Enjoyment as criteria More than half of our lives are filled with chasing goals. We usually make SMART goals and evaluate our activities against the performance criteria. We often ask ourselves ‘Did I give my best?’ for everything we do, without knowing what best means in some cases. Then one fine day we realize that …
Enjoyment as criteria | Midnight rule | On his blindness Read More »
Tribute to Daniel Kahneman Behavioral Science is no more about biases and nudges. It has evolved beyond these frames into the multi-disciplinary domain. The field got its prominence because of a few thought leaders like Daniel Kahneman who made behavioral science more visible to the larger world outside academics. Through his work, he proposed to …
Tribute to Daniel Kahneman | Beliefs about power | Contrast makes ordinary special Read More »
Hard thinking In my younger days, hard work was seen as a golden virtue. Many stories and narratives celebrated the hardworking chap who toiled to become successful. As I grew up I realized hard work was not the key to being successful. It was the hard thinking that gave people their edge. It is not …
Hard thinking | Challenging customs | Brain plasticity Read More »
Defining productivity Living on a farm can shift our perspectives about how we define work. As I watched the people carry about their work caring for their livestock, cleaning the pens, I wondered how they define their productivity. Working on the farm is hard work with a lot of uncertainties and constraints. Yet, Farmers seemed …
Defining productivity | Tribute to Wordsworth | Exhaustion and default Read More »
Making a new friend Someone told me that it is very hard to make new friends once you reach a certain age. I believed it to be true until recently I began to question it. I tried to test my assumption while I was on my travel by connecting with someone I knew only as …
Making a new friend | Proximity | Light pollution Read More »
Psychological independence Relationships are healthy when there is psychological independence. It involves not needing others, giving them space to be and to grow as people. However, our human societies insist on us being psychologically dependent on others and equate it to feelings of love, respect, and loyalty. It is not only prevalent in families but …
Psychological independence | Three-Legged rabbit | Limited time Read More »
Go slow to go fast While helping my niece with her math problems, I noticed a pattern where she made more mistakes when she hurried to solve the problems. She argued that she wouldn’t be able to complete her exam and hence would lose marks. She failed to see that in her hurry to solve …
Go slow to go fast | Phantom limb | Learning fearlessness Read More »
Breaking rules When I started my career, I was on the conventional bench for a couple of months. One day, I raised my concern in an open forum to the senior management much to the chagrin of my ‘mentor’ who felt annoyed that he would be blamed for not ‘teaching me’ anything. Two good things …
Breaking rules | Managing upwards | Lessons from a swami’s journey Read More »
Creative constraints Constraints need not stifle our progress. Sometimes, they help us shape our uniqueness and ingenuity. Few people know how to leverage constraints to their favor. Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy (Dr. V), founder of Aravind Eye Hospital is someone who demonstrated ingenuity, innovation, and vision by having self-imposed constraints. The Not-for-profit organization aimed to keep …
Creative constraints | Failing to lead | Real experience Read More »
Negative reinforcement Recently, while trying to understand incentives, I came across negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is not the same as punishment. The focus of negative reinforcement is the removal of something unpleasant in our experience that aims to reinforce the desired behavior. I realized negative reinforcement on many occasions unconsciously influenced my actions. For instance, …
Negative reinforcement | Negotiating salaries | False expertise Read More »
