4 staminas of an innovator

Each of us has unique staminas – some of them come more naturally and some are built with rigorous practice. Examples are: running, weight lifting, reading etc. Some people can spend an entire day on WhatsApp without getting bored. I carry a view that innovativeness can also be built as stamina.  In an earlier article I wrote about “How to build curiosity stamina?” In this article I want to present the four staminas that I consider crucial for innovators: curiosity, experimentation, communication and collaboration.

Curiosity stamina: Being curious is easy, staying curious is not. Ask yourself this question “How long do you stay curious around one challenge area?” By now I have asked this question to several participants in my workshops. Most of them say, “Not more than a couple of days”.  That’s almost like being a couch potato or may be walking to your car every day while what you need is a running stamina of 5K or 10K. In a hyper active world where every day begins with its own set of problems, staying curious about one challenge area is difficult. That’s where one needs some discipline, perhaps of keeping a curiosity diary so that we don’t lose track of some of the interesting questions we ask ourselves. When do I decide to act on a challenge? One criterion I use is to check if I am still curious about it after a few months. Sometimes, I experiment around a challenge on the very same day!

Experimentation stamina: “But, sir, will my idea work?” Every now and then, I meet a guy who doesn’t like to share his idea openly in the class because someone may steal it. And he meets me after the class, tells his idea and wants to know if that idea will work. I usually tell him, “I don’t know. Why don’t you prototype and test it?” “That I will do, but I want to know if you think it will work.” That’s an example of low experimentation stamina. Similarly, I also meet technology enthusiasts who are busy perfecting their technology before they are ready to show it to customers. Many people just don’t get it that it is the speed of experimentation and the number of iterations that they can do that matters most. One of the participants in my workshop wanted to check if people in Bangalore would be interested in ordering filter coffee online in their office. He put out a web-page and got 30+ responses within a few days. He delivered the coffee himself to all the initial respondents. That’s an example of a low-cost experiment. How many experiments do you carry out every month? The answer could be a good indicator of your experimentation stamina.

Communication stamina: “I am not good at selling” our 12^th grader son tells us. That’s not very different from how I used to think about myself perhaps a decade ago. Having done a PhD, I have been trained to represent things abstractly. It took really long time for me to realize that abstractions are not useful when it comes to communicating your idea. One way you can measure your communication stamina is by answering the following question – How many times do you present your idea before giving up on it?  Personally, reading the book “Made to stick” by Chip & Dan Heath was a turning point as far communication stamina was concerned. It provides a simple checklist to ask you for improving the communication. Is your message concrete? Is it credible? Does it contain a curiosity flow? Are you telling an appropriate story? These questions can lead to improving the design of your presentation. It is no surprise that I find movies like “A beautiful mind”, “Twelve angry men”, “The matrix” useful in explaining my ideas.

Collaboration stamina:  I feel that this is the toughest stamina to build. Why? Because it not only involves you remaining curious about a topic but also needs at least one more person to be with you in the explorative journey. Moreover, it adds new dimensions like – who gets the credit? How do you resolve things when you don’t agree? I have been fortunate enough to be part of a collaborative effort with my friend Prof Rishikesha Krishnan which lasted four-five years and resulted in our book “8 steps to innovation”. How long has been a particular collaboration? This is a good indicator of collaboration stamina. Where do you start to build collaboration stamina? I don’t know. But perhaps a good place to start could be listening and appreciating others’ work which could be related and yet different from your work. It would helpful to have a collaborator who agrees with you on a few core assumptions (beliefs) at least as a starting point. The ultimate test of collaboration stamina is the ability to collaborate with someone who holds views exactly opposite that of yours. This is known as adversarial collaboration. Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman talks about his experience with adversarial collaboration here.

Well, this is my list of 4 staminas useful for an innovator. Perhaps yours may be different. Happy to hear from you. Who knows? It may lead to collaboration!

Marathi translation of “Thought and Perception” - chapter 4 from “The Limits of Thought”

(The translation is available here).

Spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti and Physicist David Bohm met for the first time in 1961. Since then they met several times until Krishnamurti’s death in 1986. Several of these dialogues have been published in the form of books, the most popular being “The ending of time”. One such book is “The limits of thought: discussions” which presents dialogues from 1975 to 1980. Chapter 4 of this book is titled “Thought and perception” and it presents a dialogue that occurred between the two men in Gstaad, Switzerland on July 25, 1975. In many ways it captures the essence of the human dilemma and carries the potential to push an already open door a little wider.

My father Padmakar Dabholkar has been a student of Krishnamurti’s teaching for over two decades. He began translating “Limits of thought” into Marathi as a personal introspection exercise while he was visiting us in Bangalore in May-June earlier this year. I suggested to him that we share the translation of the chapter 4 (Thought and perception) on the Internet and see if it appeals to a wider audience. 

Please find the Marathi translation of the chapter here.

In case you have any feedback / comments, you can reach my father at pvdabs@gmail.com.

In case you are interested in listening to the original dialogue, you can find it on YouTube here. It is titled "What is the substance of thought?"

PK and a peek into the assumptions of necessity

I enjoyed Amir Khan starrer PK. It depicts the struggle of an alien in trying to understand the culture in India. The film created a beautiful mirror to see how faith blinds us from seeing the reality. Whenever the topic of PK came up with my friends, it created two kinds of responses. There were some who laughed at the parody and there were others who felt that it hurt their feelings. Most of these responses were not surprising except for one category. These surprising category folks were staunch atheist and still they felt that their feelings were hurt by the movie. I began to wonder why?

Let’s visualize what a staunch atheist looks like first. He is very vocal about being atheist and at every opportunity he gets, he taunts at the so-called religious people. He says things like – “Look at these people worshipping God. They read religious scriptures, perform various rituals etc. See how ignorant they are” In fact, one of my friends keeps passing remarks on his wife who continues to perform Pooja etc. However, I was surprised to see him getting agitated about PK. Interestingly he had not seen PK and didn’t intend to see it as well. And yet, he knew that the movie is “bad”. What is going on here?

To say that this behaviour is irrational is like stating the obvious. But why does a staunch atheist get upset to see a movie making fun of the blind followers of a faith? To understand the answer, we need to understand how beliefs work. Most of our beliefs are tacit and are deeply ingrained in our memory. A belief is nothing but a set of assumptions – Hindu religion is good, if I pray to God, he will protect me etc. These assumptions are stored in the form of a set of neurological reflexes. Knee jerks automatically when tapped. Similarly, a reflex fires when it is touched by a thought or an image.  

Some of these assumptions carry a strong sense of necessity. E.g. It is absolutely necessary that Hindu religion is good. These assumptions of necessity are very powerful. A whole set of reflexes defending these assumptions are created. Whenever they get touched by a thought, it evokes a strong reaction. The interesting part is that we are mostly not aware of these assumptions of necessity. The only way we come to know that they exist is when we see ourselves reacting strongly to something e.g. a movie like PK.

An atheist may be outwardly mocking religious practices. However, it is possible that he carries assumptions of necessity such as “It is absolutely necessary that Hindu religion is good”. When he hears or reads about PK and how it makes fun of blind followers of Hindu religion, the reflexes related to the assumptions of necessity are fired. An internal conflict of thoughts arises and assumptions of necessity win the fight by evoking the angry reaction.

Do you want to learn about your assumptions of necessity? Then your best bet is the situations which create anger, frustration, and anxiety in you.  These situations provide opportunities to fish around and find out the assumptions of necessity which might have led to this reaction. If you “see” these assumptions of necessity, they might lose their grip and loosen up a bit. Why don’t you try and find out?

Source:

David Bohm presents “assumption of necessity” in great detail in the book “Thought as a system”, Routledge, 1994. The discussion happens while talking about the question: “Why do I get upset when someone yells at me?” (page 97-108). The discussion leads to finding an assumption of necessity, “Whenever anybody yells at me, it is absolutely necessary to feel that I’m bad.” (page 103).

Related articles:

“Thought as a system” by David Bohm: A book review, November 14, 2015

12 angry men and 2 movements of thought, June 6, 2015

Matrix as a system vs Thought as a system, a presentation, July 23, 2015

Innovation - Where to begin (video)

Related article:

Three sources of innovation: pain, wave and waste, March 6, 2009

The Matrix as a system vs thought as a system

The Matrix as a system vs thought as a system from vpdabholkar

To see the slides in full-screen mode, please click on the following symbol on the bottom right side of the above presentation. 

3 powerful illusions created by thought

Which horizontal line is longer? Chances are high you have seen this picture before. And you know that this is a trick question. The truth is that both the lines are of the same length. However, every time we see the picture, the upper line looks longer.  This is an example of an optical illusion. Similar to optical illusions, we are also subjected to illusions created by thought and they are called cognitive illusions. “Cognitive illusions can be more stubborn than visual illusions” says Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman in his best-seller “Thinking, fast and slow”. In this article, we will look at three powerful cognitive illusions – illusion of understanding, illusion of experience and illusion of truth.

Illusion of understanding¹: In the movie Queen, the protagonist Rani tells her friend, “I listened to my parents and teachers all my life. Anyone you can think of, I have listened to that person. I never wore a mini-skirt. I never misbehaved. Still I got dumped (by my fiancé).” As we make sense of the world around us, we form certain cause-and-effect relationships in our mind. For example, “listen to parents” and “things will be good in future”. “Study well” and “you will be successful” etc. They get reinforced by the success stories we are told in school, at home and in media. One thing we tend to ignore is the role of luck or chance. We study the personality traits of successful people such as Steve Jobs or Ratan Tata and conclude that if I imbibe these traits, I will be successful. At work is a rule called WYSIATI – What You See Is All There Is. We treat the available information as all there is and derive our inferences. I like the way Kahneman puts it: Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance².

Illusion of experience³: Shopping online? I am sure you have your favourite shopping site – perhaps Amazon or Flipkart or Snapdeal etc. Grocery shopping? You know where to go – your local shop or the Mall. One factor that is influencing your decision is your past experience. Perhaps you trust your experience more than anything else. And yet the memory of the experience may be fooling you. I heard following story from a workshop participant, “I and my wife visited China recently. The whole trip was great except on the last day I forgot to wish my wife on her birthday. Now nobody talks about the China trip at home.” Kahneman mentions that the memory of an experience follows the Peak-End rule and duration neglect. We remember only the peak events and the ending and we ignore the total duration of the experience. If the end is bad then the memory of the experience is bad like the China trip even if most of the trip was fun. This is an illusion of experience. Kahneman calls this the ‘tyranny of the remembering self’⁴. Whenever you shop or make any decision, you believe you are trying to ensure a better future experience. However, what you are doing is trying to ensure better anticipated memories. 

Illusion of truth⁵: This is the most subtle and perhaps the most dangerous form of cognitive illusion. A few years back I and my wife, who teaches Physics, were discussing psychology. And she said, “Psychology is not a science.” To which I said, “Have you studied psychology?” She said, “No. But I know it is all fluffy stuff. You don’t have rigor in Psychology.” Then I asked, “How can you be so confident about something you haven’t even studied?” This caused some emotional outburst and we stopped the discussion⁶. We are constantly trading beliefs for non-negotiable truths and we are not even aware of it. For example, when one of the jurors in “Twelve angry men” says, “You can’t believe a word they say. They are born liars.”, he is not even aware that he has treated a belief as an absolute truth. I remember when Aarushi Talwar murder story came out, my mom instantly knew that Arushi’s parents had committed the murder. Unfortunately, our beliefs are largely based on “how the thought-created story makes sense” or what Kahneman calls “associative and emotional coherence” rather than logical reasoning based on facts⁷. Due to our tendency of treating “belief-is-the-truth” we go to war, break relationships and commit all kinds of atrocities.

OK, you might say, so what is one to do? Well, the first step is similar to what we do when we encounter a picture with two arrows (optical illusion).  We tell ourselves, “This could be a trick. I need to be careful here.” Every time we draw a cause-and-effect relationship, judge a past experience or treat a belief as truth, we should treat the situation as if we are entering a cognitive minefield⁸.

Watch your step.

Image sources: Snapshots from the movies: Queen (2014), Tweleve angry men (1997), Behind enemy lines (2001).

Notes:

1.  Kahneman explains “Illusion of understanding” in chapter 19 (Thinking, fast and slow) which has the same title.

2.    WYSIATI rule and the quote on “unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance” are from chapter 19 page 201.

3.   “Illusion of experience” is explained in chapter 35 titled “Two selves”

4.   “Tyranny of the remembering self” is mentioned in chapter 35 page 381. Kahneman presents this topic in the TED talk “The riddle of experience vs. memory”

5.   “Illusion of truth” is a section in chapter 5 titled “Cognitive ease” and is on page 61.

6.   While we stopped our discussion, my wife (Gauri) ended up auditing a 20 lecture “Introduction to Psychology” course (available free on YouTube) the same year during the summer holidays. Last year we took a courser course titled “Buddhism and modern psychology” together. And she is now using “Thinking, fast and slow” for teaching cognitive biases to grade 11 & 12 students in Theory of Knowledge (TOK) class. Last year she became Head of the Dept for TOK. She continues to teach Physics.

7.   Associative coherence is mentioned on page 64.

8.   Kahneman uses the term “cognitive minefield” on page 417.

12 Angry men and 2 movements of thought

By now I have watched the movie “Twelve angry men” at least a dozen times. Past few days, the audio of the movie is being played in my car whenever I am driving alone. It is the only movie I have watched twice in a single day. The movie is used in MBA schools for teaching negotiation skills. My wife uses it to teach sources of knowledge in her “Theory of Knowledge” class for grade 11. However, in this article, I would like to use this movie to explore a topic I have been fascinated about – movement of the thought. “Do Maggi noodles in India have Lead in unhealthy proportions?” Before you know the question has triggered a train of thought in your head. This train is what I refer to as “movement of thought”.  Like your heart, the thought is constantly and involuntarily moving from place to place – many of them imaginary. There are two movements of thought which are of particular interest to me – belief-is-the-truth movement and belief-as-a-possibility movement. Let’s see these movements in “12 angry men” first and then see what its implication is in our life.

About “12 angry men”: This movie is set entirely in a room where 12 members of jury are deliberating the fate of a teenager who is accused of murdering his father by a knife.

Belief-is-the-truth: Whether we know it or not, each of us carries a set of beliefs. Sometimes we treat these beliefs as unshakable truths. Here are a few examples from the movie:

Juror no. 10 is passing a judgment on the accused based on the boy’s race. “They are born liars” is how belief-is-the-truth expresses itself here. The juror has perhaps finalized his vote the moment he saw the boy in the courtroom.

Juror no 8 says, “I’m just saying that it is possible that the boy lost the knife and somebody else stabbed his father with a similar knife”. To which juror no 3 responds, “And I say it’s not possible” Once you believe something to be absolutely true, you treat every contrary idea as “not possible”.

Juror no 7 is telling no 8 without even hearing the other person’s side that he has made up his mind and he won’t change it.

Belief-as-a-possibility: Here are some scenes where belief-as-a-possibility gets presented:

Juror no 8 is asking, “Could the witnesses be wrong in their interpretation?” Open ended question is a hallmark of “belief-as-a-possibility” movement. Here is another question:

This is one of those questions which results in creating doubt on the eye sight of the key witness in the case.

What is also interesting is to see the transition from “belief-is-the-truth” movement to “belief-as-a-possibility” movement. Following two scenes depict the starting of such a transition:

Juror no. 3 who is stubborn about his opinion, ends up triggering a shift of focus from “It is not possible” kind of statements to “Let’s look at the knife” suggestion. Subsequent discussion creates the first turning point in the movie.

Juror no. 7 has already declared that he would not change his opinion. However, in a spur of a moment, he asks a question. This results in jurors carrying out a small experiment to validate whether the old-aged witness could have walked from his bedroom to the front door in 15 seconds.

A creative mind treats a belief as a possibility. And a closed mind treats a belief as the truth. Unfortunately, most of us get confused between the two (belief and truth). There are two fun exercises you may want to try. One, in any conversation at home or at work, try to separate belief-is-the-truth statements from belief-as-a-possibility statements. Two, try to observe your own thoughts and catch yourself treating a belief as the truth. The first exercise is easier to get started. And the second one can be life changing.

Image source: All the images are from the 1997 adaptation of the movie.