becoming. And Ramana said – there is no separate entity there to progress. I don’t know why but I took them seriously – at least treated these as serious hypothesis to be tested. This was twenty years ago. And I haven’t found any evidence to disprove them so far. As a result, the word progress has acquired a new meaning – progress, to me, is a cognitive illusion – a thought created gap between perception and reality. To get a glimpse of how this could possibly be the case, it would help to look at the new meaning of the second word – process.

Process: Be it history or science, it was about understanding the interaction and relationship between various entities. Physics involved large bodies like planets and small particles like atoms and electrons and the forces among them. History involved kingdoms, nations, their leaders and the wars. In either case, objects were primary and their interaction was secondary. How does the earth attract the moon? Did Gandhi help India win freedom from British? In short, objects were primary and the process was secondary. Somewhere along the way, came a doubt: what if the process is primary and everything else secondary? This investigation takes a new turn when you question whether I am primary or the process of perception and meaning making is primary. Here is how I see this currently: All there is – is the Unknown which is a process of meaning getting expressed into matter, thoughts and actions and simultaneously getting compressed back into the Unknown. Every moment there is a perception and meaning making. If perception is with clarity, then the meaning is harmonious and gets expressed accordingly. If there is misperception then the meaning is conflict-ridden and gets expressed accordingly. Every object is only a relatively stable structure in this process flow – similar to a vortex in a river – never separate from it. Desire for progress comes out of misperception when the relatively stable structures (such as this body or the nations) are taken to be independent entities. And the meaning making process tries to make the entity (e.g. this body) more secure making progress (e.g. by getting a better job). How does a conflict-ridden meaning begin to change?

Possibility: Every conflict has a notion of impossibility inherent in it. Every anxiety involves imagining a future – a what-if scenario – say of losing a job or a breaking of a relationship – and also carrying a rigid belief that the imagined scenario should be impossible (must not happen). However, sometimes perception undergoes a shift and clarity emerges in the process. This is called an insight. And through insight there is a perception of the futility of the process of becoming. Then the rigidities which lead to impossibilities dissolve and turn into possibilities. Then every opinion, every meaning is seen as a possibility and nothing as impossible. In the worst case scenario of someone telling, “You are stupid!” may also involve a possibility of learning something new about oneself. Perhaps there is an opportunity to say “Sorry” if one has inadvertently hurt someone. This is when the meaning making process becomes creative. This understanding results in a living where every moment comes with several possibilities and enriches life.

In short, I see currently that progress is a cognitive illusion which results when meaning making process misperceives reality and begins to treat relatively stable structures as independent entities. Sometimes, through insights, the meanings undergo a shift and that melts its rigidities. Then every moment brings several possibilities and makes life a continuous learning process. Who knows? The meanings might change tomorrow.

References:

1.      J. Krishnamurti’s reference to process of becoming as the root cause of suffering is in “Ending of time” Chapter 1.

2.      Ramana Maharshi highlighting that there is no separate entity to make progress can be found in multiple discussions in the book – “Talks with Ramana Maharshi”. E.g. talk 380.

3.      Seeing every object as a relatively stable structure like a vortex in a river is a metaphor I came across in David Bohm’s writing and interviews. E.g. “Wholeness and implicate order” Chapter 1.

Monday, October 23, 2017

3 ways a metaphor helps in challenge framing


Around forty years ago, Dr. Venkataswamy asked a question – “Why can’t eye care service be offered with efficiency similar to McDonalds?” People found it an odd analogy. How can you compare a cataract surgery with a hamburger? But the metaphor did help create one of the most efficient eye hospitals in the world, Aravind Eye Care System. Framing the challenge is arguably the most important step in innovation and metaphors play a key role in that process. Here are 3 ways in which metaphors help in challenge framing.

Makes it more concrete: Dr. V could have said, “Let’s build world’s most efficient eye hospital.” Perhaps it might have worked. However, words like efficient and others like innovative, world’s best are abstract. They mean different things to different people. When you say – as efficient as a McDonalds – suddenly it makes the concept more concrete. There is a common image for all the people who are involved in the venture.

Brings out uniqueness: While Aravind took inspiration from McDonalds in building process efficiency, it was significantly different from McDonalds in its business model. Aravind is a not-for-profit organization in which paying customers cross-subsidize the poor patients. This was a case when Aravind was eleven bed hospital and it is the case when the size is several thousand beds. Metaphor can also help in bringing out the uniqueness of the idea. You could say it is different from McDonalds in its business model in the following way.

Generates new questions: Anybody who has been to McDonalds especially in the US would know that it has drive-through. So, one  could ask, “How do we provide a drive-through for Aravind?” Of course, the question may or may not be relevant. However, it may take you in a direction not thought before. In fact, Aravind did end up creating a service where they prepare an prescription eye-glass in thirty minutes. This idea may or may not have been inspired by drive-through. But the point is, metaphors can be generative. i.e. They can help you raise questions not thought before. McDonalds customizes the taste of its products and services to local taste. You could ask, “How do we customize eye care to local culture?” This might lead to new ideas.

While Aravind was partly inspired by McDonald, now Aravind is inspiring other hospitals in India and abroad. I won’t be surprised if Narayan Hrudayalaya was partly inspired by Aravind. It is does to heart-surgery what Aravind is doing for eye care.

In short, metaphors make the challenge concrete, bring out uniqueness of the challenge and generate new questions. Thus metaphors help enrich the challenge.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Adopting Design Thinking in organizations, one step at a time


One question that I often get is, “How do we integrate Design Thinking in our existing processes?” Many organizations have well established processes like Agile, Six Sigma, Business Excellence framework etc. It is both impractical and unwise to establish design thinking as yet another parallel process. Instead, what works better is to take a step or two of design thinking and pilot it within the existing processes. Let’s look at a few options.

There are multiple ways to view DT. One view, as advocated by the Stanford D-school, looks at DT as an iterative process consisting of five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. Let’s see what it might mean to adopt only one of the five steps in an organization at a time.

1.      Empathy: If you were to emphasize empathy in your existing processes, here are a few options.

·        Journey map: This is a tool where customer’s experience is mapped through various stages of the journey. For example, one journey map could be about “Employee’s day-1 experience”. This would map out experiences of various new joinees as to how their day-1 experience was through the stages of – arrival, induction session, lunch, afternoon, exit etc. This might lead to a challenge statement such as, “How do we get a new joinee an employee badge by the end of day-1?”

·        Humble inquiry: Popularize humble inquiry in meetings and discussions. This is a form of inquiry where one requests the other person to elaborate the point. E.g. Please tell me more or please give me an example. Contrast this with the prescriptive enquiry where one asks questions like, “But, why don’t you try like this…?” or “Boss, this kind of stuff will not work in our organization?”

·        Bright spots: We are easy in finding what’s going wrong – the dark spots. However, in any situation, there is something working right in some corner. These are the bright spots. For example, in every situation where an organization faces high attrition, there are some people who have stayed long within the same organization. So exit interviews would give some information about the dark spots, staying interviews would tell more about the bright spots. Researching about bright spots naturally evokes empathy because you are trying to understand why certain things are working well in that context.

2.      Define: You may choose to focus only on define step – which means you will try to establish more clarity on which are the challenges a team is focused on addressing at various levels in the organization. You could check following:

·        Quality of challenges:  Many times organizational challenges are framed in an abstract manner – “We want to become an innovative organization”. Or They are concrete but don’t have hooks for imagination – “We want to be no 1 in our market.” This is a concrete goal but doesn’t contain any direction for exploration. Alternately, we could ask, “How do we organize knowledge in our project so that it can create Quora like experience?”

·        Internal bright spot-based challenges: You could encourage framing of challenges which are based on internal bright spots. For example, you may pick an innovation from last year – say a chat-bot integration into a customer service platform (BotServ) – and ask “How do we develop more innovations like BotServ which can excite customers and leadership alike?”


3.      Ideation: In all likelihood, your organization may not be new to ideation. However, you may want to ask how you can have more ideation sessions with cross-functional teams. Or you may want to check if you can organize co-innovation workshops with customers where you generate ideas together.

4.      Prototyping: In case you would like to build a prototyping culture, here are a few options:

·        Story-boarding: This is one of the least expensive ways of getting people to bring ideas alive. You can encourage people to create before-and-after storyboards and paste them in the corridors / brainstorming rooms. This can invite comments and may inspire other ideas.

·        Wireframes:  In the world of software this typically means drawing screens – either for PC or for a mobile phone. In the world of physical objects, it means drawing a floorplan or making a 3-D model like how an architect does for a house etc.

·        Hackathons: Conduct a full-day or two-day event focused on building rapid prototypes for a given challenge.

5.      Test: In case you would like to emphasize getting ideas tested, here are a few options:

·        Test Fridays: Allocate an hour on one Friday every month in getting prototypes reviewed by senior leaders. 

·        Customer testing: Pass on prototypes with customer facing people – sales, product managers etc. and get feedback.

Someone may argue that emphasizing a step like ideation without empathy or experimentation may be missing the main point of design thinking. And, I feel any step is better than no step. Hope you get to try out something.

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Mindfulness on the go: mini-podcast #1 and #2

Thanks to the suggestion from my wife, Gauri, we decided to chat together on mindfulness and experiment with podcast. So far we have created two mini-podcasts – each roughly of 10 minutes duration. The process has been fun for us and that is encouraging. One of the aspects I am exploring is how we can learn mindfulness through metaphors from movies. So expect mini-podcasts in future where we take up a movie and see what kind of mindfulness tips it presents us. If you have any suggestions, please write a comment on this blog.


Introduction by Gauri (0:00)
Vinay's background (0:35)
What is mindfulness? (3:55)



Introduction by Gauri (0:00)
What is "on the go"? (0:25)
If I practice mindfulness, will I become stress-free or peaceful? (3:30)
Is this connected with any God, religion or a guru? (7:00)
Why should we learn mindfulness? (9:07)

Five tips on mindfulness from “A beautiful mind” film

A beautiful mind” is a movie loosely based on the life of the Nobel Laureate John Nash. In an earlier article I have written about how it depicts the journey of a human mind through the three stages of creativity, madness and awakening. In this article, I would like to bring five tips on mindfulness that we can learn from this movie.

1.      You can’t reason your way out of suffering


Nash is arguing with his psychiatrist and asking, "Why can't I reason my out of this (schizophrenia)?" Psychiatrist is quick to point out the paradox, "Because your mind is where the problem is in the first place." Thought is distorting our perception. Hence, we can’t use thought as a tool to investigate the distortion. It is like dressing up the thief as a police in order to investigate the theft. Mindfulness suggests that we use attention or awareness as the tool to investigate what’s going on.

2.      You’ve got to keep feeding them for them to stay alive



Martin, Nash's friend, asks him if the hallucinations are gone. Nash says that they are not gone but he has stopped feeding them and as a result they have given up on him. Mindfulness is about watching how you are feeding your dreams and nightmares for them to stay alive. If the feeding stops, the dreams and nightmares lose their power.

3.      Being suspicious of your perception



Nash is approached by a person outside his class whom he has never met. Nash is suspicious of new people. So he double-checks with one of his students if she is able to see this new person as well. Only when she confirms does Nash proceed to have a chat with the visitor. Mindfulness involves being aware that the current perception may be a distortion of the reality especially in surprising situations. And it remains open for alternate views and opinions.

4.      Are you crazy? Yes, it’s possible!


Nash is sitting with a visitor, Thomas King, who has come to meet him on behalf of Nobel committee. Nash is being considered for the Nobel Prize and King is there to check if Nash is crazy. After all, the reputation of Nobel Prize is at stake. Nash says “It’s possible (that he is crazy.)” He further clarifies that he is still on medication for schizophrenia. Being mindful is about carrying a huge bias for “possible” as against “impossible”. Every belief or idea is tentative and open for validation even if the idea is “I am crazy.”

5.      Like the diet of the mind, choose not to indulge in certain appetite


Nash clarifies the situation to Thomas King. He still sees things that are not there but he chooses not to acknowledge them. Mindfulness is a process where one is alert and attentive all the time. This is similar to what Nash calls – a diet of the mind. If you are on a diet, you are alert all the time as to what you are eating. Similarly, here there is alertness to check if the thought or voice in the head is worth "indulging in". 

Friday, August 25, 2017

My 3 takeaways from the Krishnamurti Gathering in Murren, Switzerland


I got an opportunity to attend a week-long gathering of people interested in the teaching of Jiddu Krishnamurti last month. It was held in a picturesque little town of Murren located in Bernese Alps in Switzerland. My father, who has been a student of Krishnamurti’s teachings for a few decades, wished to attend this gathering and we went as a family – my parents, my wife and I. We attended the first week of the two week gathering. 

Like other Krishnamurti gatherings we saw videos of Krishnamurti’s talks, had panel discussions, small group dialogues and also had a space for people to share their personal experiences and insights. We also had guided hikes in the mountains. The gathering organizer, Gisele, a lovely lady, looked after each participant with great care. People came from a dozen countries mostly in Europe but also from the US and Australia. Many participants knew each other and had been part of this annual event earlier known as the Saanen Gathering since 70s and 80s.

A gathering like this creates a space for deep reflection and impacts each participant in a unique way. Here I am jotting down the three things I took away from this event.

1.      Role of silence in a dialogue: Our small group dialogues used to begin with moments of silence. The idea was that the dialogue remains anchored in silence. I knew this and yet there were moments when I was driven by the urge to speak. Our facilitator and other members were very helpful in pointing out to me and others that there is a need to slow down and let the dialogue flow through the silence. In fact, later I found it useful to imagine that each word was entering the pool of silence at the centre and new words were emerging from that pool. It was beautiful to experience it when that happened. Perhaps this is relevant to any conversation and I continue to experiment with this.

2.      What is my primary responsibility? This question was discussed over two days in our small group dialogues. One the one hand, it was observed that the world is in a mess and I am deeply connected with the world. In fact, there is one famous Krishnamurti quote which says – You are the world. Then I must share the responsibility for the mess.  And hence, my primary responsibility is to bring order to this mess. On the other hand, it was observed that it is not easy perhaps impossible to genuinely help anyone because the thought process that leads to conflict – anger, worry, frustration, is almost mechanical and reactive. In all likelihood, I am contributing to the conflict by being reactive too. Hence, my primary responsibility is my inner silence, non-reactivity or non-resistance. Perhaps my inner silence is the best help I can offer to the world.

3.      Nature as a teacher: Murren offered breath-taking beauty in myriad forms. We could see the majesty of the snow peaked mountains like the Jungfrau, a roaring waterfall like the Trummelbach falls, gentle streams, peaceful cows, bright flowers all in the same day. It is as if the nature is teasing our judgmental mind and saying, “You like to judge every situation, judge this scene” and it is humbling. One particular scene was insightful. I was watching the snow patches on the mountain and after a while I suddenly saw that a small patch of snow was not snow after all. It was a stream and it got misperceived as snow. It was a beautiful metaphor for how thought constructs solid objects in place of flowing things. Perhaps the solidity of “Vinay” is similar and it is a stream of thoughts getting misperceived as a solid “I”. Who knows?

Overall, the gathering provided a wonderful opportunity for self-reflection and created new possibilities to experiment in the self-discovery journey. It was made joyous by the serene surroundings and the warmth of the people around us.