Monday, June 26, 2017

Mobile app upgrade as a metaphor for the virus in the thought process

Every time I turn on WiFi on my mobile phone, some application begins to get upgraded automatically. It doesn’t even ask my permission. Can this phenomenon help us learn about the virus in our thought process? That is what we will explore in this article.

When we buy a new phone, it comes with some default applications. For example, for an Android phone, Google Maps, Gmail etc. come pre-installed on the phone. We also download new apps e.g. Uber cabs as we see that they could help us in our day-to-day life. These applications are constantly getting upgraded. Sometimes these upgrades are fixing some problems with the apps, sometimes new features get added, other times the app gets a better protection against virus attacks etc. In short, these upgrades are trying to make our phone future-proof. 

In general, these upgrades should be happening when the phone is idle i.e. it is not being used for a call or a message or reading a mail or watching a movie etc.  Our phone, even when it is not busy making or receiving a call, is involved in checking if somebody is trying to call us or send a message. It also has many other sensors such as temperature sensor, accelerometer for speed / direction sensor etc. It is also constantly checking date and time and triggering alarms at an appropriate moment if they have been set.  In short, phone is a sensitive device, constantly engaged in scanning the signals and meaningfully responding to them.

Now, imagine a situation where the app upgrades become all important. i.e. the phone goes into a mode where all it is doing primarily is app upgrades and nothing else. It considers upgrading itself to be more important than everything else – even making / receiving a call etc. Even when somebody tries to call us, the phone rejects the call because it is busy upgrading itself. It is like the phone has lost its primary function. Who would like such a phone?

Now, let’s compare this upgrade mechanism with our life. Our attention is required to do what we are doing in the present moment – say eating, walking, driving, listening etc. However, these activities have become so automatic that the thought feels that it can do some upgrades while these activities are happening. So it starts running “What if” scenarios – “What if I don’t reach the meeting on time?”, “What if I lose this job?”, “What if people discover that I am really not that smart?” etc. We feel that these ‘what if’ scenarios help us take some actions that will reduce the probability of failure. In short, the thought process helps us in making our life future-proof, similar to a mobile app upgrade.

Now, imagine the thought process goes berserk perhaps due to some virus on the ‘what if’ simulations and grabs all the attention all the time for the simulation. Almost no attention is left for the present moment activities. We are eating our lunch but the attention is in the “upgrade” scenarios. We are driving a car but thinking about the upcoming meeting. When we are in the meeting, the thought is simulating the next activity etc. Effectively, we are not giving any activity its due attention. The future-proofing is happening at the cost of the quality of attention in the present-moment. In an overdrive mode, the thought process is also affecting the sensitivity to signals sent from the body such as hunger, sleep etc. and from surrounding such as feelings of the family members, team members, how we are treating nature etc. It is as though we have become insensitive to the reality and begun to live in the thought created future-proofing simulation.

Now, you might ask. OK, this is life, what to do? The first step is to watch this process and see if the upgrade simulations are indeed serving a useful purpose or they have become repetitive, compulsive and wasteful. You have been thinking about selecting the best school for your daughter for the past one month. How long do you want to keep thinking? This awareness can be powerful. Alternately, you can step out of the simulation for a few moments and bring attention to the present moment activity –breathing, eating, sitting, walking etc. Try it out for yourself.

Friday, June 16, 2017

Photo gallery: "Mindfulness on the go" at Agastya International Foundation, Kuppam

I got an opportunity to facilitate the 2-day workshop "Mindfulness on the go" for folks from Agastya International Foundation at the scenic campus in Kuppam on June 8-9, 2017. Here are a few pictures from the workshop. We had four long silent sitting sessions (between 30 minutes to 1 hour duration). Unfortunately, we don't any photo from these silent sittings because everybody had kept their phones away. We also had a silent walk around the campus on the evening of day-1 led by Mr. Nitin Desai.








We used following movies to illustrate the concepts, tools, practice / investigation process:

Some of the questions that got raised and discussed during the workshop are:
  • Why do we need to meditate?
  • How to control thoughts?
  • Is meditation connected with any religion / sect?
  • What is the difference between meditation, concentration and silent sitting?
  • How to differentiate between useful and wasteful thoughts?
  • What is the relationship between meditation and god?
  • How is this connected with enlightenment?
  • Isn't fear necessary for achieving our goals?
Photo credit: Subbu Shastri, Gauri Dabholkar

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

As Jeff Bezos says, are big ideas incredibly easy to identify?



In a recent interview, Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos made following statement (18:22): “The main job of a senior leader is to identify 2 or 3 important ideas and then to enforce great execution against those big ideas. And the good news is, the big ideas are usually incredibly easy to identify.” For anyone who has dabbled in innovation, this may sound like a strange statement. If identification of big ideas is really that simple, why isn’t everybody running with one? Is there a catch here? Or, was Bezos just joking? Let’s explore this in this article.

Here is the context. Bezos is answering the question, “Can you predict what Amazon will look like ten years from now?” He first points out that the observable Amazon could change quite a bit. Nobody could have predicted ten years ago that Amazon Web Services (AWS) would be a significant contributor to Amazon business. Then he mentions that hopefully the core approach involving customer obsession, willingness to invent and long term view (patience & accepting failures as a path to success) would remain the same. This is where he makes the statement that big ideas are incredibly easy to identify.

What are the three big ideas for Amazon consumer business? They are: Low prices, fast delivery and vast selection. Of course, that’s the dream of any retailer. And it’s known for a long time. Bezos stresses that “big ideas should be obvious.” Now, let’s de-layer this a bit.

First, let’s notice that when Bezos spells out these ideas, they get presented as questions. E.g. How do we always deliver things a little faster? How do we reduce our cost structure so that we can reduce our prices lower? etc. So what Bezos refers to as big ideas in this context, are actually big challenges. In fact, I would call them strategic challenges. And as Bezos says, they are usually stable over time. He is also quick to add following caveat: It is hard to maintain a firm grasp on the obvious at all times. Little things can distract from the obvious.   

I have been talking to senior leaders for the past decade. And I am not convinced that they know what their big challenges are. Or at least they haven’t been able to articulate them in a clear manner.  Perhaps, Bezos is right. Every senior leader knows the big challenges. However, the caveat, the little distractions, is creating a cloud of confusion. And leader is losing focus on the strategic challenges. I don’t know. What do you think?