tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90030765739724586732024-03-19T14:18:36.359+05:30Catalign Innovation ConsultingCatalyzing innovation stamina, design thinking, and mindfulness<br>
For updates: check @vpdabholkar on LinkedInVinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.comBlogger502125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-45694793557788452792024-03-17T09:43:00.006+05:302024-03-18T08:58:25.431+05:30Culture of innovation: 4 attributes and 3 kinds of evidence<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeWvfYX_O8gt8suAKHUeo4g8QWMKhVSySAFTSeYhdxVeurvw1gIt4AngrnL_8yVt8tsfHpF6oR_2NCVaj_3J52HdXKltbwxyvla2z99xHbuT6-vgBFFCUASsqcTE_IEDPQ8zyr2SA6DW49EydbeAT4qYdv_oEzDgPGi0YL4AI5VoaUbgCsgY0EQ-P8asc/s952/culture%20of%20innovation%20at%20BIC%20feb-2024.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="921" data-original-width="952" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeWvfYX_O8gt8suAKHUeo4g8QWMKhVSySAFTSeYhdxVeurvw1gIt4AngrnL_8yVt8tsfHpF6oR_2NCVaj_3J52HdXKltbwxyvla2z99xHbuT6-vgBFFCUASsqcTE_IEDPQ8zyr2SA6DW49EydbeAT4qYdv_oEzDgPGi0YL4AI5VoaUbgCsgY0EQ-P8asc/s320/culture%20of%20innovation%20at%20BIC%20feb-2024.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Last
month I got an opportunity to conduct a session on “Fostering a culture of
innovation” for Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) business owners in Bangalore
organized by Essae Chandran Institute. We began by exploring the following
question. “Assume there is a magic wand that has created a culture of
innovation in your organization today. What <u>new stuff</u> will you notice
when you go back?” It took some time before participants started responding
with “passion”, “curiosity”, “ideas”, etc. Culture is a fluffy stuff and it
helps to have something more tangible in recognizing whether it is innovative.
In this article, I would like to present four attributes and three kinds of evidence
that may give an indication of an innovative culture.</span><p></p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="text-indent: -18pt;">Curiosity</b><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">: Curiosity is perhaps the most
underappreciated attribute of innovative culture. Are people raising questions
in meetings? Are questions appreciated? For a complex challenge, is there
collaboration to frame it with sufficient depth?</span><o:p> </o:p></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="text-indent: -18pt;">Creativity</b><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">: This is the most visible
aspect of innovative culture. Idea portals, idea walls, brainstorms, off-sites,
if there is idea generation, it is generally visible.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="text-indent: -18pt;">Experimentation</b><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">: In manufacturing and
hardware-centric businesses, experimentation may be happening only in
laboratories. In software, it could happen anywhere. It could also be visible
in prototyping events such as hackathons. Appreciation of good experiments
despite failures is an uncommon but crucial aspect of the maturity of the
culture.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="text-indent: -18pt;">Demo & Review</b><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">: Innovation review is,
in my opinion, the defining characteristic of innovative culture. Who
participates in the review? What kind of questions are asked? Are resources (people,
budget) allocated? Do demos happen in the review or just slide show?</span></span></li></ol><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_QW37xR6UVpplMpP1AxgzHGH3kNJT7PquEoVRQjPbt15mwdrHJ5wTtroEEztN_GpieVsLmZhXnOA3XT4T7AnnvlU95X3hJGCnM-0MelH5KsOUvn6QF-kXA8r65YbyoBvWEibNBo9nvFtXnvflGGEQ9Qa-xDfn0a-YuL9OgDgDoCKIVNiSe9yEhzU878o/s1280/4%20attributes%20of%20innovative%20culture.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_QW37xR6UVpplMpP1AxgzHGH3kNJT7PquEoVRQjPbt15mwdrHJ5wTtroEEztN_GpieVsLmZhXnOA3XT4T7AnnvlU95X3hJGCnM-0MelH5KsOUvn6QF-kXA8r65YbyoBvWEibNBo9nvFtXnvflGGEQ9Qa-xDfn0a-YuL9OgDgDoCKIVNiSe9yEhzU878o/w640-h360/4%20attributes%20of%20innovative%20culture.png" width="640" /></span></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Some of these characteristics like creativity are visible on
the walls as one walks around in the organization or perhaps on the walls of
the intranet. Some others like reviews and experimentation happen in conference
rooms and labs. For some of the SME
business owners I interacted with last month, experimentation was the most
challenging aspect as it involves investment in tools and expertise in
designing and executing experiments. And I agree. However, I feel that a culture
of continuous improvement is a good place to start the journey as it doesn’t
involve major investment. Many times business leaders want to focus only
on big bets.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">It takes years to build a culture as evident in <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2009/11/40-years-20-million-ideas-toyota.html" target="_blank">Toyota's
idea management system dashboard</a>. It took five years for the participation to
cross ten percent and almost fifteen years for it to reach thirty percent. In
contrast, destroying a culture doesn’t take that long. Imagine a CEO sending a
curt message saying that failure will not be tolerated. It won’t be surprising
if people stop experimenting due to fear of failure. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Appreciation is a tricky lever. If you decide to appreciate
every idea, then appreciation loses its significance. And if you decide to
appreciate only the successful innovations, then smart failures remain
unappreciated. In a place where only success matters, people will avoid risk so
as not to fail. One needs to find the right balance between efforts (giving
ideas, doing experiments, making a business case) and outcomes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I feel an innovation review is a powerful lever, especially for senior management. A lot can be communicated through the
decisions and feedback given during a review. For example, a review that
emphasizes a demo vs just a slideshow sends a message that prototyping matters.</span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hope this characterization helps in deriving a basic assessment of the culture of innovation </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">in small and big organizations</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> and gives direction on possible plans of action.</span></p>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-34652507624356889062024-01-26T11:16:00.004+05:302024-01-26T11:18:40.785+05:30My 3 takeaways from Agastya’s “Student, teacher, and AI” conference at Kuppam<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzzqsySTOmujoywacS6h9rYaAGvIQm5Ctdv0CAo2QX9VNPCRsBp9w4QVuqL-k-odnOd6WKS_a3ermAW142mIPofjRf7RyqOPXuoWv1pfmuZ51dyDiFnu8crpPYpyw8SHlf8VgeyaNwqvgbW-YbrvCn_EmeArqKagBoFIaqjcgIvH0OlOoGAqMs4lWmy2o/s2048/first%20day%20panel.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzzqsySTOmujoywacS6h9rYaAGvIQm5Ctdv0CAo2QX9VNPCRsBp9w4QVuqL-k-odnOd6WKS_a3ermAW142mIPofjRf7RyqOPXuoWv1pfmuZ51dyDiFnu8crpPYpyw8SHlf8VgeyaNwqvgbW-YbrvCn_EmeArqKagBoFIaqjcgIvH0OlOoGAqMs4lWmy2o/w400-h266/first%20day%20panel.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Thanks to my friend Ajith Basu, I got an opportunity to
participate in the “Student, teacher, and AI”, a national conference held at <a href="https://www.agastya.org/">Agasty’s</a> beautiful Kuppam campus. I was
part of the facilitation team with Shriram Bharathan and Suhasini Seelin. The
participants came from education departments in the central and several state
government offices, schools, colleges, corporates, startups, and NGOs. The
conference had 3 thrust areas: (1) demystifying AI, (2) the role of AI in future
curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, and (3) AI's influence on social and
emotional learning. Here are my 3 takeaways from my sketchy and selective
notes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Self-learning may be a myth</b>: AI is going to enable
self-learning by generating personalized insights. For example, AI can tell the teacher that specific four students are weak in – say “division by 7”. This
perspective was championed by Anand Rangarajan of Google among others. Having
experienced online self-learning and being a beneficiary of YouTube’s
recommendation engine myself, I was drawn to this view. However, Prof Bindu
Thirumalai of TISS was vocal in suggesting that self-learning is a myth.
Learning is fundamentally a social phenomenon and peer group and mentoring
play a crucial role. Having grown up in an educated family and having access
to helping friends, could my understanding of self-learning be flawed? I am
curious.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Empathy, not yet, but beware of biases today</b>: We
looked at <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AbPt8gyG7wxbQwOoQGvGX1h6FXUuP8IK/view?usp=sharing">a
short fictional case</a> where Preetha, a personal artificial assistant, acts
as an empathic friend to an 8th-standard girl, Swati, who is
struggling with math in the class. Experts felt that most of the technological
elements needed for the dialogue are already present. However, the degree of
empathy and warmth demonstrated in the story is still missing in the human-AI
interaction. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">We also explored biases exhibited by Swati and Preetha.
While we were doing that Dr. Pradeep from Google fed the story to Bard and
showed us how Bard can identify biases participants had not spotted yet.
We also reflected upon our own biases we are carrying. During this exercise, most of us were using the term biases to mean prejudices and inclinations. Prof
Arun Tangirala of IIT Madras championed a view that for something to be called
a bias, we need to have a ground truth and evaluate whether there is a
systematic error of judgment. While there were differences in the meaning of
bias, there was a consensus that biases will be amplified in the AI world, and it
demands greater awareness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Will AI enable creative adaptive intelligence? Not clear.
</b>Ramji Raghavan of Agastya proposed that to live in a world where technology
such as AI widens the complexity gap, we need creative adaptive intelligence.
Will AI enable it? It is not obvious. Some participants felt that they were
already turning to ChatGPT for every problem, and that meant they were becoming
lazy. Prof C. K. Manjunath from SMVITM, Mangalore presented how an AI-enabled
advertisement such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=043aEQXYyZ8">Titan
Eye+</a> becomes interactive and fun and asked, “How can an average teacher
match this creativity?” Ms Changra, the Education Minister from Dharamsala, felt
that unless we are alert, technology overdependence may affect our mental well-being.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To me personally, the two high points of the
conference had very limited AI in it. One was a play by kids from Ganganagar
Government School in Bangalore directed by Suhasini, and the second one was a
veena recital by Vidushi. Sujatha Thiagarajan. Both evoked strong emotions.
Would an AI-enacted play or an AI-recital in the future have a similar effect? I
don’t know.</span></span><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">image credit: Agastya International Foundation</span></span></div>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-43197873857473562372024-01-15T15:20:00.003+05:302024-01-15T15:23:19.339+05:303Cs of idea communication illustrated through Andrej Karpathy’s LLM talk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhJzhXtryOgV_R9-xm2hX-drZFh2OgSTf2aWKGIDqo066Wdkc3fafzHMGzKWGCBeEzxWUsaWn9psj4vRJ1maV8zyE__SNKMFP0gsg8BBH9jAdY-VjKNrgTNgfZ8L63N2GAaUM6xLZRMsIvD3h3KccLWfmtKEMXJRGChsXy0rvmhcv7XzzwQDJgHWRTQU/s1920/andrej%20llm%20talk.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1081" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhJzhXtryOgV_R9-xm2hX-drZFh2OgSTf2aWKGIDqo066Wdkc3fafzHMGzKWGCBeEzxWUsaWn9psj4vRJ1maV8zyE__SNKMFP0gsg8BBH9jAdY-VjKNrgTNgfZ8L63N2GAaUM6xLZRMsIvD3h3KccLWfmtKEMXJRGChsXy0rvmhcv7XzzwQDJgHWRTQU/w640-h360/andrej%20llm%20talk.png" width="640" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Communicating your idea effectively is important be it to
customers, team members, or investors. We presented 3 attributes of idea
communication – curiosity, concreteness, and credibility in our book “<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Steps-Innovation-Going-Jugaad-Excellence/dp/9350293587">8
steps to innovation</a>”. In this blog, I would like to illustrate the 3Cs
using Andrej Karpathy’s talk “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjkBMFhNj_g">Intro to large language
models</a>” which he published on his YouTube channel.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrej_Karpathy">Andrej
Karpathy</a> is one of my favorite teachers in the deep learning area. The OpenAI
founding member and ex-director of AI at Tesla has a hands-on approach to
teaching involving Python, Pytorch, and technical papers. Hence, I was
surprised when Andrej uploaded a PowerPoint presentation on his YouTube
channel. I was familiar with half the information in the talk. And yet, there
was a lot I could learn from the way Andrej presented. It is an excellent
example to illustrate how 3Cs – curiosity, concreteness, and credibility improve the effectiveness of a presentation. Let’s look at each C one by one.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM5GThiINhAeggrYSrBDxz7gclqbiV-VBRu8D5yB0o17zTMrsv476FdW2DRQb1Loil8RxTlhPkFjBUWfLdx_tWiyZ6N3LwLfGCK0vsqoppSk_59AOXycJYzVoTxQDnlx9AeyxJd4D79zsZlm-Y-8LYLvNBmbe0pld06dZSv7veMrfZE5iULLkkAUvwL-c/s1734/attributes%20from%20andrej%20talk.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1070" data-original-width="1734" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM5GThiINhAeggrYSrBDxz7gclqbiV-VBRu8D5yB0o17zTMrsv476FdW2DRQb1Loil8RxTlhPkFjBUWfLdx_tWiyZ6N3LwLfGCK0vsqoppSk_59AOXycJYzVoTxQDnlx9AeyxJd4D79zsZlm-Y-8LYLvNBmbe0pld06dZSv7veMrfZE5iULLkkAUvwL-c/w640-h394/attributes%20from%20andrej%20talk.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Curiosity</b>: A good presentation not only makes you
curious early on, it keeps you engaged by maintaining <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2009/06/deconstructing-curiosity-flow-from.html">a
curiosity flow</a>. What does curiosity flow in Andrej’s talk look like? He
begins with the question, “What is an LLM?” (21 min), then he moves on to the
second part, “The promise and future directions of LLM” (17 min), and in the
third and last part, Andrej talks about “the challenges in LLM paradigm” (13
min). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Within each part, Andrej is maintaining a curiosity flow.
For example, while explaining what an LLM is, Andrej asks questions like “How
do we get the (neural network) parameters?” “What does a neural network do?”
“How do we obtain an assistant?” etc. While presenting the future directions in
LLM research, Andrej explains problems like – what is equivalent of system-2
thinking? Or how do we get tree search in chess to language? How do we create a self-improvement sandbox environment for LLM like how it happened for AlphaGo?
And, in the final part, he shows how different jailbreaks like “prompt
injection” “data exfiltration” or “data poisoning” pose a security challenge
for an LLM. In short, it helps to build a curiosity flow while designing an
idea presentation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Concreteness</b>: Large Language Models are
high-dimensional and abstract and as Andrej alludes to in the talk, how they
work is not fully clear. Hence, it makes sense to use lots of concrete examples
to make the concept understandable. And that’s what Andrej does. In many
places, he shows how LLMs respond in certain situations by showing how ChatGPT
behaves when you prompt it in a particular way. For example, he illustrates the “reversal curse” by showing how ChatGPT answers the question “Who is Tom
Cruise’s mother?” correctly while saying “I don’t know” when asked, “Who is Mary
Lee Pfeiffer’s son?” He gives a demo of how LLMs use tools like browser search,
calculator, and Python libraries to solve a given problem and present the
information as a plot. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Andrej also uses several metaphors or analogies to explain
concepts. For example, he says an LLM is like a zip file of the Internet,
except that it is a lossy compression. Or, LLM is not like a car where you can
understand and explain how different parts work together to give its function.
Or, current LLMs are like speed chess which uses an automatic and fast system-1
mode of thinking, and while it is yet to learn how to solve problems like
competitive chess where players use deliberate, slow, system-2 mode of thinking
involving tree search. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">My biggest takeaway from the talk comes in the form of a
metaphor when Andrej explains that it is better to think of an LLM as the
kernel of an emerging operating system (like Windows or Linux) rather than as a
chatbot or a bot generator. To explain this, he maps various components of
current OSes to LLM components. For example, he says the Internet is like the hard disk in the traditional OS, and context window is like the working memory
or RAM, etc. I thought it was a powerful metaphor to convey the paradigm shift.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Credibility</b>: Most idea presenters like you and me need
to worry about making our ideas credible. Given his position and brand and
given the popularity of LLMs, Andrej probably doesn’t have to pay special
attention to this aspect. However, he is making forward-looking statements in
this talk, and he needs to ensure he doesn’t divulge any information
confidential to OpenAI. He achieves this by citing academic papers while
mentioning future directions and security challenges. His demo also adds to the
credibility. He is not making any “AGI is around the corner” kind of hyperbolic
statements and devotes time to talking about the limitations and challenges of the
current LLMs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I hope this illustration helps one to see how the 3Cs
- curiosity flow, concreteness, and credibility help in designing better
presentations.</span></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-60140513694031702432023-12-17T15:23:00.004+05:302023-12-19T13:38:19.122+05:30Learning from innovation dashboards visible through annual reports<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Innovation
means different things to different sectors and these differences get reflected
in how they present their innovation dashboards. For the past few years,
several listed companies in India have started presenting their innovation
dashboards either explicitly in the form of a table sometimes titled
“intellectual capital” or implicitly through various parameters like new
product launches, pilots, kaizens, new initiatives, automations, etc. How do
these innovation dashboards look? Let’s look at 4 such dashboards as visible to
us through their FY23 annual reports. These companies are Tata Motors, Asian
Paints, SBI Life Insurance, and Zomato, and their sectors are automotive,
building materials (paints, coatings, and home décor products), insurance, and
online food ordering. Please note that the innovation dashboard that gets
presented in annual reports is likely to be a subset of what is tracked
internally. Disclaimer: Some of these companies are my clients, but here I am restricting myself to data available only through annual reports.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9DJSyzAUgddz-_ihGamCK_5woR-73eNcau1KnZaVt5d_Uigre17VOku4MgopaA3p_k1pTDcHQarUE-Ebd9MN7Lr97srm87YM6s6_KXyC06IpBd23EHHGxOIk7xrA6s2WCKTd-RBGjV2KCROsNmvD3mB9WLAcXXqDxYWTRhBZ3NbPVeI5dAAZlOAvoZT4/s1205/11-1%20innov-dashboard%20tata%20motors.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1018" data-original-width="1205" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9DJSyzAUgddz-_ihGamCK_5woR-73eNcau1KnZaVt5d_Uigre17VOku4MgopaA3p_k1pTDcHQarUE-Ebd9MN7Lr97srm87YM6s6_KXyC06IpBd23EHHGxOIk7xrA6s2WCKTd-RBGjV2KCROsNmvD3mB9WLAcXXqDxYWTRhBZ3NbPVeI5dAAZlOAvoZT4/w400-h338/11-1%20innov-dashboard%20tata%20motors.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Jj19uLjzQEGtOJISZjFSfTmqQ0Mejtt9mmBl5agbWPIAlfcCWPhjWRHMQ-xXY1xPCp90Cy4jh99_4MvnQsHOPOCx6_B8pcbIFxw43OX3SoTZvF0l7uRVefejQfpAmcHhyphenhyphen04KuATr_428S6Sytx1bLwXvazLAKSMp6cbfiWc44QUcXBlOc-cgRUGe-f4/s1131/11-2%20innov-dashboard%20asian%20paints.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="1131" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Jj19uLjzQEGtOJISZjFSfTmqQ0Mejtt9mmBl5agbWPIAlfcCWPhjWRHMQ-xXY1xPCp90Cy4jh99_4MvnQsHOPOCx6_B8pcbIFxw43OX3SoTZvF0l7uRVefejQfpAmcHhyphenhyphen04KuATr_428S6Sytx1bLwXvazLAKSMp6cbfiWc44QUcXBlOc-cgRUGe-f4/w400-h279/11-2%20innov-dashboard%20asian%20paints.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijrRTQPEiprcutXVlPn1n3VgxHDRdC_oiA2ZrxQef1mii3ueYxnSaK5xngFylORyWvD6e0caQ7edl4KC5A3nahGISjaxZD1R9Y4sRuN5-zclOrqzNKAiCv0kkU_n5xDQ5cHIYQxV45mxqIBNjpTBCUI3om1SVDKk2kOABvipxlppgQ48SUCFer89eRQ4A/s1193/11-3%20innov-dashboard%20SBI%20life%20insurance.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="1193" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijrRTQPEiprcutXVlPn1n3VgxHDRdC_oiA2ZrxQef1mii3ueYxnSaK5xngFylORyWvD6e0caQ7edl4KC5A3nahGISjaxZD1R9Y4sRuN5-zclOrqzNKAiCv0kkU_n5xDQ5cHIYQxV45mxqIBNjpTBCUI3om1SVDKk2kOABvipxlppgQ48SUCFer89eRQ4A/w400-h219/11-3%20innov-dashboard%20SBI%20life%20insurance.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT_erLSUdrVtzqK5KCpOeLCNwsa_wLq6R7G5UTyT3-M69wSkhm8YTwX0uid1a_kDkOxTLmvsEZfeEG2GVozfRSc8you1Ige2ftPljvcExTAuME6c_Qevt55JNjSiS6ck-916vrPUGzF34DE5LWXBCSxise5E0n97trbiWPhxVAgAYYQEt3EzkkpjkotH8/s1191/11-4%20innov-dashboard%20zomato.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="839" data-original-width="1191" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT_erLSUdrVtzqK5KCpOeLCNwsa_wLq6R7G5UTyT3-M69wSkhm8YTwX0uid1a_kDkOxTLmvsEZfeEG2GVozfRSc8you1Ige2ftPljvcExTAuME6c_Qevt55JNjSiS6ck-916vrPUGzF34DE5LWXBCSxise5E0n97trbiWPhxVAgAYYQEt3EzkkpjkotH8/w400-h281/11-4%20innov-dashboard%20zomato.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">What can we learn and <u>not</u> learn from these dashboards?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">Despite being from different sectors, all four
companies had something to report on new products/programs launched in the financial
year.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Intellectual property especially patents and
designs are relevant to Tata Motors and Asian Paints but not to SBI Life and
Zomato. Tata Motors in India may be learning the nuances of the
game from JLR.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Digital transformation is an important focus
area for SBI Life while for digitally native companies like Zomato, it is part of the
DNA.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Automation is an important focus area for all four
companies. For SBI Life, underwriting process automation provides a good opportunity
for improvement.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Partners – insurance agents for SBI Life and
delivery partners for Zomato play an important role in their business. Improving
partner experience is happening through digital transformation for SBI Life while
for digitally native Zomato providing offline experience through resting places
with drinking water, washrooms, charging stations, WiFi, helpdesk, and first-aid
is important.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">R&D expenditure as a proxy for
experimentation capacity is visible through Tata Motors and Asian Paints
reports but not from SBI Life and Zomato. Tata Motors report mentions they have 11 technology hubs/R&D/engineering centres while the Asian Paints report mentions the strength of the R&D
team. Zomato report mentions various pilots like Intercity Legends, Zomato
everyday, and reusable packaging. These are experiments which may or may not
become successful.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Continuous improvement must be important to all
players. However, systematic efforts are visible through kaizen reporting in
Tata Motors and Asian Paints but not in SBI Life and Zomato.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Automation through bots is visible in the SBI Life
report. However, the efficiency of bot usage can come at the cost of customer
experience. Currently, the quality of automated responses to customer support
queries is poor in most cases. This trade-off is not visible.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Platform is an enabler of innovation and all four
players leverage different types of platforms. Tata Motors has vehicular
platforms, Asian Paints has chemical technology-related platforms, SBI
Life has digital servicing platforms, and Zomato has an order management
platform. However, platform-related metrics are not visible in these reports. We
can infer that platforms would have played a role when Tata Motors launched 150
variants in a year.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Open innovation is an enabler of innovation.
Asian Paints report mentions having a technology council with four external
members with diverse expertise in various technology areas relevant to the
business. Tata Motors must collaborate with other Tata and non-Tata companies, especially in the electric mobility space in creating the ecosystem. However, the related metric
is not visible.</span></li></ul><p></p><p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In short, there is a lot that can be gathered
about innovation from the dashboards available in the annual reports. Innovation
dashboard reporting is not a statutory requirement. And yet, it is a good
source of input for students of innovation.</span></span></p>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-38361767493790100522023-11-30T11:08:00.002+05:302023-11-30T11:08:41.152+05:30Journey mapping tips from Tony Fadell, the father of iPod<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Journey
mapping is one of my favorite tools to capture customer, employee, partner’s
experience journey and identify gaps to enhance it further. Tony Fadell, the
father of iPod, has given excellent tips on how he and his team at Nest used
journey mapping for experience design in his book “<a href="https://www.buildc.com/the-book">Build: An unorthodox guide to making
things worth making</a>”. Here is an attempt to capture some of Fadell’s tips
related to journey mapping.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">“You should
be able to map out and visualize exactly how a customer discovers, considers,
installs, uses, fixes, and even returns your product. It all matters,” Fadell
says in the book. When people come to him to show a new product they have
built, he asks, “Tell me what’s so special about the customer journey”. If the customer journey is that important, why does it get ignored? Fadell points to
the cognitive bias we tend to carry – “We’re wired to focus our attention on
tangible things that we can see and touch to the point that we overlook the
importance of intangible experiences and feelings.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">Before we
look at 3 examples of how journey mapping was used for Nest, let’s look at a journey
map template Fadell gives along with possible touchpoints in each stage:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIAcM_bDvqhJZWtAGJ6dz65RvKIUX8Csa5V7YA-lk0hbyuL1zSNo3Nqungx4fwWv0Ovu8iVwl4ZOV64rBuuH8BXwx_81JvL6-I393qj4kr53awmbU5J0fyZI9N1omoVxV6W6JukBepC9wV8hdzxC8oL0RGZiwTlVwnkvHfDUeZ8cD-chCghCvy0LxBTbI/s1144/10%20journey%20map%20template.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="541" data-original-width="1144" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIAcM_bDvqhJZWtAGJ6dz65RvKIUX8Csa5V7YA-lk0hbyuL1zSNo3Nqungx4fwWv0Ovu8iVwl4ZOV64rBuuH8BXwx_81JvL6-I393qj4kr53awmbU5J0fyZI9N1omoVxV6W6JukBepC9wV8hdzxC8oL0RGZiwTlVwnkvHfDUeZ8cD-chCghCvy0LxBTbI/w640-h302/10%20journey%20map%20template.png" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Fadell’s point
is that we tend to focus on the “product design” stage at the cost of the other
stages. Here are three examples from the Nest learning thermostat design.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjze-Dmz_h25LzLtPPm9o7gHQurahX3nWN8V1Qgr_p8whyC4UX-dpxe3ONCi_xnw8M7D4TJ3CT-TWgnEZmw6nSQPLYr2NhPH2RF7xr-G3CAX7gfNF1-rOuvAGQzYKY8zkgEt9jrfs4uEuBiCqq9tiYWU044qqC4GfH-jbgxt8X8p5IpgZrVKXJ0UozJDD8/s807/nest%20app-tools.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="807" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjze-Dmz_h25LzLtPPm9o7gHQurahX3nWN8V1Qgr_p8whyC4UX-dpxe3ONCi_xnw8M7D4TJ3CT-TWgnEZmw6nSQPLYr2NhPH2RF7xr-G3CAX7gfNF1-rOuvAGQzYKY8zkgEt9jrfs4uEuBiCqq9tiYWU044qqC4GfH-jbgxt8X8p5IpgZrVKXJ0UozJDD8/s320/nest%20app-tools.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">The app</span></b><span lang="EN-US">: In the early days of Nest,
everyone was focused on perfecting the thermostat. It involved getting the
design, AI, electronics, mechanics, colors, textures, right. The installation,
feeling of turning the dial, the glow when you walk past, all this was thought
through. Fadell points out that in Nest journey, 10% was
website-ads-packaging-in-store display, 10% was installation, 10% was
looking-and-touching the device and 70% was monitoring and control on
phone-laptop. After the thermostat was installed and working, majority of
touchpoints were through the app. And the team had lost track of the app. They
had done initial prototypes when the project began but thought it to be the easy
stuff they can come back to later. And it got pushed to the end. Fadell admits
he became “really loud” to bring team’s attention to the app.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">The box</span></b><span lang="EN-US">: “You should be prototyping your
marketing long before you have anything to market,” says Fadell. And that is
what they did at Nest. The cardboard box, its packaging, the product name, the
tagline, the top features, their priority order – all these were printed on a cardboard
box and constantly tweaked and revised. Two personas were created one tech-savvy
husband and his wife, the decision maker, dictated what made into the house and
what got returned. Nest team was asking questions like, “Why would they pick up
the box? What would they want to know? What was most important to them?” There was
no thermostat isle in Best Buy, Nest’s first retail partner. Thermostats were not
bought by homeowners directly. Best Buy was not going to create a thermostat
isle either. So, they collaborated with Best Buy and invented a Connected-Home isle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">The
screw-driver</span></b><span lang="EN-US">: When prototypes
of the actual thermostat were ready, they were sent out to people to test. Self-installation
was potentially a major anxiety generator. Hence, it was a crucial test. Testers
reported that the installation was smooth. Everything is up and running. But it
took about an hour to install. That was way more than what the team thought. So
they started digging into the installation experience and see where things are
taking time. It turned out that the installation itself was not the culprit. The
testers spent twenty minutes locating the right tools like the screwdriver. So Nest
team decided to include a little screwdriver in the installation kit. And, to
their surprise, the screwdriver served the purpose of a marketing tool because
people had to use it more often than the actual thermostat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">In short, the
app, the box, and the screwdriver are excellent examples of how journey mapping
can be used to enhance the intangible touchpoints in a customer’s journey. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Related
articles</span></b><span lang="EN-US">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2023/07/journey-mapping-illustrated-through.html">Journey
mapping illustrated through Dunzo’s order-tracking experience</a> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Image sources</b>:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;">Nest
screwdriver image source: <a href="https://bmak.substack.com/p/nest-screwdriver">https://bmak.substack.com/p/nest-screwdriver</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Nest app and thermostat image source:
youtube.com</span></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-69148169436675476212023-11-16T14:17:00.002+05:302023-11-16T14:17:57.702+05:308-steps after 10-years: Why bother building participation?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh06zyehVt0RZi-7NUc3MBDsaMOqqrFgm0CiXbRwYs9kXIRtHvi5EMsnuD250mR_rzujBMlVsXdksw02gZnPf263tsX1unE6_J5VdOgx2jcmuk-65mTlVofWumjaml0MRtCVYQ-xqsCy8lrr8LVfxu3Gknqci2TdhH-2ye8H08sVM1o1jh6qA_AAm8y8rs/s1099/8stepsafter10yrs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="1099" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh06zyehVt0RZi-7NUc3MBDsaMOqqrFgm0CiXbRwYs9kXIRtHvi5EMsnuD250mR_rzujBMlVsXdksw02gZnPf263tsX1unE6_J5VdOgx2jcmuk-65mTlVofWumjaml0MRtCVYQ-xqsCy8lrr8LVfxu3Gknqci2TdhH-2ye8H08sVM1o1jh6qA_AAm8y8rs/s320/8stepsafter10yrs.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It has been 10 years since the publication of our book “<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Steps-Innovation-Going-Jugaad-Excellence/dp/9350293587">8-steps
to innovation</a>”. During this time, we got the opportunity to share the framework
with various leaders. We also saw the framework being put into practice. Through
this series of reflections, I will try to shine a light on situations where the
framework might be weak. In this article, I will question the third step –
building participation.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The 8-step framework suggests that if you want to build an
idea pipeline, create a challenge book first (step 2) and then involve people
in participative problem-solving (step 3). For example, if you have a
brainstorming session around a specific challenge, you end up generating several
ideas. Here are situations where this may not work.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">Inventor’s challenge</b><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">: I have met several
inventors who prefer to keep their ideas to themselves. They have no interest
in sharing it with their boss or colleagues because they feel they may steal
their ideas. Perhaps they have had a bad experience in the past where others
took credit for their idea. In my workshops, when we have brainstorms, these
people suggest some ideas. And then meet me during the break or send a message
to share their pet idea which they are not comfortable sharing with others. I
understand the importance of secrecy until you have some form of protection. However,
sometimes people end up carrying ideas with them for years without any form of
validation. It helps to have a few sounding boards. Is ChatGPT a good brainstorming
partner? Perhaps.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">Manager’s fear</b><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">: A few years ago, I wrote
about </span><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2018/02/3-reasons-why-managers-dont-throw-their.html" style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">3
reasons why managers don’t throw their toughest challenge to their teams</a><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">.
The single biggest reason is fear of perceived incompetence. They feel they get
paid to solve problems and if they share their challenge with the team, they
might be perceived as incompetent. It gives confidence when you solve a problem
and get your team to implement your solution. This works best when you have
been in the system for a long time and know the domain very well. However, when
you start managing an existing team, you may not be the domain expert. And this
approach may not work.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">Why care about small ideas</b><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">? Continuous
improvement as a systematic approach has been around for over a hundred years. Our
book presents stories from Toyota, Titan, and TVS. Many organizations continue
to highlight the number of ideas and the number of employees participating in continuous
improvement programs in their annual reports. For example, the Asian Paints FY23
annual report says that there were 7000+ improvement suggestions submitted. Having
said that I have met several leaders who don’t consider continuous improvement worth
the cost. What matters to them are big bets. As a result, participation
becomes unimportant. Participation thrives when small ideas are encouraged.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">Participation in virtual teams</b><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;">: Virtual
teams have been around for a while but their presence increased during and
post-Covid era. As people started working from home, formal brainstorms and
tea-coffee chats diminished. As video calls started taking time, initiatives
focusing on not-so-urgent issues took a backseat. And participation in
innovation-related initiatives went down. Getting people to participate in
anything other than deliveries became a challenge at least in some
organizations. </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In short, participation may be one way of
building an idea pipeline. However, there are situations in which participation
may not work or one may be uncomfortable sharing the ideas. Perhaps ChatGPT is
your partner. Problems may be defined and solved by individuals and implemented through teams if they are the managers. So yeah, skip step 3 if you
don’t need it.</span></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-15652024537931751932023-10-05T15:07:00.002+05:302023-10-05T18:11:08.692+05:30Strategic management of technology and innovation 2023: A reflection<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_jpK9pkE8vsJpYpgm1arNbiPRIWB2hpBpaNPToh0j-cHCvSJNJJQy4gxB5DLq-GkWze-lf6KopLYeASSdXlY397WUGTvMcrwoHWcAKeaqlr4ORh_Eq4gcKdUBmlKVIsZ-QIXdEDnfHUsS5ow7ubaDGBgF0-itojk82M32SDO4fqppG2oGPN1q83jbg34/s581/smti-2023.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="581" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_jpK9pkE8vsJpYpgm1arNbiPRIWB2hpBpaNPToh0j-cHCvSJNJJQy4gxB5DLq-GkWze-lf6KopLYeASSdXlY397WUGTvMcrwoHWcAKeaqlr4ORh_Eq4gcKdUBmlKVIsZ-QIXdEDnfHUsS5ow7ubaDGBgF0-itojk82M32SDO4fqppG2oGPN1q83jbg34/w400-h126/smti-2023.png" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Last June to August I got an opportunity to teach the course
“<a href="https://smofti.blogspot.com/p/lectures.html">Strategic management of
technology and innovation</a>” again at IIM Bangalore. I have been teaching
this elective for the last five years. The class is a mix of part-time MBA
(PGPEM) and full-time MBA (PGP) students. Every time I learn a lot through the process of
preparation and class interaction. In this article, I present three things
that stand out in my reflection and two questions where my gut feeling was
significantly different from the class.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Starting a business, Dunzo, and the art of iteration</b>:
During the first half of the course, we explored the question, “How do I build
innovation stamina systematically?” One of the frameworks we used was 2-loops
of innovation – the idea-to-demo loop validated feasibility and desirability assumptions
while the demo-to-cash loop validated scalability and profitability
assumptions. We used the 2-loops lens to look at the starting of various
businesses like Kodak, Dunzo, Ather Energy, Husk Power Systems, etc. For each
iteration, we analyzed four parameters - speed, cost, quality of feedback, and cognitive
biases, especially confirmation bias. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Dunzo turned out to be interesting on multiple fronts. It
was more relatable as compared to Kodak (hardly anyone had used Kodak camera)
and Husk Power (little experience with off-grid villages). For the first six months,
until it grew to a few thousand customers, Dunzo was running on WhatsApp. Later it adopted mobile apps, cloud, and analytics. Dunzo also experimented
with drone delivery. It was a good example of how a business can start low-tech
and iteratively become more high-tech. Founders spoke the language of
hypothesis testing and customer focus. <a href="https://pymdp-rtd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/notebooks/active_inference_from_scratch.html">Customer
and delivery partner experience was also improved</a> over the years. And yet,
Dunzo remained in the news for cash crunch and market share erosion throughout the
course duration. When asked, which is easier to fix – a broken customer
experience or a broken business model? Almost the entire class felt a broken business
model was easier to fix. However, we found it easier to find counter-examples
for the latter – Dunzo, WeWork, Micromax, and Kingfisher – all had decent customer
experience but struggled to fix their business model. In case you have any
examples where a broken customer experience couldn’t be fixed, happy to learn
from you.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Titan, smartwatches, and the surfing of technology waves</b>:
In the second half of the course, we shifted focus to enabling and management
of innovation. We restricted ourselves to listed companies and used only
secondary sources for discussion such as annual reports, CXO interviews, and quarterly
earnings call transcripts. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Surfing a technology wave is not easy, too early and you
might create technology debt, too late and you risk losing to the competition. We
explored how various companies responded to technology waves – IBM-Internet, Titan-smartwatches,
Vimeo-video marketing, Amara Raja Batteries-Li-Ion, Lego-sustainability, Amazon-speech recognition, and AMD-data centers. For
example, we asked, “Was Titan late in responding to the smartwatch wave?” This was
interesting because 75% of the class wore smartwatches and none had a Titan. So,
on the face of it, the answer was obvious. However, as we dug into the reports,
we found the answer to be much more nuanced and the game is far from over. We
used the "<a href="https://hbr.org/2007/12/is-it-real-can-we-win-is-it-worth-doing-managing-risk-and-reward-in-an-innovation-portfolio">real-win-worth
it" framework</a> to guess investment, no-investment, and divestment decisions. For
example, we asked, “Was it real, win, or worth it criteria that may have led to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/ford-vw-backed-argo-ai-is-shutting-down/">Ford
Motors divesting in Level-5 autonomous car startup, Argo AI</a>?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>AI, creativity, and artificial insight</b>: When the
course began in June, ChatGPT hangover was still lingering. I didn’t change the
nature of assignments or projects. However, referencing norms became stricter. The
fact that AI is going to be a powerful force going forward was given. The
challenge for me was to show how to see through the fog and hype. This is where
guest lectures helped. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUoUcgCLodo">Ravi
Aranke showed</a> how to use ecosystem tracking – users (individual and paid),
startup investments, enterprise adoption, regulatory bodies, expert conversions
(experts shifting their opinions), and professionals (marketing, lawyers, doctors, CAs,
recruiters) to create one’s view. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sunilkrmishra_generative-ai-activity-7096350481215623169-IRqn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios">Sunil
Mishra showed</a> how one can build a local chatbot using Python’s langchain
library and highlighted generative AI’s banking uses-cases.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">We looked at the surprising <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT-UZkiOLv8">move 37</a> during <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo_versus_Lee_Sedol">AlphaGo vs Lee
See dol 2016 Go game</a> and asked, “Was move 37 creative?” It was one of the
moves which the professional Go players thought as a mistake at the first sight
and then realized it was part of an intentional strategy. Almost the entire
class felt that the move 37 was not creative. Personally, I felt the move was
creative, but it also created an opportunity to learn about what creativity
means to different people. I also tried to give a glimpse of how <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1egnoCWgUg">Karl Friston shows curiosity
and insight can be simulated</a> by synthetic agents using active inference
framework. Of course, active inference is primarily used to explain natural
intelligence but he and other researchers have also <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.01354">put forward a proposal</a> for how it
may lead to distributed super-intelligence. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A potentially game-changing emerging technology
which I thought I could spend some time on was genetic engineering - CRISPR,
prime editing, etc. Unfortunately, I fell short on my preparation as well as the
availability of time. However, I managed to use fiction for the first time as a
source of use cases. We looked at a short case prepared from Kazuo Ishiguro’s
novel “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klara_and_the_Sun">Klara and the
Sun</a>” to classify use cases into current, near-future, distant future / impossible
buckets. Ishiguro’s novel unfolds on the backdrop of AI, robotics, and genetic
engineering.</span></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-62138932799427277062023-09-05T08:45:00.002+05:302023-09-05T08:45:57.492+05:30Tracing mindfulness word to its Pali/Sanskrit counterparts: Sati and Vipassanā<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCxDuMlndquA935wudrHlcBEw7e_1uwAqaeWrXbKfJr8pHb50c4MFNdEwEH_3Ryv7dNeDtLwdFjuqUKv0NzWhv6B8H3Uxg_ZP3aRF3S_SlC3h4Biq0iTEZatm8F3h-DnPdMxGrMO5NFfYtiuMw1O8AGXnQRtVC4XXVcI7S9AiZJ5BUz6fm8mCQCYpZ0o8/s294/buddha%20bodha%20gaya.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="294" data-original-width="275" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCxDuMlndquA935wudrHlcBEw7e_1uwAqaeWrXbKfJr8pHb50c4MFNdEwEH_3Ryv7dNeDtLwdFjuqUKv0NzWhv6B8H3Uxg_ZP3aRF3S_SlC3h4Biq0iTEZatm8F3h-DnPdMxGrMO5NFfYtiuMw1O8AGXnQRtVC4XXVcI7S9AiZJ5BUz6fm8mCQCYpZ0o8/w187-h200/buddha%20bodha%20gaya.png" width="187" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">In my <a href="https://www.catalign.in/p/mindfulness-on-go.html" target="_blank">workshops on mindfulness</a>, it is common to get the
question, “How is the mindfulness you teach related to Buddhist practices?” So far,
my answer has been, “Both involve learning to see clearly”. I know this is a
handwavy answer so I decided to explore the question by looking at its
counterparts in Buddhist texts to get a better understanding. In this article,
I take two Pali/Sanskrit words which are translated as mindfulness, namely Sati
(Smriti) and Vipassana (Vipaśyanā), and look at their meanings. But before we
get to these source words, let us place the current usage of mindfulness in a
broader context.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The word mindfulness means different things to different
people, just like innovation. Four types of usages are common: (1) as a practice
anchored in Buddhist texts (2) as a secular discipline with a loose to no
connection to Buddhist texts/practices (3) as a clinical/therapeutic
intervention for mental health issues such as depression; and (4) as a fitness
tool like yoga also available on mobile apps and smartwatches. I have been a
student of mindfulness of the second type (secular discipline with a loose connection
with Buddhist practices) for the past twenty-five years and a teacher for the
past eight years. My book “<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Mindfulness-Connecting-Real-Vinay-Dabholkar/dp/9353573459/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1Q5I433EO6PBM&keywords=mindfulness+dabholkar&qid=1693882704&sprefix=mindfulness+dabholk%2Caps%2C277&sr=8-1">Mindfulness:
connecting with the real you</a>” came from this perspective. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">As we look at Pali and Sanskrit words for mindfulness, we
must note that these are not the only languages in which mindfulness can be traced. Chinese, Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, and perhaps other languages also offer
rich sources of old Buddhist texts and would carry words that are translated
as mindfulness. I am restricting the scope to Pali/Sanskrit due to my ease of understanding
terms and texts in these languages. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The two Pali (Sanskrit) words we will look at are: Sati
(Smriti) and Vipassana (Vipashyana)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Sati (Smriti)</b>: In 1881, T W Rhys Davids, an English
scholar of the Pali language and founder of the Pali text society, translated
the seventh of the Noble Eightfold path sammā-sati<i> </i>as “right
mindfulness, the watchful, active mind” [1]. Literally, the Pali word sati or Sanskrit smriti
means memory, however, Rhys Davids knew the intended meaning in the Buddhist
texts goes beyond just memory. He wrote, “In No. 7 (samma-sati) sati is
literally 'memory' but is used with reference to the constantly repeated phrase
'mindful and thoughtful' (sato sampajâno); and means that activity of mind and
constant presence of mind which is one of the duties most frequently inculcated
on the good Buddhist."[2] <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Satipaṭṭhānā Suttā is one of the most used Buddhist texts as
a source for mindfulness [3]. It presents four establishments of mindfulness –
cattaro satipaṭṭhānā [4]. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Kāye kāyānupassī …vedanāsu vedānanupassi…citte cittānupassi…dhammesu
dhammānupassi viharati ātāpi sampajāno satimā, vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṃ.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">To live witnessing the reality of body as body…feelings as
feelings…mind as mind…phenomena as phenomena, ardently, with clear
comprehension, with awareness, keeping away from craving and aversion towards
the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">In this commonly occurring phrase, sati<i> </i>is translated
as awareness. However, the word <i>sati </i>is always accompanied by anupassanā
and sampajannā. Bhikkhu Bodhi translates them as observation<i> </i>and clear comprehension respectively while S
N Goenka translates them as witnessing and wisdom of arising and passing respectively.
In either case, when mindfulness is meant to capture the essence of Satipaṭṭhānā
suttā, it makes sense for the word to carry the shades of <i>sati,</i> anupassanā
and sampajannā. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The following verse from <a href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.intro.budd.html">Dhammapada
(Pali verse no. 374)</a> also brings out the close relationship between <i>sati</i> and wisdom
of arising and passing [5].<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">yato yato sammasati, khandhānaṁ udayabbayaṁ, labhatī
pītipāmojjaṁ, amataṁ taṁ vijānataṁ<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Whenever he sees with insight the rise and fall of the
aggregates, he is full of joy and happiness. To the discerning one, this
reflects the Deathless. (Translated by Acharya Buddharakkhita [6])<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Vipassanā (Vipaśyanā)</b>: Mindfulness is also used as a
translation of the Pali (Sanskrit) word Vipassana (Vipaśyanā). It literally means
seeing clearly or seeing in a special way. It is also translated as insight. S.
N. Goenka defines it as [7]: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Paññatti ṭhapetvā visesena passati’ti vipassanā<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Having removed the apparent truth, seeing things by their
characteristics. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Vipassana represents a meditation tradition that got started
in Burma (Myanmar) in the 18<sup>th</sup> century and spread among monks as
well as laypeople in the 19<sup>th</sup> and 20<sup>th</sup> centuries in Burma, Thailand, and subsequently across the world [8]. These
traditions use both samaṭhā (tranquillity) and vipassanā (insight) by placing
varying degrees of emphasis on the two aspects [9]. However, many old Buddhist
texts use these two words together. For example, in one of the discourses in
Samyutta Nikāya (SN 43) Buddha says [10]: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Katamo ca bhikkhave asaṅkhata-gāmī Maggo? Samatho ca
vipassanā ca.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">And what is the path that leads<span style="background: white; color: #3d3d3d; line-height: 107%;"> </span>to the unconditioned?
Tranquility & insight…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">If the objective of Vipassana is to see clearly, we can ask
what is it to be seen clearly? The answer differs somewhat based on the
tradition. However, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence">three
characteristics</a>, tilakkhanā (trilakśanā) are common, especially in
Theravada tradition: namely anicca (impermanence), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness),
and anatta (no self). For example, verses 277, 278, and 279 from Dhammapada express
this: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā ti, yadā paññāya passati, atha
nibbindatī dukkhe esa maggo visuddhiyā (277)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">“All conditioned things are impermanent” - when one sees
this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to
purification. [11]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā ti, yadā paññāya passati, atha
nibbindatī dukkhe esa maggo visuddhiyā. (278)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">“All conditioned things are unsatisfactory” - when one sees
this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to
purification.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">sabbe dhammā anattā ti, yadā paññāya passati, atha
nibbindatī dukkhe esa maggo visuddhiyā. (279)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">“All things are not-self” - when one sees this with wisdom,
one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">For <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna">Nagarjuna</a>,
the father of Madhyamaka school, as he presents in <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2022/10/nagarjunas-sunyata-through.html">MulamadhyamakaKarika
verse 24.40</a>, seeing just one characteristic that is of śūnyatā or essencelessness
in everything is enough and everything else follows from it [12]. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">To summarize, we looked at two Pali/Sanskrit words – sati
and vipassanā which have been translated as mindfulness. As we saw, in the
Buddhist texts, these words are accompanied by other related words whose
meanings are also incorporated in the meaning of mindfulness. Phrases like
awareness of or seeing clearly into, with a calm mind, the characteristics of
human existence such as impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, no-self, śūnyatā
stand out. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Sources:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[1] T W Rhys Davids, “Buddhist Suttas, translated from
Pali”, Oxford at the Claredon Press, 1881, pg 107. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[2] T W Rhys Davids, pg 145<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[3] Bhikkhu Bodhi, “What does mindfulness really mean?”, in
“Mindfulness: diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple
applications at the intersection of science and dharma”, edited by J. Mark G.
Williams and Jon Kabat-Zinn, 2015, pg 19.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[4] Achara S. N. Goenka, “Discourses on Satipatthana Sutta”,
Vipassana Research Institute, 2013, pg 22.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[5] Anandjoti Bhikkhu, “A comparative edition of the
Dhammapada”, 4<sup>th</sup> revised edition, April 2020, pg 221.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[6] Acharya Buddharakkhita (translator), “The Dhammapada:
The Buddha’s path of wisdom”, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka,
1985, pg 80.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[7] Achara S. N. Goenka, “Discourses on Satipatthana Sutta”,
Vipassana Research Institute, 2013, pg 4.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[8] Patrick Pranke, “On saints and wizards: Ideals of human
perfection and power in contemporary Burmese Buddhism”, Journal of
International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol 33, 2010, pg 453-488.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[9] Bhikkhu Analayo, “<a href="https://buddhistuniversity.net/content/papers/dynamics-of-insight_analayo">The
dynamics of Theravada insight meditation</a>”, Zhuang Guobin (ed), Dharma Drum
Publishing, Taiwan, 2012. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[10] <a href="https://obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pali/sn/04_salv/sn04.43.002.pali.bd.htm">The Sri
Lanka Buddha Jayanti Tripitaka Series, Digital edition, 1995</a>, SN 43.2 <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[11] Acharya Buddharakkhita (translator), “The Dhammapada:
The Buddha’s path of wisdom”, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka,
1985, pg 65<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[12] <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2022/10/nagarjunas-sunyata-through.html">Nagarjuna’s
sunyata through Mulamadhyamakakarika verses, October 2022</a></span></span><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 107%;">image credit: Gauri Dabholkar</span></div>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-8257452336713926832023-07-16T11:38:00.000+05:302023-07-16T11:38:02.890+05:30Journey mapping: illustrated through Dunzo’s order-tracking experience<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Whether you are eating, sleeping, gaming, commuting, or
working, you are having an experience. And designing richer experiences is the
core objective design thinking. Journey mapping is a tool that can be used to
map the current experience and imagine an enhanced one. In this article, I
would like to present journey mapping process using an example of Dunzo’s order-tracking experience. I will use the blog “<a href="https://blog.dunzo.com/revamping-dunzos-order-tracking-experience-3aa0982c0ca4">Revamping
Dunzo’s order tracking experience</a>” by Divyanshu Nandwani as input to
build the journey map. Divyanshu has nicely captured the thoughts and emotions
of Dunzo’s customers from the time they place an order to receiving it. And he
also presents how the experience was enhanced subsequently.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We will look at journey mapping as a 5-step
process: (1) Gather customer inputs (2) identify journey stages (3) map
customer experience (4) identify dark and bright spots, and (5) frame the
challenge.</span></span><div><b style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="text-indent: -18pt;">1. Gather customer inputs</b><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">: The journey map needs
customer or stakeholder inputs. In the case of order tracking, you will need what
customers are thinking, at what stage of the journey, with what emotion, and
with what kind of emotional intensity. You may use interviews, observations, input
from the customer support department, data available through apps, etc. In the case of
Dunzo, they got the inputs from support tickets, research interviews, and by
looking at the data. Since customers reached out to the delivery partner
directly, delivery partners also become an important source of input. If you
are launching a new product or service, your input will come from your
potential customers’ existing journey that you are planning to enhance. </span>Here is what Dunzo folks have gathered as
mentioned in the blog:<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE4qW9Vih9HhEs-5h4bFZ4lw2qepKwgdW-JPuDezO1KyTF7JTmlpf5R7l7i13IMt3luF1HfndkdJHc4Fe1cEttLpxG2B13lAUCFHQh9RIMYMoqajYAR-g4qTXYC9j0K_YCPJDqNTBh6uM-3_eIQ7ncsehWdsEqMzwlP4OTylfiPODb2-3BQgTg8M36_p8/s1280/order%20tracking%20observations.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE4qW9Vih9HhEs-5h4bFZ4lw2qepKwgdW-JPuDezO1KyTF7JTmlpf5R7l7i13IMt3luF1HfndkdJHc4Fe1cEttLpxG2B13lAUCFHQh9RIMYMoqajYAR-g4qTXYC9j0K_YCPJDqNTBh6uM-3_eIQ7ncsehWdsEqMzwlP4OTylfiPODb2-3BQgTg8M36_p8/w640-h360/order%20tracking%20observations.png" width="640" /></a><br /><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">2. Identify
journey stages</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">: It
helps to divide the journey into a few stages. For example, the order tracking
journey can be divided into the following milestones: (1) Order received (2)
Order accepted by the outlet (3) Partner assigned (4) Partner at the outlet (5)
Parcel picked (6) Parcel delivered. These six milestones divide the journey
into five stages. We could have made this into a 4-stage or an 8-stage journey
by reducing/adding stages. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Wr_unfpJNOme3ZMy-qXdY5S6637F_8k-oCW_IUUc-jWlHD8xuADFgZ2ziOtGraLgm29OpW7b6HahQNl1wRO4M4od3WBDuAZdaBW5AcWFD55egaqjDuv_9bn_MvUk8QLwF47ga9Lbvjr0CaHbCuuK8dWV39lWLzS2EKg_gEKfn-lhwStKD5gDM3bc-Fo/s1328/order%20tracking%20journey%20stages.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="1328" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Wr_unfpJNOme3ZMy-qXdY5S6637F_8k-oCW_IUUc-jWlHD8xuADFgZ2ziOtGraLgm29OpW7b6HahQNl1wRO4M4od3WBDuAZdaBW5AcWFD55egaqjDuv_9bn_MvUk8QLwF47ga9Lbvjr0CaHbCuuK8dWV39lWLzS2EKg_gEKfn-lhwStKD5gDM3bc-Fo/w640-h356/order%20tracking%20journey%20stages.png" width="640" /></a></div>The vertical axis of this journey map corresponds to the emotional intensity associated with
the observation. The middle line denotes neural emotion. We place observations
with positive emotions in the upper half and observations with negative
emotions in the lower half of the map. When an observation has high intensity
of positive emotion, say the customer is extremely happy, the observation will
be placed on the top of the map. Conversely, when the customer is extremely
annoyed, it will be placed towards the bottom of the map.</span><br /><b style="text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="text-indent: -18pt;">3. Map customer experience</b><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">: </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Once we have observations/thoughts gathered
from customers and the stages of the journey ready, we can start placing the
observations on the map. For example, observation 2 “Why hasn’t a partner been
assigned yet?” is placed in stage-2 where the order is accepted by the outlet but the partner is not assigned yet. Since the customer is likely to be anxious while
raising this question, the observation has been placed in the lower half. I
have assumed that the anxiety is medium (not very low and not acute). Likewise,
I have placed most of the observations listed in step-1 on the map below.</span><br /></span><div style="text-indent: -24px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Note that map building can be an ongoing
process and is best done by a team rather than an individual. It can be built
over a period, say a month, and then looked at for patterns, particularly dark
and bright spots.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOWhVVHr_xZBP6wxmFU5dJP1TvVGN1afvSfzR7TSJvqxe5ncEl_f1NuGRmQ79GdUPqwOcS6CWVtMz8oR7QSsHc1NypoRwkT_x1XJOt7RnjfopZQ3-hCm5c-qC42jJO6fL_sBWGH7xAalCbzjJK48jHAyivIxL-l2ayVcDKPj0-fAs35zkTm388KjzQW0I/s1328/order%20tracking%20journey%20map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="748" data-original-width="1328" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOWhVVHr_xZBP6wxmFU5dJP1TvVGN1afvSfzR7TSJvqxe5ncEl_f1NuGRmQ79GdUPqwOcS6CWVtMz8oR7QSsHc1NypoRwkT_x1XJOt7RnjfopZQ3-hCm5c-qC42jJO6fL_sBWGH7xAalCbzjJK48jHAyivIxL-l2ayVcDKPj0-fAs35zkTm388KjzQW0I/w640-h360/order%20tracking%20journey%20map.png" width="640" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4. <b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Identify
dark and bright spots</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">:
Bright spots are those observations where the customer is really happy/excited
etc. They are located in the upper half of the journey map, especially towards
the top side. For example, observation-13 “Oh yes! The partner is moving” is a
bright spot. In contrast, observation-16 “Why is it taking time at the store?” is
a dark spot.</span> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcvLdkQczW1cgWknl5wI8DX4MDm9htHhQZJxhXxj-yrnVZdAaTh5_udO1HxUIF8afECrZVjyIP_-Nc_y8UDJok0EAHub6bQLEB85Xsh6cEWU4HAnJfhlY4ugS_1jEKFA8zfj_paDulKAvlognwuubM36fBcBnuNqQJIoB6J8E5uzbDdsiGk5oZe8d8S2M/s1328/dark%20and%20bright%20spots.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="1328" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcvLdkQczW1cgWknl5wI8DX4MDm9htHhQZJxhXxj-yrnVZdAaTh5_udO1HxUIF8afECrZVjyIP_-Nc_y8UDJok0EAHub6bQLEB85Xsh6cEWU4HAnJfhlY4ugS_1jEKFA8zfj_paDulKAvlognwuubM36fBcBnuNqQJIoB6J8E5uzbDdsiGk5oZe8d8S2M/w640-h360/dark%20and%20bright%20spots.png" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5. <b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Frame
the challenge</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">: The primary objective of journey mapping is
problem discovery. Journey map offers multiple options for framing a challenge.
For example,</span></span></div><div><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Focus on one stage where you want to enhance the
experience (e.g. it could be stage-4 in the journey map above which has two
dark spots)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Focus on dark spots and ask, “How do we reduce/eliminate the anxiety of our customers?”</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Focus on bright spots and ask, “How to replicate
the joy across other stages?”</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Frame a challenge around end-to-end experience?<span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">For example, the dunzo blog presents
following end-to-end experience framing, “How do we show that the order status
is coming from the partner and not from the machine? How do we give a human
vibe to the order status updates?”</span></span></li></ul><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It helps to identify a <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2017/10/3-ways-metaphor-helps-in-challenge.html">concrete
metaphor or analogy</a> while framing the challenge. For dunzo, the inspiration
came from our friendly chat messages. They framed the challenge as “How do we
deliver status updates as personalized messages coming from the partner in
first person?” This was supplemented by adding animations. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Journey mapping is useful irrespective of whether
you are in a B2B, B2C, or D2C business, whether you are offering a product, a service,
or a solution. Hope you get to try it out.</span></span></div>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-32986413544755851472023-06-18T10:26:00.003+05:302023-06-18T10:39:54.997+05:30Becoming a zombie, one day at a time: A Kazuo Ishiguro depiction from Living (2022 film)<p><span style="text-align: justify;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0T-t7oKoUxYhX6mlhF9RpfRHfle3WmjAImito1M-5YIMq50IVA6CCyBhLP3IX2WWoZZFSIFUe_NqzOz5_EqaCbFWootmYbhDCDZvz3YcUwt-e5dSnEKACohuRQuI0NES7RKdVhF_BqH-Zu4kKbzgbKYGyniikp_UnuRR-W4KStNc3VS8ol5eRPl6E/s1078/Mr%20Williams%20with%20Ms%20Harris.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="1078" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0T-t7oKoUxYhX6mlhF9RpfRHfle3WmjAImito1M-5YIMq50IVA6CCyBhLP3IX2WWoZZFSIFUe_NqzOz5_EqaCbFWootmYbhDCDZvz3YcUwt-e5dSnEKACohuRQuI0NES7RKdVhF_BqH-Zu4kKbzgbKYGyniikp_UnuRR-W4KStNc3VS8ol5eRPl6E/w640-h285/Mr%20Williams%20with%20Ms%20Harris.png" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is how Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy), a senior
bureaucrat, narrates how he came to live like a zombie to his former colleague
Miss Harris (</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Aimée Lou Wood</span></span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">). This <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo_Ishiguro" target="_blank">Kazuo Ishiguro</a> script from the film </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_(2022_film)" style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;" target="_blank">Living (2022)</a><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;"> reads more like a poem.</span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What was your name for me?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mr. Zombie, I wasn’t always</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When I was your age what<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I wanted was to be a gentleman<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Nothing grand, just a
rank-and-file <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Gentleman, wearing a suit and a
hat<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Life just crept up on me<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One day proceeding the next<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Small wonder I didn’t notice<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What I was becoming</span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Then I looked at you, and I remembered</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">what it was like to be alive </span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You may not be wanting to be a gentleman. But it
could be “a successful person”, “a leader”, “a famous person” or even “an enlightened
person”. The burden of becoming can be very heavy. Watch out, you might
actually become what you wanted. And also turn into a zombie.</span></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-73741852919945002112023-05-16T16:36:00.000+05:302023-05-16T16:36:51.125+05:30Sensing and solving: two modes of mind and the solving mode bias<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghSwttOKCdhzR1uk4s-BTDZeXnlokZmpHxVeX2vr-rLiGlrhCLmoB5b30SvjiOLaoujBd0rpgLWA7GKxm6RTMo5H2di3JxN9jrtx7I0lYqRbQwtFc_Lp4206NeUJfnXZaia1lMMA_7UJJTfAB2eWgM9RGc_1SYhtukdTvYADJ6puwBsp4fofu0MXca/s414/solving%20mode%20bias.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="414" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghSwttOKCdhzR1uk4s-BTDZeXnlokZmpHxVeX2vr-rLiGlrhCLmoB5b30SvjiOLaoujBd0rpgLWA7GKxm6RTMo5H2di3JxN9jrtx7I0lYqRbQwtFc_Lp4206NeUJfnXZaia1lMMA_7UJJTfAB2eWgM9RGc_1SYhtukdTvYADJ6puwBsp4fofu0MXca/s320/solving%20mode%20bias.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Whether you are driving on the road, walking on the pavement, or eating in a restaurant by the side, you are likely to be in the solving
mode. You are most likely trying to go from your current state to a desired
state. The desired state could be being in your office, achieving 8000 steps
for the day, or being satiated with your favorite food. While eating, walking, or driving, which is happening without your conscious effort, you are also
likely to be trying to solve more complex problems like project planning,
hiring/firing, providing help to aging parents, etc. And yet could this tendency
to be in the solving mode be a handicap to solving problems in challenging
situations? If so, what is needed to balance things? We will explore this in this
article.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Sensing mode and solving mode</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">: Let’s begin with a simplistic yet useful
perspective that says that the mind is iterating through two modes: sensing
and solving. Sensing mode involves estimating the state of the world including the
body state and solving mode involves mental simulation and action to change the
current state to match a desired state. Underlying both modes is a model or
a map with a set of beliefs guiding the navigation through the world. These
modes are also known as being and doing modes [1] or perceptual inference and
active inference [2]. The picture above depicts perspective.</span></span><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The sensing mode uses a map consisting of a set of beliefs to
estimate the current state and the desired state [3]. The gap between the
current and desired state could be based on our primate homeostatic needs such
as hunger, thirst, cooler shelter, etc. But it could also be based on higher-level beliefs regarding security such as a secure job, a secure bank balance, a
caring circle of friends and family, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Bridging the gap</b>: Solving mode tries to find
different paths to go from the current state to a more secure desired state. It
does so by changing the current state through action. To maintain homeostasis,
heart rate, blood pressure, and various other parameters may be changing
without our conscious awareness. This is covert action. A subset of solving
part gets expressed as overt action. If my job is insecure, an action may
involve sending a resume to friends and posting it on job sites. It could also
involve building new skills that may be more relevant in the changing scenario.
It could also involve reducing discretionary spending so that there is a
better saving for the rainy days.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The sensing mode can also reduce the gap between the current and
desired state. It does so by updating existing beliefs resulting in a re-estimation of the current and desired states. For example, I may have a
belief that I must have a job. Suppose this belief gets questioned and I
entertain a belief that it may be good to try out freelancing or even taking a
break for six months and traveling. Then the current state of an insecure job doesn’t
look so bad and the desired state doesn’t need to have a job.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">A key difference between solving and sensing is the presence
and absence of time. Solving involves belief simulation over multiple time
scales e.g. if I send a resume to friends, I might get a call for an interview after
a few days. Sensing, on the other hand, involves belief updates e.g. Is a job
necessary?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Solving mode bias</b>: As the belief map gets more and
more sophisticated, solving mode takes over. It feels it knows the current
state, why waste time and energy in sensing? It begins to suppress sensing
pathways. We begin to go through the motion smoothly without sensing any
newness. Tables, chairs, rooms, roads, and even people begin to appear the same and
predictable. There may be updates in lower-level beliefs such as a friend’s phone
number or the color of the street light but the higher-level beliefs get frozen. These
could be religious beliefs, political ideologies, or even scientific theories. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Sensing the limitation of solving mode</b>: Solving mode
bias can create an impression that the world is predictable and the map of the
world as projected by the current beliefs is reality. It feels as if any
problem or conflict can be resolved through more and more simulation and action
of different options and scenarios holding the current beliefs tight. Sometimes
it works, other times it doesn’t. A key turning point happens in this process when there is a sensing of the limitation of the solving mode. It is a
realization that no matter how sophisticated the beliefs, a map is just a map
never the territory. This insight may open newer sensing pathways that have
been suppressed by the solving mode. And the quality of listening and observation
improves. People with opposite beliefs don’t look morons anymore and the urge
to “clean” the world subsides.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To summarize, both sensing and solving can
reduce the gap between the current and desired state. We have a tendency to rely
mostly on the solving mode which tries to change the current state to match the desired state. Sensing involves belief updates which may result in new current and desired states. Over-reliance on solving mode dampens the sensing mode. A good first step to rebalancing the solving-sensing imbalance is to observe the constant time travel and the urge to change the world. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>sources</b>:</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[1] J. Mark. G. Williams, “Mindfulness and psychological
process”, Emotion, 2010, vol. 10, No. 1, pages 1-7. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20141295/">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20141295/</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[2] Norman Farb et. al., “Interoception, contemplative practice, and health”, Frontiers in Psychology, June 2015, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00763">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00763</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[3] Norman Farb et. al. June 2015 (same as [2])</span></span></div></span></div>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-32001854511125758842023-04-27T09:52:00.001+05:302023-04-27T09:55:03.269+05:304 quotes from Prof Edgar Schein that are stuck with me<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSIrBJIa97Mwb0-XoopBEpK1V9cT9UtIn1-XZAqP0dbJMLmthW2GGrEOkoyWetXWCkP_FHJxd1Fc_6H9lw32_RXehMu8u_VGE-yKlInonfK2eXGE9gLkMV1-OXEp0WvMI23laGNb8lMmMxo4pbCgQ_cTg5Tt4ByFeq8naxWw3s5kRqYnNKVyAAEdEQ/s1261/EdSchein.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="1261" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSIrBJIa97Mwb0-XoopBEpK1V9cT9UtIn1-XZAqP0dbJMLmthW2GGrEOkoyWetXWCkP_FHJxd1Fc_6H9lw32_RXehMu8u_VGE-yKlInonfK2eXGE9gLkMV1-OXEp0WvMI23laGNb8lMmMxo4pbCgQ_cTg5Tt4ByFeq8naxWw3s5kRqYnNKVyAAEdEQ/w640-h229/EdSchein.png" width="640" /></a></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Schein">Prof
Edgar Schein</a> passed away on January 26 at the age of 94. His son and
collaborator Peter Schein <a href="https://odc.aom.org/discussion/on-the-passing-of-edgar-schein">wrote</a>,
“He and I had just finished a work gig at about 5p and were chatting after and
a few hours after that he passed away peacefully, no pain, no illness, no
hospitalization. As he wanted it.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ed Schein’s work had a huge influence on my consulting
career – both in the area of culture of innovation and my consulting style. It
is no surprise that I have quoted him in sixteen of my blogs since 2008. Many
of them were on topics that I found interesting in his books, articles, and
interviews. As I added more areas of study like design thinking and
mindfulness, I realized I had something to learn from Schein in each of them. In
this article, I present 4 quotes from Ed Schein that are stuck with me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Observation is an intervention</b>: Schein says, “If I go
into an organization to observe something, my presence there, what questions I
ask, and everything I do is an intervention in that organization’s life.” And adds,
“The notion that I can go there and ‘gather data in order to plan an
intervention later’ is, I now realize, one of the most nonsensical ideas in the
field of consulting.”[1] I have illustrated this in my blog <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2010/12/when-does-intervention-begin-story-of.html">Where
does intervention begin? Story of Dr Kiran Bedi’s first day at Tihar Jail</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> (2010)</span>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Changing culture is a misnomer</b>: Schein says, “I think
changing culture is a misnomer. You change people’s behaviour, and you may
eventually influence their beliefs,” he adds, “If you define culture as a
common learned response, then it changes with success. If you impose a new way
of doing things, and people try it and it works, then slowly they build a new
culture.” [2] I wrote about this topic in my blog – <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2009/09/saying-we-need-culture-of-innovation-is.html">Saying
“We need a culture of innovation” is mostly correct and useless</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> (2009)</span>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Focus more on process than on content</b>: When I am in a
meeting arguing with a colleague, I may be focused on his argument and my
counter-argument. That is the content of the conversation. Schein suggests that
I should focus more on the process [3]. For example, can I observe the process
of communication, “I am trying to compete with my colleague and showing to
others that I am brighter and smarter?” This may lead to a reflection, “Why am
I arguing here? Is it possible to appreciate the other person’s point and build a relationship that might lead to a better solution?” Focus on process involves
observing how anxieties such as losing an argument and aspirations about one’s
career are driving the thinking and behaviour. I wrote about this in – <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2019/09/3-tips-on-being-mindful-in-corporate.html">3
tips on being mindful in the corporate world: An Edgar Schein perspective</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> (2019)</span>. Another way Schein puts this is, “Listening
to the other is secondary to listening to the self.” [4] <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>There is no “real problem”, only a set of worries</b>: In
the final chapter titled “Concluding comments – some final thoughts on how to
be really helpful” of the book “Humble consulting: how to provide real help faster”
Schein mentions the following: “To be really helpful requires locating what the
real problem is, that is, what is worrying the client while accepting the fact
that there is no ‘real problem,’ only a set of worries that may be all over the
map. To locate what is worrying the client requires open and trusting
communication between client and helper. The client has to feel secure enough
to reveal what is personally bothering him or her.” [5] I wrote about this in
the blog “<a href="https://www.catalign.in/2016/09/my-3-take-aways-from-edgar-scheins.html">My
3 takeaways from Edgar Schein’s Humble consulting</a>” (2016)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">In one of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81W9rHjO76k&t=925s">online webinars in
May 2021</a> when asked for final words, Ed asked this question, “Can we get to
level-two relationships (i.e. beyond transactional) among countries and among
larger units to develop ways of saving the planet and thereby saving ourselves?”
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">For someone like me who got to know about Ed and his thoughts
only through books and interviews Ed’s passing away does not change much. It is
such a joy to read/listen to Ed. Thank you, Ed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Sources</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[1] James Campbell Quick, “The next frontier: Edgar Schein
on organizational therapy”, The Academy of Management Executive: Feb 2000, page
32.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[2] Tony Manning talks to Edgar Schain, May 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[3] “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wJaNKIALLw&t=1180s">Humble
leadership: Edgar Schein: talks at Google</a>”, interview by Karen May at
Google, Feb 2, 2016 (Ed’s quote is at 18:50). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[4] James Campbell Quick, “The next frontier: Edgar Schein
on organizational therapy”, The Academy of Management Executive: Feb 2000, page
32.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">[5] Edgar Schein, “Humble consulting: how to provide real
help faster,” Berrett-Koehler, 2016.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Image sources: amorebeautifulquestion.com, amazon.com</span></span></p>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-78562837130393130082023-04-20T11:30:00.000+05:302023-04-20T11:30:33.867+05:304 modes of problem-solving applied to “reducing student anxiety”<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcz5VC9u9XkRC5c1jbd4djMFYoNoBouov4BXQ0hQ7lYPa0HLxWA3gqAf-eGbDyTBymN8JE5HypjfBZeR0q7S2ITd8MVXtJwEwBynUaG96CAbIwsCTsPaV-x3z5I6LY8cW0oHwr9OQGtGAJ9Irb7cUHl0VTI879KRe8K12QXvZ3GPIEszWEqLG5Hthn/s723/4%20modes%20of%20problem%20solving%20exam%20anxiety.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="723" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcz5VC9u9XkRC5c1jbd4djMFYoNoBouov4BXQ0hQ7lYPa0HLxWA3gqAf-eGbDyTBymN8JE5HypjfBZeR0q7S2ITd8MVXtJwEwBynUaG96CAbIwsCTsPaV-x3z5I6LY8cW0oHwr9OQGtGAJ9Irb7cUHl0VTI879KRe8K12QXvZ3GPIEszWEqLG5Hthn/s320/4%20modes%20of%20problem%20solving%20exam%20anxiety.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Over the past decade, I have been using <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2014/08/four-approaches-to-problem-solving.html">4
approaches to problem-solving</a> to give an overview of problem-solving techniques
in my workshops and classes. In this article, I illustrate these 4 modes of
problem-solving by applying them to the problem of “reducing student anxiety”.
I did this exercise in my class last month at IIT Bombay while teaching a
course on the <a href="https://mtechinnov.blogspot.com/">management of innovation</a>.
Many of the ideas have come from students as we did the exercise together.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Student anxiety is a broad topic and we realized we could
break it down into different sub-topics such as exam anxiety, anxiety due to
parental pressures, anxiety due to peer pressure, placement anxiety, etc. This
is an example of systems-centric thinking where we try to break down a complex problem
into sub-problems and try to solve each separately. Of course, the sub-problems
may be interlinked, and solving one sub-problem may exacerbate another one. Despite
this possibility, we decided to focus on the sub-problem of exam anxiety. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">1.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>System-centric approach</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We looked at some of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_inventive_thinking">Systematic
Inventive Thinking</a> techniques <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">a.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Subtraction</b>: Can we subtract the exam from the course?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">b.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Division</b>: Make attendance 100% weightage
and exam 0% (Reduce weightage of exam and increase somewhere else)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">c.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Multiplication</b>: Give an option of
multiple attempts to refine your score in the exam<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">d.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Task unification</b>: 1. Keep self-assessment
2. Keep peer-assessment 3. Let every student set and answer her own exam<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">e.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Attribute dependency: </b>Exam is offered at
multiple difficulty levels.<b> </b>Student gets to choose the difficulty level
of the exam <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">f.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Reversal</b>: Instead of the teacher setting exam
for the students, students set exam for the teacher </span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">2.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Solution-centric approach</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">a.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Using metaphors: </b>Can writing an exam be
as stress-free as chatting with friends in a café? Can exam writing be a group
exercise?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 54.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">b.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Using internal bright spots:</b> A
personalized app that keeps track of student’s stress level perhaps through
biomarkers such as HRV (Heart Rate Variability) available on smartwatches. And when
it senses that anxiety is rising, gives suggestions for activities based the
past data that reduce his anxiety. Suggestions could be: have chocolate, go
talk to a friend, read a book, listen to music, take a walk, etc. </span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">3.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Problem-centric approach</b>: Through this mode,
one goes into the root cause of the problem of “exam anxiety”. Why does it
arise? What is the “virus” and what could be the “vaccine”? Is the fear of failure
the root cause? Is this an evolutionarily deep-rooted tendency? If so, can it
be dampened when it remains high? What does neuroscience say? Is there an anti-anxiety
pill without any side effects?</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">4.<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Sensing-centric approach</b>: In this mode,
one begins by saying, “I don’t know why students are anxious about exams”. Can
I listen to and observe students as they prepare for and respond to exam
pressure? Can I listen to and observe teachers and parents as to how they respond to
exams? Is it possible for students, teachers, and parents to become aware of
their own anxiety? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hope this gives some idea of how the 4 modes of
problem-solving may be applied to a given situation.</span></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-40335507314533046932023-01-23T16:44:00.001+05:302023-02-08T15:18:29.013+05:30Building innovation stamina: 4 basic workouts<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6aSE8rxsFMf8XAWY1qUPMb5S9TF35PIHOPaVCU2QPClxwh_zIGymKk-C-y7NeiFJgQCfm3a3DLqopQMpofxDd6VUS8RX1DbZji2v8GL6rCF2JMmryoZznzdjitphsr4YWFeqKArCeOEuXcwKf2S02TOGparUnoRRT3HDypnRy3k1Zc6Ve2jXkn4s2/s949/4%20basic%20workouts.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="949" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6aSE8rxsFMf8XAWY1qUPMb5S9TF35PIHOPaVCU2QPClxwh_zIGymKk-C-y7NeiFJgQCfm3a3DLqopQMpofxDd6VUS8RX1DbZji2v8GL6rCF2JMmryoZznzdjitphsr4YWFeqKArCeOEuXcwKf2S02TOGparUnoRRT3HDypnRy3k1Zc6Ve2jXkn4s2/w400-h288/4%20basic%20workouts.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When it comes to building running stamina, workouts may
include a combination of stretching, slow runs, sprints, strength training,
etc. What kinds of workouts are involved in building innovation stamina? Let’s
look at <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2015/08/4-staminas-of-innovator.html" target="_blank">4 key components of innovation stamina</a> and identify a basic workout for
each of them. The 4 components are curiosity stamina, experimentation stamina,
communication stamina, and collaboration stamina. Innovation is a team sport and
hence innovation stamina is more relevant for a team than an individual.
However, let’s focus on an individual in this article.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Curiosity stamina</b>: This stamina depicts
one’s ability to remain curious about one challenge area for a long duration. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Daily workout: Listening</b>: <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2019/01/could-listening-be-biggest-source-of.html" target="_blank">Spending time listening to people</a> who may be facing the challenge or have overcome the
challenge or carry some expertise related to the challenge area. If you are
curious about a technology trend, then the workout may involve listening to /
studying what experts/friends have to say on the topic.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Listening may also happen by
watching a video, reading a book, research paper, etc. Any serious study would
need the discipline of taking notes, keeping recorded interviews, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A typical by-product of this
exercise is framing one or more challenges with additional constraints e.g. focusing
on specific types of people, using different metaphors or analogies, etc. With input from people, the challenge statement may undergo changes. <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2014/12/how-to-build-curiosity-stamina.html" target="_blank">Keeping a diary of challenge statements</a> along with assumptions and constraints helps.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Experimentation stamina</b>: This stamina
represents one’s ability to perform experiments to validate one or more
assumptions or hypotheses associated with an idea.<b> </b></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Daily
workout: Prototyping: </b><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2016/08/rapid-prototyping-1-hour-1-day-and-1.html" target="_blank">A prototype can be feels-like</a> such as a
<a href="https://www.catalign.in/2017/05/before-and-after-storyboard-simple.html" target="_blank">before-and-after storyboard</a>, or it may be a looks-like prototype such as app
wireframes or it may be works-like such as a simulation model. Building higher
fidelity prototypes typically needs more sophisticated tools, specialized
skills, and more effort. The key parameters to watch out for are cost and speed of prototyping. You want the cost to be as low as possible and the speed to be as high as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Like how a gym enables workouts, a
lab enables prototyping by providing access to tools, platforms, and coaches. Hence,
serious stamina builders try to get access to a gym or build a low-cost gym of
their own. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>3.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></b><b>Communication stamina: </b>This stamina
depicts one’s ability to communicate one’s idea effectively in a short time
again and again despite unfavorable responses in the past.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Daily workout: idea pitching: </b><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2015/11/an-idea-presentation-template-based-on.html" target="_blank">Idea pitching</a> can start with friends
and family. And it gets extended to mentors, investors, potential/current
customers, partners, etc. A key by-product is a feedback which may be used to
improvise the idea, the prototype, and the pitch. Investment is also a
by-product, not necessarily in the form of money but it could also be in the
form of time from a mentor or an influencer opening a channel to potential
customers. </span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>4.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></b><b>Collaboration stamina: </b>This stamina
represents one’s ability to collaborate with and co-create new products/services
with colleagues despite differences in opinions or priorities.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Daily workout: Brainstorming: </b>It
is common to meet over a cup of coffee but not so common to meet with a specific
challenge as agenda to be discussed. And it is even more difficult to retain an interest in the challenge for all the parties involved. Collaboration
stamina is the toughest and trickiest stamina to build. Who is contributing more?
Who should get the credit? Questions like these would pop up sooner or later
and need to be resolved amicably.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A typical by-product of collaboration is a joint project. Many challenge
campaigns make it mandatory for the submission to be teamwork. Quality of
listening and mutual respect play a big role in cultivating collaboration
stamina.</span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To summarize, we looked at 4 components of
innovation stamina: curiosity, experimentation, communication, and collaboration, and 4 associated basic workouts to cultivate those components viz. listening,
prototyping, idea pitching, and brainstorming.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2oWyW4FjpOU" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div></div>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-32326822661195682362022-10-19T13:43:00.016+05:302022-10-24T09:35:55.473+05:30Nāgārjuna’s śūnyatā through Mūlamadhyamakakārikā verses<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXWyXmTzqJ_iBpg9M4DhRuDVUNhheOL1CBLluX7iA3weCVSZrC7afloCHPiQ6JmkheKqWPyxOhxY9M-unOIZW3pVP3jLtxZ77PUPe-vUHCyUcsBVC7-ytKrRT-E6CZ_4nrPOUXlJilSr1rvJzWNXyLf0gE1bQl7DF1jUaF7kjugRb0jXQ3QKFxC0VO/s857/Nagarjuna_with_84_mahasiddha_cropped.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="857" data-original-width="686" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXWyXmTzqJ_iBpg9M4DhRuDVUNhheOL1CBLluX7iA3weCVSZrC7afloCHPiQ6JmkheKqWPyxOhxY9M-unOIZW3pVP3jLtxZ77PUPe-vUHCyUcsBVC7-ytKrRT-E6CZ_4nrPOUXlJilSr1rvJzWNXyLf0gE1bQl7DF1jUaF7kjugRb0jXQ3QKFxC0VO/w160-h200/Nagarjuna_with_84_mahasiddha_cropped.jpg" width="160" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">“Reality is unknown and unknowable” is one of the hypotheses
I explore in my book “<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Mindfulness-Connecting-Real-Vinay-Dabholkar/dp/9353573459/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JBBIUXBB9ZG3&keywords=mindfulness+dabholkar&qid=1666001972&sprefix=mindfulness+dabholka%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-1">Mindfulness:
connecting with the real you</a>” (2019). Over the past year, as I began to
explore ancient Buddhist texts where a similar notion is expressed, it was
inevitable that I encounter <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna#Sunyata">Nagarjuna’s sunyata</a>
(emptiness). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna">Nagarjuna</a>
from the 2<sup>nd</sup>-3rd century CE is a towering figure among the Buddhist teachers
from India. He shed fresh light on one of the core tenets of Buddhism – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da">Pratītyasamutpād</a></span><a href="#"><span style="font-family: arial;">a</span></a> (प्रतीत्यसमुत्पाद) <span style="font-family: arial;">commonly translated as
dependent origination or dependent arising.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Nagarjuna championed the term sunyata (<span lang="HI">शून्यता</span>) to
express his understanding of dependent arising. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%ABlamadhyamakak%C4%81rik%C4%81" target="_blank">Mūlamadhyamakakārikā</a> (<span lang="HI">मूलमध्यमककारिका, M</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">MK) tr</span><span style="font-family: arial;">anslated as “Fundamental
wisdom of the middle path” is Nagarjuna’s main text which is considered one of
the foundational texts in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana">Mahayana</a>
Buddhist traditions. MMK is a series of 450 verses organized into 27 chapters. I
haven’t read the entire MMK yet. However, this is my first attempt to pick a
few verses to present my understanding of Nagarjuna’s sunyat</span><span style="font-family: arial;">a. Who</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> knows? It might open new channels of conversations that I
enjoy and learn from.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">On English translation: I have used the Sanskrit version of MMK
from <a href="https://archive.org/details/2226454Nagarjuna/mode/2up">here</a>. I
have used this <a href="https://www.learnsanskrit.cc/">online Sanskrit
dictionary</a> and also referred to translations inspired by multiple Buddhist
traditions such as Tibetan (Jay Garfield), Japanese Zen (Kenneth Inada),
Theravada (David Kalupahana) as well as works by T R V Murti, G C Nayak, and <a href="https://new.bhu.ac.in/site/FacultyProfile/2_110?FA001161" target="_blank">Ananda Mishra</a>. All sources are given at the end. However, I haven’t stuck to any
particular translation and sometimes used my own phrases.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">How important is sunyata to Nagarjuna?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="HI"><span style="font-family: arial;">सर्वं च युज्यते तस्य शून्यता यस्य युज्यते ।<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="HI">सर्वं न युज्यते तस्य शून्यं यस्य न युज्यते ॥
24.14 </span>||<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">sarvaṃ ca yujyate tasya śūnyatā yasya yujyate<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">sarvaṃ na yujyate tasya śūnyaṃ yasya na yujyate<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Whoever is in tune with<sup>1,2</sup> sunyata is in tune
with everything<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Everything is out of tune for him who is out of tune with
sunyata<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Is sunyata the middle path of Buddha?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">यः प्रतीत्यसमुत्पादः
शून्यतां तां प्रचक्ष्महे ।<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">सा
प्रज्ञप्तिरूपादाय प्रतिपत्सैव मध्यमा ॥ 24.18 </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">||<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaḥ śūnyatāṃ tāṃ pracakṣmahe<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">sā prajñaptirūpādāya pratipatsaiva madhyamā<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">We see clearly that whatever is dependently arising is
sunyata<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">That is a term for inter-dependence</span><sup style="font-family: arial;">3</sup><span style="font-family: arial;">, is itself the
middle way.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">यः प्रतीत्यसमुत्पादं
पश्यतीदं स पश्यति ।<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">दुःखं
समुदयं चैव निरोधं मार्गमेव च ॥ 24.40 </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">||<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaṃ paśyatīdaṃ sa paśyati<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">duḥkhaṃ samudayaṃ caiva nirodhaṃ mārgameva ca<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Whoever sees dependent arising, sees this<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Suffering, its arising and its cessation, and the path itself<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">What is sunyata?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The following two verses are my most favourite as far as
sunyata is concerned.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">शून्यता सर्वदृष्टीनां
प्रोक्ता निःसरणं जिनैः ।<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">येषां तु
शून्यतादृष्टीस्तानसाध्यान् बभाषिरे ॥ 13.8 </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">||<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">śūnyatā sarvadṛṣṭīnāṃ proktā niḥsaraṇaṃ jinaiḥ<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">yeṣāṃ tu śūnyatādṛṣṭīstānasādhyān babhāṣire<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sunyata is the dissipation<sup>4</sup> of all views, said
the wise,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">They spoke, For whomever, sunyata is a view are incorrigible<sup>5</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">My comment: “all views” means all rigid beliefs. Hence, sunyata
is a state where all beliefs are tentative.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">अस्तीति शाश्वतग्राहो
नास्तीत्युच्छेददर्शनं ।<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">तस्मादस्तित्वनास्तित्वे
नाश्रीयेत विचक्षणः ॥ 15.10 </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">||</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">astīti śāśvatagrāho nāstītyuccedadarśanaṁ <br /><br />tasmād astitvanāstitve nāśrīyeta vicakṣaṇaḥ
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Saying “it exists” means holding onto permanency, saying “it
doesn’t exist” is the nihilistic view<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hence, a wise man doesn’t resort to “exists” or “doesn’t
exist”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">How does perception of sunyata manifest itself?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">अपरप्रत्ययं शान्तं
प्रपञ्चैरप्रपञ्चितं ।<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">निर्विकल्पमनानार्थमेतत्त्वस्य
लक्षणं ॥ 18.9 </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">||<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">aparapratyayaṃ śāntaṃ prapañcairaprapañcitaṃ<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">nirvikalpamanānārthametattvasya lakṣaṇaṃ<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Not dependent on another, peaceful, unfooled by the
conceptual play<sup>6</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Thoughtless, without multiplicity, these are the
characteristics of reality<sup>7,8</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">My comment: When reality perceives its nature to be sunya i.e.
dependently arising it manifests itself through these characteristics. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">What does it mean practically?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">MMK is not written in the spirit of a “step-by-step guide to
sunyata” 😊 However, we can infer a few things which may
be practical. The first thing to notice is that, at least in these verses,
Nagarjuna is not talking about what to do or not do. He is talking about a kind
of seeing or perceiving. The phrase in verse 24.40 – <span lang="HI">यः</span><span lang="HI"> </span><span lang="HI">पश्यति</span><span lang="HI"> </span><span lang="HI">स</span><span lang="HI"> </span><span lang="HI">पश्यति</span><span lang="HI">, </span>yaḥ
paśyati sa paśyati, one who sees, sees – communicates the spirit. In sunyata,
it is the perception that matters, not action.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Next, if I pay attention to my mental state and observe that
it is anxious or agitated (i.e. not peaceful) then it would imply that I am not
perceiving sunyata (last verse 18.9). That means not all beliefs have been
dissipated yet (13.8). That is, at least one view (belief) is being held too
tightly and the current or an imagined situation has threatened its validity. For
example, the belief could be that “I must always have a job” or “I must always
be liked by family/friends/colleagues” or “I must be successful” etc. and in the
current or in an imagined situation this may not be true. Nagarjuna is indirectly
nudging us to ask, “Is there a belief being held too tightly? (15.10)” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Not sure if you noticed, but all the sample beliefs in the para
above assume “I am an independent agent”. 😊 Am I? Or is it just another belief held
tightly? Am I getting fooled by my thought process? (18.9) Looks tricky? Who
says the middle path is not slippery? In fact, Nagarjuna says misperception of
sunyata can be as dangerous as a snake held incorrectly (24.11, <span lang="HI">सर्पो
यथा दुर्गृहीतो</span><span lang="HI" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">, </span>sarpo
yathā durgṛhīto<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Going back to the hypothesis in my book, is Nagarjuna saying
that reality is unknown and unknowable? In verse 15.10 Nagarjuna is suggesting
that taking a hard stance on “it is” or “it is not” is dangerous. Once I take a
hard stance, I need to defend it, either win or lose arguments, all of this generates
suffering sooner or later. Once I see this, I may say “yes” or “no” to any
question but tentatively – treating every belief as a hypothesis.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">I am sure MMK has much more to offer than what I have
presented here. And I am looking forward to exploring it further. In the meantime, I am happy to hear your
comments and I welcome them in the spirit of MMK, all views are tentative 😊 </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Update-1</b>: (24-Oct-22) English translation of the second line of verse 24.18 was earlier translated as "That is a term (used) for dependent (arising), is itself the middle way." It has been updated to "That is a term for inter-dependence, is itself the middle way". Thanks to <a href="https://new.bhu.ac.in/site/FacultyProfile/2_110?FA001161" target="_blank">Prof. Ananda Mishra</a> for his comments.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Notes</b>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Kenneth Inada translates the Sanskrit term </span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">युज्यते</span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;"> (</span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">yujyate) as “in correspondence with”. He translates the
first line as:</span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;"> “</span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Whatever is in correspondence with sunyata all
is in correspondence (i.e. possible).” </span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Jay Garfield translates this line as: “For him
to whom emptiness is clear, everything becomes clear.”</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Kenneth Inada translates this line as, "It is a provisional name (i.e. thought construction) for the mutuality (of being) and, indeed, it is the middle path". Garfield translates it as, "That, being a dependent designation, is itself the middle way".</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Jay Garfield translates this line as: “The
victorious ones have said, that emptiness is the relinquishing of all
views."</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">The Sanskrit word <span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">asādhyān (असाध्यान्) </span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">has been translated as incorrigible as in Kenneth Inada’s
translation. Jay Garfield translates it as “accomplish nothing”. His line: “For
whoever emptiness is a view, that one will accomplish nothing.”</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">The phrase "<span lang="HI" style="line-height: 107%; text-indent: -18pt;">prapañcaiḥ aprapañcitaṃ" (</span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">प्रपञ्चैः अप्रपञ्चितं)</span><span lang="HI" style="line-height: 107%; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">has
been translated here as “unfooled by the conceptual play”. Inada translates it
as: “non-conceptualized by conceptual play” and Garfield translates it as: “Not
fabricated by mental fabrication”.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">The word <span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">tattva (तत्त्व) </span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">is
also translated as suchness or thusness corresponding to the Sanskrit word tathatā (</span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">तथता)</span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;"> as mentioned by G C Nayak pg 20.
Garfield also mentions “reality (that-ness)”</span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">For T R V
Murti <i>tattva</i> is “the Real is something in itself, self-evident and
self-existent” pg 139 2016 edition.<span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">This is the Absolutistic
interpretation of Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka. Ananda Mishra (additional source 3 below) gives
a good overview of nihilistic</span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span lang="HI" style="text-indent: -18pt;">and absolutistic interpretations and suggests,
“The true meaning of sunyata can never be grasped by mere textual exegesis, rhetorics,
dialectics or analytics and discursive reasoning. It is something to be realized
and felt within.” Dalai Lama also mentions a similar view (see additional source 4 below). </span></span></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Sources</b>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Sanskrit Devanagari version edited by Douglas Bachman, 2001.
(<a href="https://archive.org/details/2226454Nagarjuna/mode/2up">Available from
archive.org</a>)</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">P. L. Vaidya, “Mādhyamakaśāstra of Nāgārjuna with the
commentary Prasannapadā by Candrakīrtī”, Buddhist Sanskrit texts No. 10, The
Mithila Institute, 1960. (<a href="https://archive.org/details/MadhyamakaShastraOfNagarjunaDr.P.L.Vaidya">Available
from archive.org</a>). This is a Sanskrit text in Devanagari which includes MMK
commentary by Candrakīrtī (7<sup>th</sup> century CE). I haven’t read Candrakīrtī’s
commentary yet. However, it is not possible to read Nagarjuna without
encountering Candrakīrtī. </span></li></ol><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">English translations:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Jay L. Garfield, “The fundamental wisdom of the
middle way”, Oxford University Press, 1995.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Kenneth K. Inada, “Nagarjuna: A translation of
his Mulamadhyamakakarika”, Sri Satguru Publications, 1993. (<a href="https://archive.org/details/nagarjunanagarjunaatranslationofhismulamadhyamikakarikakennethinadak._202003_470_m/mode/2up" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Available
at archive.org</a><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">David J. Kalupahana, “Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nāgārjuna:
The philosophy of the middle way”, Motilal Banarasidass Publishers, 1999. (<a href="https://archive.org/details/nagarjunamulamadhyamikakarikaofnagarjunadavidkalupahanaj.mlbd_322_O/mode/2up" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Available
at archive.org</a><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">)</span></span></li></ol><p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Additional sources referring to the Sanskrit version of MMK
(I am sure there are many other books that refer to MMK in Tibetan, Chinese,
Korean and Japanese editions):</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">T R V Murti, “The central philosophy of
Buddhism: A study of </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mādhy</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">amika
system”, Motilal Banarasidass Publishers, 2016. First published in 1955, this
book gives a good exposition of Nagarjuna and Madhyamika school and compares it
with various other Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain schools and western scholars like Kant
and Hegel. TRV interprets Nagarjuna as an Absolutist.</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">G C Nayak, “Madhyamika sunyata: A reappraisal”,
Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2001. (<a href="https://archive.org/details/MadhyamikaSunyataARepraisalG.C.Nayak" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Available
on archive.org</a><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">) A short (150 pages) and yet very good appraisal of
Nagarjuna and his commentator Chandrakirti’s philosophical enterprise. Invokes
Wittgenstein quotes a few times to compare it with Nagarjuna.</span></span></li><li><a href="https://journals.calstate.edu/jet/article/view/2319" style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ananda Mishra, “</span><span style="font-family: arial;">Nāgārjuna’</span><span style="font-family: arial;">s śūnyatā:
Beyond being and nothingness”, Journal of East-West thought, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2018</span></a><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="text-indent: -18pt;">.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Dalai Lama, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qL-8xweyZM" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Nagarjuna’s ‘fundamental
wisdom’ – day-1</a><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">”, This is a 3-hour lecture delivered by Dalai Lama at Taj
Mahal Hotel, New Delhi on March 20, 2015. At the time of the lecture, he was 4 months short of turning 80. He
focuses on chapter 24 of MMK. He sometimes speaks in English and other times
speaks in Tibetan and there is a translator. However, it is clear that he has studied
Nagarjuna deeply and speaks from the heart. He does not translate verse by
verse. Roughly, the first 40 minutes is an overview of different Buddhist schools,
41:30 Talks about core tenets like dependent origination, dependent
designation, and non-independence of self. 1:17:30 Starts with chapter 24 At
1:39:50 he mentions, “That experience (of having a weak negative emotion) goes
for years, decades and then real transformation (happens) in our emotions” and
then adds, “These are not just empty words – I myself although not very big
experience but (have had) some experiences. Therefore, these days I often talk
about emptiness, emptiness like that.”</span></span></li></ol><div style="text-indent: -24px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">image source: wikipedia.org</span></div>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-90683019954753171672022-10-15T14:06:00.001+05:302022-10-17T15:27:40.029+05:30Three enablers of innovation stamina<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpnAwKXd34ufukf1ErZqol0awvHMcietNIgg6kkjXH0lBKZfGIsCHnBKV7rsGLtWM8WuyMcRJ7psqjk6PPFCe0nQpYzNOZ0Y40YPL8RRvg0l3a_b1JerB0qbeLEMRJi9JoF2oLQm387FjZHJvFynTgX0hBQGrfd9MWn7UrPF1SamMhqSG99Ag3Dbha/s1126/3%20enabler%20of%20innovation%20stamina.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="1126" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpnAwKXd34ufukf1ErZqol0awvHMcietNIgg6kkjXH0lBKZfGIsCHnBKV7rsGLtWM8WuyMcRJ7psqjk6PPFCe0nQpYzNOZ0Y40YPL8RRvg0l3a_b1JerB0qbeLEMRJi9JoF2oLQm387FjZHJvFynTgX0hBQGrfd9MWn7UrPF1SamMhqSG99Ag3Dbha/w640-h406/3%20enabler%20of%20innovation%20stamina.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“We used to be innovative before the pandemic”. It is not
uncommon to hear this in the corporate world when I visit clients now working
in hybrid mode. That is not surprising if we look at innovativeness as a
kind of stamina. It is similar to saying “I used to run 10K comfortably once
upon a time”. Building and sustaining stamina is a sweaty process and needs
discipline. If you don’t practice, your stamina goes down. Going to the gym helps
or having a trainer or a buddy to exercise with help. Analogously, what kind
of enablers help build innovation stamina? Let’s look at 3 of them in this
article. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Dashboard and review</b>: Smartwatches have made
parameters like the number of steps per day easily accessible. A gymgoer may watch a number
of push-ups and pull-ups, bench-press weights and repetitions, etc. A dashboard
makes a big difference when it comes to stamina building. However, we need to
differentiate between a goal of running 10K in under 1 hour and doing 6K runs three
times a week. So, a good dashboard should
have an outcome goal (e.g. run 10K in under 1 hour) and a process goal (e.g. run 6K
3 times a week). Similarly, it helps to have outcome goals related to
innovation stamina such as idea pipeline (no of ideas, ideas per person per
year, no of big bets), idea velocity measured through experiments and customer
validations, business impact measured through savings, revenue and profit, and
participation measured through percentage of team members participating in
innovation activity, etc. And it helps to have process goals such as the number of
brainstorms, number of challenge campaigns, number of hackathons, etc. I have
presented a few examples of dashboard parameters I gathered from annual reports
<a href="https://www.catalign.in/2021/12/defining-characteristics-of-5-levels-of.html">here</a>
and also presented process goals <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2022/02/innovation-dashboard-examples-of.html">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">A dashboard without a review is of limited use. Hence,
organizations need to review the innovation dashboard with rigor and rhythm
(e.g. quarterly). This is where tough questions get asked and budget allocation
/ re-allocation happens. Here is an example of how <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2021/10/a-peek-into-bezos-big-bet-review-alexa.html">Jeff
Bezos reviews a big bet like Alexa</a> and another one on <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2010/01/rigor-and-rhythm-of-innovation-review-p.html">how
innovation reviews happened at P&G under A G Lafley</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Gyms and coaches</b>: As I go out to jog in the morning,
I see many people carrying their gym bags and heading for a workout. For many, a
gym and perhaps a coach make a difference in bringing discipline to their
stamina-building process. For innovation, gyms come mostly in the form of
laboratories. There are different types of labs. For example, a tinkerers’ lab
may house various tools for wood-cutting, metal-cutting, circuit-building, CAD
modeling, 3D printing, etc. under one roof. Alternately, a technology-focused
lab may focus on technology like quantum computing, IoT sensors, AR/VR, nano-materials
for water purification, etc. A design studio creates space for using various
materials and tools for prototype designs. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">An innovation sandbox also has high experimentation capacity
built through a lab but in addition, it has constraints coming from market use
cases, cost, and product performance. For example, when the Lego company decides to
create a center focused on creating a bio-plastic for building lego bricks, it
is working under various constraints like malleability of the material, ability
to hold paint, cost, and perhaps a few more. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">A gym is far more effective with coaches and it welcomes
newcomers and trains them. Likewise, a lab is more effective when there are
coaches/mentors for newcomers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Events and celebrations</b>: Many runners get motivated
when they decide to participate in an event such as a 10K run or a marathon. They
form groups and practice together for months for this event. While such events are
competitive for many, for most people the cooperative spirit may dominate the
practice. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Companies also organize events related to innovation that
instill the spirit of competition and cooperation. For example, there are day-long
or week-long events showcasing promising ideas or prototypes. There are events
like Innovation Day/week, Engineers’ Day, technology conferences, hackathons, challenge
campaigns running over a month, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Newsletters socialize these events. They showcase not only
the winners but also the participants helping each other. Events generate stories
that are discussed over lunch and they may motivate skeptics to participate in
the next event.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Events can lose steam if they turn into just social events. The ability to spot good challenges, ideas, and prototypes and convert them into proposals,
papers, and formal projects is important. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">To summarize, we looked at three enablers of innovation stamina:
dashboard and review, gyms and coaches, and events and celebrations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Related blogs</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2015/08/4-staminas-of-innovator.html"><span style="font-family: arial;">4 stamina
of an innovator, Aug 27, 2015</span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2015/09/starting-innovation-initiative-abcd.html" target="_blank">Starting an innovation initiative: An ABCD approach, Sep 25, 2015</a>. The enablers mentioned in the above article could be seen as an extension of the ABCD approach with an E for Enablers.</span></p>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-78763203973990042692022-06-20T21:01:00.002+05:302022-08-24T16:01:58.379+05:30Design Thinking: articles at a glance<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwFnG1gw8e3rdHIpF_tD7m5XxAVyMb9yp-mLg-AgXtRnlv2oW6XmPU9UfPtOZuf8QN5Br4wLxclGstgyJ92eMXF1FIJ5wN0cCn1VKibL98VSKZMn7u0kNl9rUZq2awwyHk9RsNFDaCOiaMBhfeuqr58JDBPFKaYhtgWQIyqsMg6d2vTwpxr7q_Axa/s887/design%20thinking%20collage.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="887" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwFnG1gw8e3rdHIpF_tD7m5XxAVyMb9yp-mLg-AgXtRnlv2oW6XmPU9UfPtOZuf8QN5Br4wLxclGstgyJ92eMXF1FIJ5wN0cCn1VKibL98VSKZMn7u0kNl9rUZq2awwyHk9RsNFDaCOiaMBhfeuqr58JDBPFKaYhtgWQIyqsMg6d2vTwpxr7q_Axa/w640-h336/design%20thinking%20collage.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In this table, I have tried to organize my blogs according to various topics associated with design thinking. Hope this is helpful.</span></p><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: none; color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><tbody><tr><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 133pt;" valign="top" width="222"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b> <span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Process step</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div></td><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 329.1pt;" valign="top" width="549"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Links</span></b> </o:p></div></td></tr><tr><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 133pt;" valign="top" width="222"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Empathy</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">(Listening, observation)</span></span></div><o:p><br /></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><o:p><br /></o:p></div></td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 329.1pt;" valign="top" width="549"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></div><ul style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2020/12/design-thinking-resources-2-empathy.html" target="_blank">Design Thinking resources #2: Empathy</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2020/12/my-4-takeaways-from-getting-people-to.html" target="_blank">My 4 takeways from ""Getting people to talk: an ethnography and interviewing primer"</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2018/08/is-design-thinking-old-wine-in-new.html">Is "design thinking" old wine in a new bottle? </a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2016/09/empathy-as-accessing-3-kinds-of.html" target="_blank">Empathy as accessing 3 kinds of ignorance</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2019/05/empathy-tips-from-kahnemans-adversarial.html" target="_blank">Empathy tips from Kahneman's "Adversarial collaboration"</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2016/12/empathy-as-understanding-assumptions.html" target="_blank">Empathy as understanding the assumptions behind the rigid reflexes</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2022/05/can-we-empathize-through-data-without.html" target="_blank">Can we empathize through data without face-to-face interaction?</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2010/12/when-does-intervention-begin-story-of.html" target="_blank">Dr. Kiran Bedi's first day at Tihar Jail</a></span></li></ul></td></tr><tr><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 133pt;" valign="top" width="222"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Define</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></o:p></div></td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 329.1pt;" valign="top" width="549"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></div><ul style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2014/12/how-to-build-curiosity-stamina.html" target="_blank">How to build curiosity stamina?</a></span><br /></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2009/03/three-sources-of-innovation-pain-wave.html" target="_blank">Three sources of curiosity: pain, wave, and waste</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2013/03/3-characteristics-of-good-challenge.html" target="_blank">3 characteristics of a good challenge statement</a></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2014/01/5-ways-of-framing-challenge.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">5 ways of framing a challenge</span></a></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2017/10/3-ways-metaphor-helps-in-challenge.html">3 ways a metaphor helps in challenge framing</a></span></li></ul></td></tr><tr><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 133pt;" valign="top" width="222"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ideate</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 329.1pt;" valign="top" width="549"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><ul style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2014/08/four-approaches-to-problem-solving.html" target="_blank">Four approaches to problem-solving</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2020/08/problem-solving-approaches-clock-fixing.html" target="_blank">Problem-solving approaches: clock-fixing vs cloud-fixing</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2009/02/do-ideas-float-in-air.html" target="_blank">Do ideas float in the air?</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2019/01/could-listening-be-biggest-source-of.html" target="_blank">Could listening be the biggest source of ideas?</a></span></li></ul></div></td></tr><tr><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 133pt;" valign="top" width="222"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Prototype & test</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 329.1pt;" valign="top" width="549"><ul style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2010/05/prototyping-to-clarify-requirements-747.html" target="_blank">Prototyping to clarify requirements: a 747 experience</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2016/08/rapid-prototyping-1-hour-1-day-and-1.html" target="_blank">Rapid prototyping: 1-hour, 1-day, 1-week prototypes</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2017/05/before-and-after-storyboard-simple.html" target="_blank">Before-and-after storyboard: A simple template</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2019/12/my-3-takeaways-from-ken-kociendas.html" target="_blank">My 3 takeaways from Ken Kocienda's "Creative selection" at Apple</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2008/09/story-of-how-googles-adsense-almost-got.html" target="_blank">Story of how Google's AdSense almost got killed</a></span></li></ul></td></tr>
<tr><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 133pt;" valign="top" width="222"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Idea communication,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Pitching your idea</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 329.1pt;" valign="top" width="549"><ul style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2014/08/an-idea-presentation-template-based-on.html" target="_blank">An idea presentation template based on Steve Jobs' iPod launch speech in 2001</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2015/11/an-idea-presentation-template-based-on.html" target="_blank">An idea presentation template based on a 2-minute pitch by The Wand Company founders</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2013/10/how-smart-guys-pitched-their-ideas-to.html" target="_blank">How smart guys pitched their ideas to Steve Jobs, prickly perfectionist</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2009/12/idea-communication-edison-way.html" target="_blank">Idea communication: The Edison way</a></span></li></ul></td></tr>
<tr><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 133pt;" valign="top" width="222"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Fail fast, learn fast</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></td><td style="border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; border-left: none; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 329.1pt;" valign="top" width="549"><ul style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2018/03/does-fail-fast-contradict-with-first.html" target="_blank">Does "fail fast" contradict "first time right"?</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2021/12/2-ways-of-learning-to-fail-with-comfort.html" target="_blank">2 ways of learning to fail with comfort</a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2019/09/my-3-takeaways-from-scott-adams-how-to.html" target="_blank">My 3 takeaways from Scott Adams' "How to fail at almost everything and still win big"<span></span></a></span></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2020/12/doing-last-experiment-first-illustrated.html" target="_blank">Doing the last experiment first: illustrated through Alex Honnold's El Capitan free-solo</a></span></li></ul></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br /><br />Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-87521414676946993652022-06-12T16:15:00.000+05:302022-06-12T16:15:19.243+05:30Wasteful thoughts: From Nash's dieting to Rumi's welcoming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgargRKK1Qq2xcD1zgSk0Vvxtj09wB5bmG2EL3w33CCWUyY4GbUGS3BMr_4lrcvDqXN438cwtM7sJwHdr6H1AYEegQQ07eiDQboHx3vHy9it7aLbUbiP6lW1Risyb-rpWIxCAT9fEsdpdWE64sXDqMmlm32PzDq3voj4GJDrt6SL9t2Fbs-5R_zOiYq/s883/from%20nash%20dieting%20to%20rumi%20welcoming.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="883" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgargRKK1Qq2xcD1zgSk0Vvxtj09wB5bmG2EL3w33CCWUyY4GbUGS3BMr_4lrcvDqXN438cwtM7sJwHdr6H1AYEegQQ07eiDQboHx3vHy9it7aLbUbiP6lW1Risyb-rpWIxCAT9fEsdpdWE64sXDqMmlm32PzDq3voj4GJDrt6SL9t2Fbs-5R_zOiYq/w640-h248/from%20nash%20dieting%20to%20rumi%20welcoming.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Wasteful thoughts – anxiety, stress, blame, guilt, etc –
form a large part of our thinking process. It can consume a significant portion
of time and energy in a day. Mindfulness involves recognizing wasteful thoughts
while thinking and seeing them drop off, at least sometimes. The character of Nobel
Laureate John Nash Jr. as depicted in the movie “A beautiful mind” advocates an
approach to wasteful thoughts called “<a href="https://www.catalign.in/2017/09/five-tips-on-mindfulness-from-beautiful.html">diet
of the mind</a>”. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi">Jalaluddin Rumi</a>,
a 13th-century Sufi poet, suggests welcoming every thought be it “a
joy, a depression or a meanness” in his poem “The guest house”. Are these two seemingly
different approaches to wasteful thoughts, Nash’s dieting, and Rumi’s welcoming,
related? What’s common between them? Could they be complementary? I attempt to
explore these questions in this article. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">First, let’ see what is common between Nash and Rumi’s
approaches. In Nash’s dieting approach, it is expected that one watches the
thoughts while thinking to check whether they are useful at that moment. “Like
a diet of the mind, I choose not to indulge certain appetites,” says Nash in
the movie. In Rumi’s poem, he says,
“meet them (thoughts) at the door laughing”. Both these approaches assume a certain
degree of attentional freedom such that one is able to watch the ongoing
thoughts. Based on my experience, I feel this isn’t as easy as it sounds. And
it is especially difficult when there is negative emotion accompanying the
thoughts. However, I feel attentional flexibility can be built with practice by
learning to hop off the train of thought.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Now, let’s turn to Nash’s approach. The best way to get a
feel for this approach is by experimenting with it. Whenever you get a chance,
watch the ongoing thoughts. And check if this train of thought is serving any
useful purpose at that moment. Sometimes the answer would be “yes”, other times
“no”. When we recognize a train of thought to be wasteful at that time, it
drops off, at least sometimes. It may be replaced by another train of thought
and so on. It is a wonderful experience to see a repetitive thought pattern
drop off at least for a while. Like Nash suggests, the “diet of the mind” involves
learning not to indulge in certain thought patterns by being alert and watchful.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Nash’s dieting approach may not work all the time. You feel
you have recognized the train of thought to be wasteful and yet it persists.
One possibility is that this recognition hasn’t touched the source that is
fuelling the thought pattern. For example, I may be worrying about the
impending recession and I recognize the repetitiveness of this thought pattern to
be wasteful. However, deep down I may be carrying an assumption that it is
absolutely necessary that I have a job. And this absolute necessity overpowers
the thinking process. And this is where Rumi’s approach may be helpful.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rumi says, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This being human is a guest house.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Every morning a new arrival.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A joy, a depression, a meanness,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">some momentary awareness comes<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">as an unexpected visitor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Welcome and entertain them all! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">who
violently sweep your house</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">empty
of its furniture,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">still,
treat each guest honorably.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He
may be clearing you out</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">for
some new delight.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
dark thought, the shame, the malice,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">meet
them at the door laughing,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">and
invite them in.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Be
grateful for whoever comes,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">because
each has been sent</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">as
a guide from beyond.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rumi is challenging us here. Try
meeting a dark thought laughing. It is not easy. I find the phrase, “each has
been sent as a guide from beyond” very helpful. What is this place from beyond
that the thought is coming from? Could it be a clue to a mystery? My suggestion
is that this place is where assumptions of absolute necessity reside. And they
are the doorways to self-awareness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As mentioned in the earlier
para, I may carry an assumption of absolute necessity that, “I MUST never be
out of a job.” These assumptions of absolute necessities are held deep down
somewhere. And yet discovering them reveals a lot about oneself. If I clearly
see that there is nothing absolute about this assumption and it is quite
possible that I might be out of a job. And several people I know have been out of
jobs and many of them got back new jobs. And even if one doesn’t get a job, it
is not the end of the world. Life is much more immense and mysterious than a
job. If one sees all of this clearly then it stops overpowering the thinking
process.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To summarize, both Nash’s dieting
and Rumi’s welcoming approach assume a certain degree of attentional freedom. If
you feel you don’t have it yet, then that is the first step. Once you are able
to watch the ongoing train of thought, experiment with Nash’s dieting approach.
Just like you watch what you are taking on your plate, watch the thoughts you
are indulging in. If you recognize them to be wasteful at the moment, they will
drop off. For repetitive thoughts that persist, learn to use them as a guide to
explore the mysterious place “from beyond”. You may discover an assumption of
absolute necessity hiding there which makes no sense.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And don’t be alarmed if you begin
to see that there is no such a thing as an absolute necessity. It is possible that this is the place where Rumi
wrote his poems. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Sources</b>:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“The guest house” is from “The
Essential Rumi” translations by Coleman Barks, HarperOne, 1995.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Nash’s quotes are from the movie “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film)">A beautiful mind</a>”.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Images: Youtube.com</span> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I explore wasteful thoughts and absolute necessities in my book "<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Mindfulness-Connecting-Real-Vinay-Dabholkar/dp/9353573459/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=59253969059&ext_vrnc=hi&gclid=CjwKCAjwnZaVBhA6EiwAVVyv9P9Ynp9ut10ZbfW5tn2RUWJw1diQjiiRPDFPv_GWJ3rz2UbAB5TjuBoCh18QAvD_BwE&hvadid=356460536603&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1007768&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=b&hvrand=3425777457305769176&hvtargid=kwd-842589876862&hydadcr=12588_1949524&keywords=mindfulness+vinay+dabholkar&qid=1655030438&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Mindfulness: connected with the real you</a>".</span></p>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-25762961776907963412022-05-16T12:18:00.001+05:302022-05-16T12:18:28.189+05:30Can we empathize through data without face-to-face interaction?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEoMWXrfeZnQhHp8Xxs9A32pZAM-b1sukUcupqNONCGRidmq60QR4CQVQk_6IXsyCDylNvKMUpB3MWe1zO5z6zDnBYJRR0VMohgvpcnrEsIMojKhYKEEZF-mT46yW64zkGWylC0Yf4-NwHicXEvt3R69xXzlE63wbw6zO3NkTPaORcwpVBO4HamBN/s623/day-1%20interview%20at%20bescom.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="623" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEoMWXrfeZnQhHp8Xxs9A32pZAM-b1sukUcupqNONCGRidmq60QR4CQVQk_6IXsyCDylNvKMUpB3MWe1zO5z6zDnBYJRR0VMohgvpcnrEsIMojKhYKEEZF-mT46yW64zkGWylC0Yf4-NwHicXEvt3R69xXzlE63wbw6zO3NkTPaORcwpVBO4HamBN/w200-h133/day-1%20interview%20at%20bescom.png" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">As a facilitator of design thinking workshops, I have held a
view that face-to-face observation and listening are essential elements of
empathy. Our body language sends powerful ques about our state of being, our
approvals, disapprovals, comforts, discomforts, etc. And it is very difficult
to capture these through data, graphs, analytics, etc. However, this belief is
being shaken up over the past few years. Can we empathize through data alone?
In this article, I present a few examples that have made me ambivalent.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Last year I read Brad Stones’ “<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Amazon-Unbound-Brad-Stone/dp/1398500976/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=amazon+unbound&qid=1634030298&sr=8-2">Amazon
unbound: Jeff Bezos and the invention of a global empire</a>”. It is a story of
Amazon’s transformation from a powerful force into the Giant over the past decade.
The book highlights the data obsession at Amazon led by Jeff Bezos and
percolated throughout the company. Decisions about whether to launch a new
product such as Alexa, which private label products to launch and the locations of
the warehouses were all based on data. Stones sometimes calls this “cold, hard
data”. Given the size of Amazon’s customer base and its nature of ecommerce
business where except delivery everything else happens online, it is
understandable that Amazon doesn’t need face-to-face observation of customers. It
is possible that the ecommerce business focuses on the 3 core customer needs,
low prices, vast selection and fast delivery which don’t change much. Perhaps all
other customer insights come through data without any face-to-face observation.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">I thought the situation may be different for Alexa, the AI-enabled
conversational device as well as a technology platform Amazon sells because b</span><span style="font-family: arial;">uilding empathy is an important goal. It turns out t</span><span style="font-family: arial;">he kind
of effort that is being put in making Alexa socially relevant in a
conversation, involves gathering a large amount of customer conversations with
Alexa. This seems to be more of device-to-face interaction rather than
face-to-face interaction. Customers who are helping Amazon evaluate newer ways
of conversing with customers as part of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.science/alexa-prize" style="font-family: arial;">Alexa Prize</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> competition are
interacting with the device and giving a rating on how likely they would be to
converse with this “friend” again. No face-to-face interaction.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">One would expect that face-to-face interaction is necessary
in emergency psychiatry. However, Karl Deisseroth, a psychiatrist and
neuroscientist at Stanford, tells in the book “<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Connections-Story-Feeling-Karl-Deisseroth-ebook/dp/B08TBD24FM">Connections:
the new science of emotion</a>”, how his belief has changed over the years and got
further validated during Covid pandemic. He says, “Emergency psychiatry, I saw
again and again, though it somehow surprised me each time, can be carried out
with precision even over phone, through that lonely single line.” He feels,
“Psychiatry and medicine broadly – though still constructed around
interpersonal communication – can survive and operate well with much less
social information than the traditional face-to-face interview provides.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Earlier this year, I read Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Klara-Sun-Kazuo-Ishiguro-ebook/dp/B08B8BDLW1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1YKWZCF83GGS4&keywords=klara+and+the+sun&qid=1652612902&s=digital-text&sprefix=klara+and+the+sun%2Cdigital-text%2C316&sr=1-1">Klara
and the sun</a>”. The protagonist of this story is an artificial friend, Klara.
And one of the reviewers has aptly called this book “<a href="https://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.com/2021/04/klara-and-sun-master-class-in-empathy.html">an
absolute master class in empathy</a>.” Ishiguro in his subtle and slow-moving
style creates various scenes in which Klara, the robot, learns about human
anxieties and aspirations through observation and conversation. If this fiction
work is any indication of what could become a reality, then perhaps outsourcing empathizing to a robot is not too farfetched. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">A few months ago, I joined a team of senior managers at an
offsite in the outskirts of Bangalore. The team members have been working with
each other for years and were meeting online throughout the pandemic. However,
they were very happy with the face-to-face interaction and it came up multiple
times during the conversations. Video
calls were dry and to the point. The physical presence, jokes, fun cooking activity,
eating together in a relaxed atmosphere was no match to innumerable video
calls. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Now you get some idea about my ambivalence. Can we empathize
through data without face-to-face interaction? The answer seems to be a ‘yes’
at least in some contexts. But, can we eliminate face-to-face interaction in most contexts? I am doubtful but now open to the possibility.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Sources</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">For Alexa related discussion, check out <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/alexa-can-you-be-empathetic-all-knowing-and-funny-11551971093">Laura
Stevens, “Alexa, can you be empathetic, all-knowing and funny?”, Wall Street
Journal, March 7, 2019</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad89JYS-uZM"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Rohit Prasad: Amazon, Alexa
and Conversational AI”, interview of Rohit Prasad, Head Scientist, Alexa by Lex
Fridman, Dec 14, 2019.</span></a></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-76416383624805315432022-04-29T10:30:00.002+05:302022-04-29T10:30:45.534+05:30What does Ramana Maharshi mean by “All sciences end in the Self”?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi57xf36Bk5Ao6ihfsUbFHDK-M6pcA0VKGvPA1lmPyeINPvAeDJXBhb0wcjnzqX1tosHXbkacA3viFVZlet_pq1xWzEWQQxRc89swG2TZCv9X9N1HJM5kI3mTNkGnHPfYvldy60wWwJsmcseJb6SjszdDkbvSGLawwI-HrWK0THuinfCtgvvrKzceM-/s500/talks%20with%20sri%20ramana%20maharshi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="313" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi57xf36Bk5Ao6ihfsUbFHDK-M6pcA0VKGvPA1lmPyeINPvAeDJXBhb0wcjnzqX1tosHXbkacA3viFVZlet_pq1xWzEWQQxRc89swG2TZCv9X9N1HJM5kI3mTNkGnHPfYvldy60wWwJsmcseJb6SjszdDkbvSGLawwI-HrWK0THuinfCtgvvrKzceM-/w125-h200/talks%20with%20sri%20ramana%20maharshi.jpg" width="125" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">“<a href="https://bookstore.sriramanamaharshi.org/product/talks-with-sri-ramana-maharshi-paper-back/">Talks
with Sri Ramana Maharshi</a>” has been my reflection companion for over two
decades. It contains conversations with Ramana Maharshi (RM) (1879-1950), a
spiritual teacher known for his emphasis on <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2021/12/ramana-maharshis-self-inquiry-through.html">self-inquiry</a>.
The conversations in this book took place between 1935 and 1939 in RM’s ashram
in Tiruvannamalai in South India and were recorded by one of the then residents of the ashram, <a href="https://users.cs.duke.edu/~kamesh/venkataramiah.html">Munagala Venkataramiah</a>.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">In one of the conversations with a visitor in 1937 (Talk
380), RM said, “All sciences end in the Self”.
What did RM mean by this? Science continues to unravel so many mysteries
including the mystery surrounding the concept of self. Isn’t it an important
path towards understanding reality and one’s own nature? Did RM underestimate
the power of science? This is an attempt to explore these questions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Let’s begin with an excerpt from Talk 380 where this
quote appears. The visitor had come from Europe and most likely there would
have been a translator.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">V: I want confirmation of the Self. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">RM: You seek the confirmation from others. Each one though
addressed as ‘you’, styles himself ‘I’. The confirmation is only from ‘I’.
There is no ‘you’ at all. All are comprised in ‘I’. The other can be known only
when the Self is posited. The others do not exist without the subject. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">V: Again, this is nothing new. When I was with Sir C. V.
Raman he told me that the theory of smell could be explained from his theory of
light. Smell need no longer be explained in terms of chemistry. Now, there is
something new; it is progress. That is what I mean, when I say that there is
nothing new in all the statements I hear now. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">RM: ‘I’ is never new. It is eternally the same. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">V: Do you mean to say that there is no progress? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">RM: Progress is perceived by the outgoing mind. Everything
is still when the mind is introverted and the Self is sought. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">V: The Sciences - what becomes of them? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">RM: They all end in the Self. The Self is their finality</span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Let’s note that “the Self” is a translation of the Sanskrit
word <i>Swarupa</i> which could also be translated as “one’s nature” or
essence. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">How ignorant was RM about sciences? In the same book where
the above-mentioned conversation happens, there are a couple of places where RM
refers to science. “Even the material sciences trace the origin of the universe
to some one primordial matter - subtle, exceedingly subtle.” (Talk 199) And,
another one, “There is no difference between matter and spirit. Modern science
admits that all matter is energy.” (Talk 268) This implies that RM had probably
heard of the implications of the special theory of relativity and the brand-new
branch of quantum mechanics. Looks like he was not totally ignorant. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Then where does this confidence of “All sciences end in the
Self” come from? Let’s look at one more elaboration of RM on this topic (Talk
388):<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">“There are no objects without the subject, i.e., the objects
do not come and tell you that they are, but it is you who says that there are
the objects. The objects are therefore what the seer makes of them. They have
no existence independent of the subject. Find out what you are and then you
understand what the world is.”</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Empirical evidence is an important aspect of the scientific
method. Scientific theories predict future observations for a given context. This
implies the separation of observer and observed. Is observer independent of
observed? What if the observer is the observed? It could be like one hand observing the
other hand – having some relative independence but ultimately part of one
whole. Perhaps what RM is trying to say is that science has relevance when the subject considers itself to be independent of the object and loses its
relevance when the sense of separateness vanishes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">And even if a branch of science (e.g. quantum mechanics,
statistical mechanics, neuroscience) is telling that observer and observed are
not independent, RM feels that having the mere knowledge is not the same as
internalizing that knowledge. A scientist may champion a monistic theory and
yet feel frustrated or get depressed because fellow scientists are not paying
attention to his theory. RM brings it out in the following Q&A from Talk
27.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Q: Is the study of science, psychology, physiology,
philosophy, etc. helpful for (1) this art of yoga-liberation. (2) the intuitive
grasp of the unity of the Real?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">RM: Very little. Some knowledge is needed for yoga and it
may be found in books. But practical application is the thing needed, and
personal example, personal touch and personal instructions are the most helpful
aids. As for the other, a person may laboriously convince himself of the truth
to be intuited, i.e., its function and nature, but the actual intuition is akin
to feeling and requires practice and personal contact. Mere book learning is
not of any great use. After realisation all intellectual loads are useless
burdens and are thrown overboard as jetsam. Jettisoning the ego is necessary
and natural.</span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is like the difference between <a href="https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~rlawson/cycleweb.html">cycling and cycology</a>.
One may know the theory behind how a cycle works and how a cyclist balances his
weight and yet may not know cycling. Cycling is a full-body knowledge also
called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition">embodied
cognition</a> and it is mostly implicit. Similarly, knowing that the self is not
independent of and intimately connected with the outside world is not enough. It
needs to be embodied and internalized to be effective. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">One implication of what RM is saying is that reading this
blog itself is of very little use. Turning attention inwards, watching the
movement of thought, and exploring the origin of I-thought is more important. RM
says, “Change your outlook. Look within. Find the Self. Who is the substratum
of the subject and the object? Find it and all problems are solved.” (Talk 331)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Related blog</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.catalign.in/2021/12/ramana-maharshis-self-inquiry-through.html">Ramana
Maharshi’s self-inquiry through Upadesa Saram verses</a>, Dec 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Image source: amazon.in</span></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-79292516687061502972022-04-20T16:16:00.005+05:302022-04-20T16:16:55.479+05:30Is “8 steps to innovation” still relevant in the digital era?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HaewalPTpq9ypOJtjLOsHs31a3Xg_vk-8iqpx9l0Jar8SeRYE37ymXVsCTqlwu_GfRDNHoMve-cFM_RsvtW66BVi8mLdAACEBFaOm8mtT-44Xn5ZGV2Bv2xC28jJZvti0hY3qcLxzLyd6QUciEvppdYFZaY8qh40yFiOXTriKRc1mal7geDaEhZu/s959/8-steps%20to%20innovation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="959" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HaewalPTpq9ypOJtjLOsHs31a3Xg_vk-8iqpx9l0Jar8SeRYE37ymXVsCTqlwu_GfRDNHoMve-cFM_RsvtW66BVi8mLdAACEBFaOm8mtT-44Xn5ZGV2Bv2xC28jJZvti0hY3qcLxzLyd6QUciEvppdYFZaY8qh40yFiOXTriKRc1mal7geDaEhZu/w400-h220/8-steps%20to%20innovation.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It has been nine years since the publication of our book “<a href="https://8stepstoinnovation.blogspot.com/">8 steps to innovation: going
from jugaad to excellence</a>”. In a fast-paced world where technology becomes
obsolete every two-three years, nine years is a long time. My co-author Prof.
Rishikesha Krishnan has been nudging me and suggesting that we should re-look
at the framework, especially in the context of the digital era. Is the framework
still relevant? Here is an attempt to sketch some initial thoughts on this
topic. The attempt is clearly biased and criticism is more than welcome.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Relevance of pipeline-velocity-batting average</b>: The framework addresses the question, “How to
become more innovative systematically irrespective of strategy, size, sector, and culture?” This question is more relevant for organizations and teams and
less relevant for individuals. The framework divides the main question into
three sub-questions: How to build an idea pipeline? How to improve idea velocity?
And how to enhance batting average? The pipeline problem addresses the generation of a constant stream of business-relevant ideas. Velocity problem explores
validation of various assumptions associated with the ideas and finding
relevant resources including investors for the promising ideas. Batting average
problem looks at increasing the chance of success for big bets while building a
margin of safety. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Are pipeline, velocity, and batting average problems still
relevant in the digital era? I have been presenting these sub-questions to MBA
students and corporate executives. And nobody has questioned the relevance of
any of these sub-questions. These questions were relevant when Thomas Edison
was running his invention factory more than a hundred years ago and are relevant
for the innovation engine at Mahindra today. Even a corner grocery shop if it
plans to do systematic innovation would have to address these questions. So
then, what has changed?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The eight steps are responses to these three questions. First
three steps address the pipeline problem, the next three steps address the velocity
problem, and the final two address the batting average problem. Let’s see how the relevance
of each step changes in the digital era.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Pipeline problem</b>: (Step-1, 2, 3) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Step-1: Laying the foundation</b>: This step involves
setting up the core processes like idea management process, buzz creation
process, and learning and development process. It also involves establishing
clarity on the scope, source, and sponsorship of innovations. I feel these
things are not affected in the digital era. Any organization that is serious
about innovation has these in place in some form or the other. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Step-2: Create a challenge book</b>: This step emphasizes the creation of a challenge book and establishing collective clarity around it. The digital era has created new metaphors like Uber (marketplace), Tesla (EV,
semi-autonomous, over the air upgrades), Zomato (home delivery), Amazon
(shopping convenience), Paytm (mobile wallets), etc. In the past few years, we
have seen new waves like the pandemic, sustainability-related regulatory norms,
electric vehicles, cryptocurrency, machine learning, etc. gaining momentum. All
these metaphors and waves contribute to building a challenge book. However,
in my opinion, the relevance of challenge book doesn’t go away. In fact, it
becomes more relevant because in a world of ever-increasing distractions,
challenge book can bring focus to the innovation efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Step-3: Build participation</b>: This step assumes that navigating
complex challenges may benefit from participation, the way it happens in a café
or a conference. The assumption remains relevant in the digital era. However,
the digital era highlights the importance of the customer experience dimension. With steps like search, discovery, comparison,
selection, payment, delivery, and returns associated with online shopping,
end-to-end experience has become increasingly important. Moreover, this cuts
across the shopping of products like mobile phones, grocery items, and services like
blood testing and banking. Hence, a methodology like design thinking which puts
experience design at its center and weaves empathy, participative problem
solving, and experimentation in an iterative manner has gained significance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Velocity problem</b>: (Step-4, 5, 6)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Step-4: Experiment at low-cost with high speed</b>: The
digital era has seen the emergence of new tools – computational modeling tools, simulators,
3D-printers, etc. Many of these tools are now available on cloud making them
easily accessible at low-cost. They are helping idea authors test their ideas
or at least some assumptions associated with their ideas with less cost and at
high speed. For consumer-facing digital applications, A/B testing – a form of
randomized controlled experimentation – has become an important mechanism for
testing ideas. No matter what the technology or tools, the relevance of
low-cost high-speed experimentation hasn’t diminished over the years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b> Step-5: Find a
champion</b>: This step is based on the assumption – An idea either finds a
champion or dies. Is the assumption still valid? Very much. Finding a strategic
customer who endorses the idea or an investor who supports the development of the
idea continues to be important today. Social media has helped ideas authors
find champions by publicizing their idea through videos. Programs like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Tank_India">Shark Tank</a> are creating
platforms for start-ups to find investors and/or mentors. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Step-6: Iterate on the business model</b>: As the relevance
of data increased, so did the importance of business models that leverage data.
<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/philips-and-bento-partner-to-offer-at-home-oral-care-solutions-through----a-modern-alternative-to-traditional-insurance-for-dentists-employers-groups-associations-and-individuals-301366072.html">Dental
insurance company Bento partnered with Philips</a> which manufactures electric
toothbrushes. This is because having the data on how many times a person
brushes his teeth would help determine his dental insurance. EV companies like
Ather Energy began to unbundle their product offering and started selling
batteries separately as a subscription. Banks began to offer Buy-Now-Pay-Later
(BNPL) payment option as an alternative to credit cards. Business model
innovation continues to be an important lever for digital businesses.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Batting average problem</b>: (step-7, 8)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Step-7: Build an innovation sandbox</b>: Exploring big
bets is inevitable for any company that is serious about survival. Google
explores self-driving cars, Amazon experiments with Just-walk-out stores, and Facebook
bets big on virtual/augmented reality. Small firms may have to consider
automation and analytics seriously. The challenge is you can’t bet on all the
big trends, you will have to choose. And even after choosing a trend, you may
not know how this trend may lead to a new offering. You need to identify a few
use-cases, invest in building experimentation infrastructure, and perform a large
set of experiments to see what is both meaningful in your context and promising
enough. In short, you need to build an innovation sandbox, unless you choose to
acquire the innovation. Building an innovation sandbox is neither low-cost nor a
short-term project. Technology platforms may speed up the process and open
innovation may help in connecting ideas from remote corners of the world. I haven’t seen its relevance diminished. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Step-8: Build a margin of safety</b>: Big bets bring
risky exposures. You can’t have one and not the other. Datacenter outages are
a given once you adopt the cloud. If you are a bank and if you don’t worry about
managing data center outages you will be in trouble sooner or later. <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2020/12/doing-last-experiment-first-illustrated.html">HDFC
Bank learned it the hard way</a>. Shakespeare knew that a pound of flesh is a
risky promise for the Merchant of Venice. And V G Siddhartha, the founder of Café
Coffee Day was expected to know how much debt is enough. This step – building a
margin of safety – could very well be the most challenging step to internalize.
And it is evergreen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In short, from my biased perspective, the core
problems raised in the book – pipeline, velocity, and batting average are still
relevant in the digital era. And 8-step responses are relevant too. However,
your input is welcome and it is possible that I am missing something here.</span></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-37056873430872539132022-03-31T16:19:00.006+05:302022-03-31T16:24:33.582+05:30How does tradition-induced brain damage get healed?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYje_dbsQZMM0bGZGwjg_0FabKL60nbxCMnYilPESItXKUKSfW0x2bMNXiEhigQJDeaM7lfMFpVKOghNbHWLuxV-_aR6Ltdx-S018Y6bQ1iLOTfPRpnWBz-lGtXLQaof8w6aJL4jba5tGRIC_ik5_3__BpVrDXPuKWEJt2U_ot1cE019L_kDqbInN3/s295/limits%20of%20thought.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="295" data-original-width="239" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYje_dbsQZMM0bGZGwjg_0FabKL60nbxCMnYilPESItXKUKSfW0x2bMNXiEhigQJDeaM7lfMFpVKOghNbHWLuxV-_aR6Ltdx-S018Y6bQ1iLOTfPRpnWBz-lGtXLQaof8w6aJL4jba5tGRIC_ik5_3__BpVrDXPuKWEJt2U_ot1cE019L_kDqbInN3/w162-h200/limits%20of%20thought.jpg" width="162" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Last month I explored the question <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2022/02/can-tradition-cause-brain-damage.html">“Can
tradition cause brain damage?”</a> in a blog. The post was based on a dialogue between spiritual
teacher <a href="file:///D:/consulting/marketing/blog/catalign/2022/2%20Neuroscience%20of%20mindfulness%20catherine%20kerr%20perspective.docx">Jiddu
Krishnamurti</a> and physicist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm">David Bohm</a> in the book “<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Limits-Thought-Discussions-between-Krishnamurti/dp/0415193982">The
limits of thought</a>”. My blog ended with a brief mention of how the brain
damage could get healed as per the dialogue. In this article, I would like to
expand on the healing process as JK-Bohm discuss it in the book.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Can the damage be healed at all? </b>JK says, “If it is
completely damaged, you can’t do anything about it, you are ready for an
asylum. But we are talking of a brain that is not too damaged.”<sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>What is the first necessity? </b>JK says, “That is the
first necessity, that I realize it.” What do I realize? “That whatever the
damaged brain does, which is the result of thought and tradition and all the rest
of it, will produce further damage.”<sup>2</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Let me try to explain this part with an example. Let’s say
the cultural tradition says that you must become a successful person otherwise
your life is a waste or success is necessary for a secure future. So, the
thought of becoming successful dominates my life. It involves identifying success
parameters like wealth, position, fame, social contribution, etc. And I get
caught in the measurement game. I constantly compare what I have (wealth, name,
fame) with some gold standard of success, find something that is still missing and
strive to get there. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We can
extend this to religious tradition as well. JK says, “I have accumulated psychologically
as a Hindu; another has accumulated as a Muslim; there are thousands of
divisions. Therefore, accumulation in its very nature divides people, and therefore
creates conflict.”<sup>3</sup></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">What JK is saying is that the first step is to realize that my
thought process is caught in a loop that is the result of the tradition-induced brain damage and it is making the damage worse. The next thing that may happen is a deep
insight which “acts as a tremendous shock or jolt”</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: xx-small; vertical-align: super;">4</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> to the brain.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Deep insight into the movement of thought: </b>JK
says, “If I have an insight into the whole nature of control, which is measure,
that liberates the mind from the burden.”<sup>5</sup> “When there is this insight,
the damage is undon.”<sup>6</sup> However, JK warns, “It (the insight) cannot
be invited. It’s like saying – I’ll be attentive in order to receive truth. That’s
nonsense.”<sup>7</sup></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Now, insights are not new to us. When there is a shift of
perception while looking at an optical illusion, it is an example of a tiny
insight. Many of us also experience a small jolt when we realize a belief, we
held for a long time is false. For example, Santa Clause is a fiction, or
ghosts don’t exist. Could a deep insight JK is talking about bring a
significant change in the brain? Yes, it is possible. Unfortunately, there is no
formula or method for getting the insight.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Don’t be concerned with truth</b>: Should I strive for
such a deep insight into truth? JK says, “Don’t be concerned with truth, you don’t
know what it means. Be concerned only with (thought-created) reality and its
distortions. To be free of distortions, just observe the distortions, don’t
resist them, just observe them. That observation needs (attentional) freedom
and that freedom and the observation will give you energy to push away the distortions.”</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small; vertical-align: super;">8</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> A distortion typically manifests as a disturbance such as fear, anxiety, stress,
anger, blame, guilt, etc.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">To summarize, we need attentional freedom to watch the
movement of thought. It is important to observe the movement especially when
there is a disturbance in the form of fear, anxiety, anger, etc. This observation
may cultivate the ground for a deep insight to sprout into the meaninglessness
of the whole nature of control and measurement thought is caught up in. The
deep insight would heal the brain. There is no formula or method for the insight.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Source</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“The limits of thought”, J. Krishnamurti and
David Bohm, Krishnamurti Foundation India, 2013, page 94.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Limits of thought”, Page 94<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">3.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Limits of thought”, Page 123<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Limits of thought”, Page 94<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">5.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Limits of thought”, Page 106<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">6.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Limits of thought”, Page 108<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">7.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Limits of thought”, Page 52<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">8.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Limits of thought”, Page 26</span></p>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-57597342382338247432022-03-28T10:23:00.000+05:302022-03-28T10:23:10.241+05:30A 10-point checklist for running a challenge campaign<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3907wYer-M19KSNACDKldQLUE22YqqMqgSDyafzslLP0BXyH1OA64QQzi9xyXz7wagXYY2VhcHBnAHWdqMZVeQ7gHUMsqATiOIitOO-Xy1opQSi54lc95CqPpd6v5nANWK1VuZeCPzUWsHcG_zbjudWqsuOQbM1mxCCfYb5fSNN1R-juIM1woQCSj/s416/iphone%20multitouch%20challenge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="379" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3907wYer-M19KSNACDKldQLUE22YqqMqgSDyafzslLP0BXyH1OA64QQzi9xyXz7wagXYY2VhcHBnAHWdqMZVeQ7gHUMsqATiOIitOO-Xy1opQSi54lc95CqPpd6v5nANWK1VuZeCPzUWsHcG_zbjudWqsuOQbM1mxCCfYb5fSNN1R-juIM1woQCSj/w183-h200/iphone%20multitouch%20challenge.jpg" width="183" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">You can solve a tough challenge by working alone in your
garage or attic for years like <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2008/10/impossible-problems-and-successful.html">how
Prof. Andrew Wiles worked on Fermat’s Last Theorem</a> for several years.
Alternately, you can throw the challenge to a group of people and solve it
collectively. The group can be a couple of friends or a large organization. The
challenge could be an urgent challenge like the <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2019/12/my-3-takeaways-from-ken-kociendas.html">iPhone
multitouch keypad accuracy problem</a> to be solved in a matter of days. Or it
could be <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2011/11/managing-innovation-journey-of-tanishq.html">an
automation challenge Tanishq, the jewellery division of Titan, launched</a> in
2008 which might have run for a few months resulting in inventing the diamond-bagging
machine over the next few years.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">I have been participating in the design of challenge
campaigns in the organizations for over a decade and consider them to be <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2015/09/starting-innovation-initiative-abcd.html">a
key element of innovation initiatives</a>. Some of these challenges were more
urgent like the iPhone multitouch challenge while others were closer to Titan’s
automation challenge. Over the years I ended up preparing a checklist that I
use when I participate in a challenge campaign design. Not all items in the
checklist are useful in all challenges. Nevertheless, it helps to go over them
to check if they are relevant in that context. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Identify a challenge sponsor</b>: It is
important that a challenge campaign begins with a sponsor. In case of iPhone
multitouch, the head of engineering was the sponsor while in Tanishq perhaps the
business head of the Tanishq division was the sponsor. </span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Identify a challenge theme</b>: The challenge
theme may come from the sponsor. Alternately, he may invite challenges from his
peers/team members. The theme can be loose like “simplify and automate” or it
can be sharper like “get keyboard accuracy to 90%”. I remember themes like “half
the time” for reducing the delivery time to half, “single-click cloud migration”. These
days Zomato’s “10 minutes delivery” is in the news. The most important
characteristic of a theme should be its business relevance. A good metaphor
helps make the challenge concrete, enhance its emotional appeal and provide
hooks for imagination.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">3.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Prepare a project plan</b>: Is the challenge
expected to run for a few days, a few weeks, or a few months? Whom should we
invite? Will there be one round, two rounds, or more? Will there be help in
terms of resources for prototyping? Will there be mentoring for idea authors
for clarifying their ideas and preparing a business case? Will we have a panel
for the final round? How will promising ideas go forward? It helps to discuss
these questions and possible options with the sponsor and create a project plan.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Know Your Challenge (KYC) workshop</b>: For a
“simplify and automate” challenge you don’t need a workshop to explain it.
However, for challenges related to emerging technologies or business challenges
that are complex or nuanced, it helps to have a workshop where the sponsor and
perhaps a few experts articulate what the challenge means to them. They may
provide starting points for those interested in studying the topics further.
These could be department heads such as sales, marketing, finance, R&D
giving their perspective on a challenge area.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>5.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Announce the challenge and invite ideas: </b>This
is the step where challenge is announced and ideas are invited. This could be
done in multiple ways. If it is a small team, like in iPhone multitouch
challenge, you could announce it in a team meeting. If you want to invite experts
or members from outside your team or business, you may want to announce it to
your team first so that they get some lead time to submit their ideas before
others. If you feel subject matter experts (SMEs) from within the team can come
in a week or two later that’s fine too. In the case of iPhone multitouch challenge,
this step merged with step 7 of prototyping. Team members didn’t come out with
ideas and waited for a go-ahead for prototyping. Ideas were demonstrated
through prototypes. In most challenge campaigns I have witnessed, idea
generation and prototyping were separate stages.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>6.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Helping idea authors to clarify their
ideas:</b> When people get ideas, they are raw and many times unclear. If you
ask clarifying questions it helps them to expand on their ideas. Sometimes
people are not sure if their ideas are worthy of submission. Encouraging them
helps. When one is playing this sounding-board role, it is important not to be
judgmental at this point even if you feel the idea may not work. This is easier
said than done and needs alertness. For a large campaign, volunteers may be
needed to play this role of sounding board or catalyst.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>7.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Idea selection</b>: If ideas are posted on a wall in your office,
idea selection could mean just doing tick marks. Depending upon the number of
ideas, idea selection may go through two or three rounds. For example, ideas
posted on a portal may go through a social selection process similar to likes on
a social media site. One could also invite a panel to select ideas. </span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>8.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Prototyping/experimentation</b>: Authors of the selected ideas are invited to
build low-fidelity prototypes. This is a tricky stage because idea authors may
not get time to do this work. One way to overcome this issue is by organizing
an event such as a hackathon where the idea authors work individually or by
bringing collaborators to build prototypes. Prototypes may also include
storyboards, wireframes, paper models, CAD models, 3D printed models, scrap
material demos, etc. This stage may require organizers to make relevant tools
available to the idea authors. I typically get pushback from manufacturing companies
saying that this is not practical. However, in most cases, this can be done with
some preparation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>9.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Selection and preparation for final
presentation</b>: After prototyping, there could be another round of selection
for final presentations to the sponsor and his panel. In the final
presentation, the panel typically looks at return-on-investment potential for
ideas. However, idea authors may not have the skills to make a business case.
Hence, the idea authors may need mentoring. The campaign organizers may have to
facilitate this process of identifying right mentors for finalists.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>10.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Presentation to the sponsor/panel</b>: This
is the final stage. The most important aspect of this stage is the nature of
sponsorship for the selected ideas. If you give gift coupons and end the show
that sends a poor message. As mentioned in step-2, if the challenge is
business relevant, then the sponsorship should reflect that. In the case of iPhone
challenge, <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2019/12/my-3-takeaways-from-ken-kociendas.html">Ken
Kocienda</a> became the feature owner for the multitouch autocorrect function and
began developing it further full-time. In the case of Titan’s diamond bagging
machine, I am sure there was a dedicated cross-functional team that worked on
it as a formal project. Note that the sponsorship doesn’t have to be for the
complete implementation. Like a typical venture fund, it could be for a
specific milestone of validating certain assumptions be it need, technical feasibility,
performance, etc.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hope you find the checklist useful. Happy to hear your
input.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Sources</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Image: <a href="https://www.amazon.in/Creative-Selection-Inside-Apples-Process-ebook/dp/B07F18HYX3">“Creative
selection: Inside Apple’s design process during the golden age of Steve Jobs,”
by Ken Kocienda</a> page 147.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Titan’s diamond bagging machine story is also
described in <a href="https://www.amazon.in/Nuggets-Innovation-Outsmart-Competition/dp/8193445716/ref=sr_1_1?crid=10ZZHT0S5VQYD&keywords=9+nuggets+of+innovation&qid=1648442553&s=books&sprefix=9+nuggets+of+innovation%2Cstripbooks%2C216&sr=1-1">“The
9 nuggets of innovation” by L R Natarajan, page 16</a>.</span></span>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-49933651458590113302022-03-16T11:00:00.004+05:302022-03-16T12:58:08.243+05:30Is design thinking right-brain centric?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhSTun8KYL3U2NcG7g4DdMP24E2JwchLaPShmws7TvbNpHo0T-A6-G8jgmg5npW2h9cov18hlDOu2K9RO24lrCL8Ce2XdOyhxQ5SAwTcRkJG6_nr8t0N0qGFAT3XC6JKjfsFuk978nFEgF_0SI3Y9eOr0vVDdWxzFYMYhVvAXIqj0em6Civwh8JSkLp=s475" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="309" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhSTun8KYL3U2NcG7g4DdMP24E2JwchLaPShmws7TvbNpHo0T-A6-G8jgmg5npW2h9cov18hlDOu2K9RO24lrCL8Ce2XdOyhxQ5SAwTcRkJG6_nr8t0N0qGFAT3XC6JKjfsFuk978nFEgF_0SI3Y9eOr0vVDdWxzFYMYhVvAXIqj0em6Civwh8JSkLp=w130-h200" width="130" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">“Is design thinking a right-brain specialization?” or “Am I
a left-brain person?” Questions of these sorts are not uncommon in my design
thinking workshop. However, I have been unsure of my response to this topic so
far. My ambivalence has been influenced by the literature that points to the
myths associated with <a href="https://drsarahmckay.com/left-brain-right-brain-myth/">creative-left vs analytical-right
brain classification</a> (also check <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-theory-cognitive-modes/201401/left-brain-right-brain-wrong">this
article</a>). But then popular authors like Daniel Pink have argued that
abilities like design are right-brain abilities (Check his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGWHPMEUWek">video</a> 53:00). My friend
and collaborator Prof. Ganesh Prabhu has been presenting this Daniel Pink view
in our joint program at IIM Bangalore for the past few years. That kept on nudging me to look for more
evidence one way or the other. Recently, I came across Iain McGilchrist's book
“<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary" target="_blank">The master and his emissary: the divided brain and the making of the Western world</a>” which has shed some light on this confusion. In this
article, I would like to present my learnings from this book related to this left-vs-right
brain topic.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Let me begin with a process view of design
thinking and associated competencies that I present in my workshops. Note that
this is not the only process view of design thinking and is borrowed from the <a href="https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/the-bootcamp-bootleg">Stanford
Design School framework</a>. The competency view is not exhaustive either. But
it is useful for our purpose.</span></span><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhctburMSHVSLEPAxHM_ZnfTJct4psTY54i3h3q1V3xF9bnjNVdYkIDlvPF4IR3TC_Snht-r6d2tXMPqfZjCrbYllN2gl0oV1kh0SuCCuTjnV61YlT-bURsCNWjT1HBceEwgR4eFIPjzA9GnxB47kDhBK4kR7p2qFyCZ6pLdrwofor3y0D4tFyMR-bi=s1463" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="923" data-original-width="1463" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhctburMSHVSLEPAxHM_ZnfTJct4psTY54i3h3q1V3xF9bnjNVdYkIDlvPF4IR3TC_Snht-r6d2tXMPqfZjCrbYllN2gl0oV1kh0SuCCuTjnV61YlT-bURsCNWjT1HBceEwgR4eFIPjzA9GnxB47kDhBK4kR7p2qFyCZ6pLdrwofor3y0D4tFyMR-bi=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><p class="MsoNormal">Now, let’s turn to McGlichrist's book “The master and his
emissary”. McGilchrist is suggesting in this book that left (LH) and right
hemispheres (RH) are different in not what they do but how they see or pay
attention to the world. The LH sees the world through a map of objects it
constructs separate from itself and its primary objective is to secure a better
future by manipulating the world. In contrast, the RH sees the world as fresh, living,
ever-flowing whole not separate from itself. LH sees parts first while RH sees the
whole first. Originally, the RH was the master and the LH was a helper to carry
out repetitive tasks. However, over the centuries, the map has become extremely
sophisticated and the helper or the emissary has become the dominant master and
it has made RH a subservient helper. Through the nerve fibres connecting LH and
RH (corpus collosum), LH mostly sends the message to RH, “I don’t need you”. As
the map gets solidified, one becomes more intolerant of alternate worldviews. The
map begins to get treated as the territory and that creates all kinds of
conflicts.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When LH becomes dominant, McGilchrist argues, certain
functions where RH plays an important role weaken. He mentions many but here is
a list relevant for us: empathy, metaphoric thinking, capacity for insight, and
holding ambiguous possibilities in suspension. Here are a few quotes from the
book on each of them:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Empathy</b>: Self-awareness, empathy, identification with
others, and more generally inter-subjective processes are largely dependent
upon…right hemisphere resources. (pg 57, 2019 new expanded edition)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Metaphoric thinking</b>: Metaphoric thinking is
fundamental to our understanding of the world because it is the only way in
which understanding can reach outside the system of signs to life itself. It is
what links language to life…Only the right hemisphere has the capacity to
understand metaphor. (pg 115)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Insight</b>: Insight, whether mathematical or verbal, is the
sort of problem-solving that happens when we, precisely, not concentrating on
it, is associated with activation in the right hemisphere. (pg 65)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Holding uncertainty</b>: The left hemisphere needs
certainty and needs to be right. The right hemisphere makes it possible to hold
several ambiguous possibilities in suspension together without premature
closure on one outcome. (pg 82)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While empathy and metaphoric thinking map directly onto the
process view above, insight is typically associated with define and ideation stages, and holding uncertainty is related to hypothesis thinking of the test stage. Thus, if
McGilchrist’s hypothesis is indeed correct, then we might have a tendency where
LH inhibits RH from either activating or passing on information related to empathy,
metaphors, insight, alternate hypotheses. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of course, this doesn’t mean everything in design thinking
is right-brain centric. For example, one can define a challenge without using a
metaphor – improve sales by ten percent or reduce the turnaround time by fifty
percent. Inventive techniques seem to, at least partly, belong to the LH domain.
Similarly, prototyping would need LH resources to manipulate objects in
building the prototype.<o:p></o:p></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;">In short, McGilchrist’s book “The master and his
emissary” suggests that design thinking is heavily dependent on right
hemispheric resources. It is no surprise that learners who approach design
thinking as purely a conceptual framework to be understood by reading a book or
listening to a lecture struggle to grasp the essence.</span></span></span></div>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003076573972458673.post-11439099749755351272022-02-28T10:57:00.007+05:302022-02-28T10:57:33.761+05:30Can tradition cause brain damage?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6iFhbkLjDPJ92iK240YQliTpsjk6xhbborwvQoGiNrSNHhFID3YPsjp029zHDornV9Tm1gFXJhGUru75agFgYy-lYjQfKqxiuIoZMxUOUzNjnNmD-Hv47dUgnTLrXLnPd_J871AO4hSE3CwbG95uEV6MG5FC43ag3zQL_1VEtsu3gSM3qDDdEl1Fe=s416" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="253" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6iFhbkLjDPJ92iK240YQliTpsjk6xhbborwvQoGiNrSNHhFID3YPsjp029zHDornV9Tm1gFXJhGUru75agFgYy-lYjQfKqxiuIoZMxUOUzNjnNmD-Hv47dUgnTLrXLnPd_J871AO4hSE3CwbG95uEV6MG5FC43ag3zQL_1VEtsu3gSM3qDDdEl1Fe=s320" width="195" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">“Tradition is a form of brain damage” – is what physicist
David Bohm and spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti agree upon in one of their
dialogues in the book “The limits of thought”<sup>1</sup>. A few months ago I got
an opportunity to facilitate a reading-and-reflection session on this dialogue
and this sentence created discomfort among a few of the participants. They had
valid points. Neither Bohm nor Krishnamurti was a neuroscientist. On what basis
are they making such a claim? And neuroscience has advanced significantly in
the last fifty years since they had this dialogue. Does it support it now?
Let’s explore it in this article.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Let’s begin with the dialogue and then look at it through a
neuroscience lens. Here is an excerpt from the dialogue: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">DB: It occurred to me that tradition is a form of brain
damage.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">JK: I agree.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">DB: Any tradition, good or bad, makes people accept a
certain structure of reality, very subtly, without their realizing they are
doing it, by imitation, or by example, or by words, just by statements. So very
steadily the child builds up an approach in which the brain attributes things
which are in the tradition to a reality which is independent of tradition. And
it gives it tremendous importance. Tradition has real effects of all sorts, which
may even be valuable in some ways. But at the same time it conditions the brain
to a reality, which is fixed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">A person may look at that reality and say, “That’s reality,
I‘ve got to keep my feet on the ground.” But this ground has been created by
tradition, by thought; it is no ground, it has nothing under it at all. It is
sustained and nourished by this damaged brain, which is unable to get out of
that circle.</span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Now, let’s turn to a current neuroscience perspective.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Typically, we associate brain damage with some kind of lesion,
some physical damage to the structure of the brain. However, that is a limited
view of brain damage. According to Karl Friston, a leading neuroscientist,
there are <a href="http://serious-science.org/dysconnection-hypothesis-of-schizophrenia-8625">two
kinds of brain damages</a><sup>2</sup>. One is anatomical and the other is functional.
He uses radio as a metaphor to illustrate the difference. Anatomical damage
is like cutting off the wires in radio, while functional damage is
equivalent to transistors becoming dysfunctional. A transistor is dysfunctional
when the message passing through the wires gets broken. In neurobiology, such a
failure is called neuromodulatory failure when the messages passed through
neural synapses are not gated and/or weighted properly. This results in loss of
gain control meaning loss of control in excitation and inhibition of various
signals. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">As Friston articulates, when the gain control is broken, it
results in strengthening false beliefs because the inferences based on the
sensory information get compromised. For example, should I carry an umbrella today?
This question would be answered based on the weather forecast and the
likelihood of rain. When beliefs become rigid, the information passing mechanism
becomes dysfunctional and incoming information related to rain is either
suppressed or considered unreliable similar to a transistor malfunctioning. So
I may end up carrying an umbrella no matter what.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps what Bohm-Krishnamurti are suggesting is that
tradition has the capacity to make certain beliefs so strong that they are no
longer amenable for update based on contextual information such as weather
forecast. Beliefs related to what dress to wear or not wear, what to eat or not
eat, what rituals to carry out, whom to marry or not marry may become so rigid
that they suppress the passage of contextual information. They are treated as true and fixed no matter
what. As far as certain beliefs are concerned, the brain becomes dysfunctional,
fixed, and context-insensitive. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Thus tradition may cause functional brain damage. What
Bohm-Krishnamurti say in the dialogue is that the damage may or may not be
permanent. What could heal such damage? Krishnamurti suggests that perception
or insight into the whole belief structure, its rigidities and how it is
operating, in the form of thought, being stuck in a grove, may heal the brain. I
am not aware of any scientific research supporting such a claim. However, <a href="https://www.catalign.in/2022/02/neuroscience-of-mindfulness-my-4.html">work
such as that of Catherine Kerr</a>, supports a milder form of this claim. That
is, a practice of shifting attention away from thinking into body sensations and
breathing may result in making the neuromodulation mechanism more flexible.
That is, it may improve the quality of information flow through the neural
pathways.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Source</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“The limits of thought”, J. Krishnamurti and
David Bohm, Krishnamurti Foundation India, 2013, chapter 5 “Tradition and truth”,
page 84. This dialogue happened on August 6, 1975, in Gstaad, Switzerland. Bohm suggests that “Tradition is a form of
brain damage” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DdCS_jBvcM">at 6:13 in
the audio</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“<a href="http://serious-science.org/dysconnection-hypothesis-of-schizophrenia-8625">Dysconnection
hypothesis of schizophrenia</a>”, August 10, 2017, In this video Karl Friston explains
the nature of mental disorders and the possibility of a therapeutic cure of
schizophrenia.</span></p>Vinay Dabholkarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02007011866370283276noreply@blogger.com0