Positive Illusion Bias - Why we are not what we think of?

Answer the following questions. Answers sound familiar?

1. Have you seen anyone boasting about themselves? (yep, they are all around us)
2. Have you ever boasted about yourself to someone and later felt that you actually overrated yourself? (sometimes, not mostly i am grounded)

If you answer "yes" to one of the questions, read further.

We overrate ourselves, often. On the positive things we rate ourselves above average and on the negative things we rate ourselves below average. Yes, we perceive ourselves to be better than most others around us.

If you are a manager, you had to do handle it quite often and more certainly once the yearly performance rating are over. People rate themselves above most of the people in the team on work/impact they created and how much less overhead these caused. While that may not be intentional, we need to understand what are the implications of doing that - Positive Illusion Bias. It does not stop at performance reviews and extends in all facets of life. It is how we are wired.

Positive Illusion has both positive and negative side effects. In a shorter terms, it seems to help relieve stress and be more self-confident. But over longer term, it has negative side effects when we overdo it (it could be sudden fall). Thinking that i will stand out from the pack often leads to less preparation which leads to wreckage as it gives false sense (Ex: My health is better than my friends, i can cram the exam since i m better grasping, i am more honest than most in the society, trying to predict the stock market thinking that i am an ace trader etc).

To Sum Up: Whether or not it is good - it is not the reality. It is one more reason to remain grounded and modest.

Why we take "Poor Decisions"

I wrote a tiny post on good, bad and poor decisions (blunder).

Making a bad decision is understandable. But why do we make blunders. When we are in the capacity of making a good decisions, why are we converting them to poor decisions? Do we like shooting at our own foot? Of course, not.

Researchers say, we have two minds. Have you ever experienced the dilemma in your life? One of your minds say "i do not want eat another scoop of ice cream" and yet another mind finds excuses "i will take another scoop and compensate with additional workout". The next morning, one of the minds thinks that "i had ice cream yesterday and now i should get up from bed and go for a walk" and yet another mind says "it seems like it is cloudy out and it may rain". Another example is shopping. Buying things way more than our need and what we can afford. I am sure that each one of us would have took several poor decisions in life only to repent later.

Our brain has two minds. The truth is that one mind is rational and the another mind is emotional. Emotional brain is mighty and powerhouse. The Rational (animals don't have this) one is tiny and succumb when there is a tug of war with emotional. First we need to understand that emotional mind is capable of making "poor" decisions as the decisions are taken based on "what it likes" but not on "merit". But the rational part takes decisions as it names says "rationally".

Understanding that we have two minds and accepting that we take emotional decisions and constantly using "rational" side would help us make better decisions. Making better decisions is a habit. Unless anything forms as a habit, the results ought be inconsistent and unpredictable.

Bottom line: Practice to use rational side to make "right" decisions. It is a long term process.

Good, Bad and Poor Decisions

(Not a) Rocket Science: Good Decisions Vs Bad Decisions Vs Poor Decisions

Good decisions - Well thought out and the decision seems to be correct

Bad decisions (there are limitations) - Not well thought out and the outcome is not so great. There are some shortcomings that are outside of your control. You do not have expertise to decide but the situation is such that you need to take decisions. You learn something new. It is failure.

Poor decisions (limiting oneself) - Not well thought out again and the outcome is not so great. But there is a difference here. You had all information at your disposal or you have access to get those information with little to no effort. You screwed it. This is NOT a failure. This is a blunder.

There is a hell a lot of difference between a failure and blunder.

A failure gives you confidence that you will do it after learning and a blunder gives an impression that you lack commitment.

Two TED Talks - Must Watch

I thought i would write my own post. But i thought i should share something more important than my posts. I will leave you today from my crappy posts but some other day i will give you a double dose. 

Today i watched few TED Talks and few of them are little outstanding than the others. The ideas are simple but inspiring, straightforward but difficult to do it consistently. Your investment is 40 minutes. Watch it and share your thoughts.

Switch (Part 3) - Direct the Rider

This is concluding post on "Direct the Rider".

Review of Chapter 2: "Direct the Rider" - "Script the Critical Moves" and "Point to the Destination". (Click here to read all posts related to Switch")

Are you one like me takes a lot of time to decide when there are lot of choices?

Have you ever tried to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of a particular cell phone? Have you ever compared number of different cell phones on variety of parameters - "look and feel", "value for money", "technological features", "emotional feeling of feeling proud", "customer service" and so on. If you are stuck days or weeks in deciding which one to buy - you have been affected by "Rider's" weakness at least once.

The rational side of our brain pushes itself to endless cycle of analysis when there are more options (it doesn't matter whether the options are good or bad). Since the decision making is draining, the Rider quickly runs out of fuel leading to "spinning the wheels" (and taking enormous Elephant for a ride eventually dooming the change). The same happens where there is ambiguity in choices . In these situation the Rider is quite happy to continue with status quo.

How to mitigate this weakness? "Script the Critical Moves" and "Point to The Destination"

Convert the idea to specific behavior that are specific and concrete and provide a vision or compelling destination that is appealing to "Elephant" and engage the "Rider" to think how to reach there.

Another important issue discussed is "Rationalization" - finding excuses when the destination is not inspiring. And how setting Black and White goals would keep change process in tact.

Case Studies to note:

1. Chronic Hip Pain for Arthritis
2. Behring - Brazil Southern Railroad Turnaround
3. Crystal Jones - Third Grader
4. Laura Essermen - Breast Care Center

Summary:

The bright spots helps us to kick start with change process and helps us give the feeling that we are already there (and see it easy). The pointing to destination with prescribing the critical moves help us to keep "Rider" from analysis paralysis.

Impression: Both the sections are to the point and discusses mitigation of "Rider's" weaknesses backed up with case studies. Few of the ideas are higher level and it might take couple of reads to understand it well and apply it.

Another little thing that i feel is that "Point to the destination" should precede "Script the Critical Moves". The reason is when the destination is shown the Rider thinks how to reach there (Rider would get his thinking and scripting his critical moves).

Want to read all the posts on Switch. Click here

Disclaimer: I neither get commission for a writing review nor using Affiliation of any Bookstore. The whole purpose of these posts is to provide value to my readers and give them information to be better.

Do you have BRAIN? Watch This

Interesting video... If you want to improve your brain and increase neurons, watch this video. Just 12 mins

Switch (Part 2) - Direct the Rider, Find the Bright Spots

Review of Chapter 2, Section 1: Find the Bright Spots

There are more negative emotions words than positive emotions words in the dictionaries. The bad things stick in our minds relatively longer than good things. Bad things spread faster. This trait of human beings put us in disadvantage when it comes to making decisions. The manifestation of this trait during a change process is looking for complex solution for a complex problem. We look at problems - the scale of the problem and try to find a solution of similar scale.

Can the solution be simple? If so, How to make it simpler?

The authors claim that the above shortcomings can be mitigated with "Finding the bright spots". Once we have the bright spots identified, the next step is to learn from bright spots removing any exceptions and cloning bright spots. The entire change process can be sequence of bright spots.

Let us dig it further

There are couple of case studies in this section that are quite powerful. One of the case study is "Jerry Sternin's Solving Malnutrition in Vietnam". Sternin was tasked to address malnutrition of kids in Vietnam. There were numerous papers published before on discussing the problem. But the knowledge were knowledge in piece of paper but nothing changed. 

Sternin identified healthy kids among malnourished kids and there were clear differences in terms of what they eat and how they eat food. Sternin found the bright spot (local wisdom) and made community kitchens for mothers to learn how to keep their kids nourished. Within months, the kids showed marked improvement and this kitchen become laboratory and spread across the country. In this case study the authors clearly bring out why the bright spots are needed. Without bright spots how the Rider derails the change process (spinning the wheels and analysis paralysis). 

This case study and another case studies anchors the subject very well.

To sum up, this section conveys the following

1. Bright spots keep us moving without being stuck in analysis (without moving an inch from problem and not getting started with actual change process)
2. Change is sequence of bright spots
3. Transition from problem focus to solution focus
4. Archaeological problem solving to bright spot evangelizing
5. Solution-focused therapy to change behaviors,
6. Red flag: Focusing on bright spots can be counter-intuitive for business - Talks about Rider's weakness to see initial "good news" as "bad news" or as an anomaly.
7. Red flag: Rider's Weakness - Big Problem needs big solutions attitude

Impression: Very well presented and with some big takeaways. There shouldn't be a second thought to read this book.

Next: Direct the Rider (Part 3)

Want to read all the posts on Switch. Click here

Disclaimer: I neither get commission for a writing review nor using Affiliation of any Bookstore. The whole purpose of these posts is to provide value to my readers and give them information to be better.

Followership

What a real leader would do in a firefighting?

There is a fire. The firemen are trying to put off the fire. What are they likely to do? Each one would do their job (which they are good at). Sometimes they give commands and most of the times they follow. They follow someone who is closer to the fire. They take directions. They ultimate goal is to put off fire.

If we are recovering from a disaster and working hard for a turnaround, "followership" is more important than "leading" (prescription). 

Followership gives us focus, disciple and confidence.

A leader is born when she follows. Followership is another form of Leadership

Switch (Part 1) - Three Surprises

Review of Chapter 1

This is going to be another post on the book Switch. In this post i am going to quickly cover various ideas and insights in section 1 - Three Surprises. There will be 3-5 more posts on the book. The goal of writing the detailed reviews are as follows:

• Discuss the contents so that you can decide why i am recommending others to spend time on this book
• Internalize the ideas so that my recommendation is based on thorough reading and reflecting. Since i read this book for the second time. First time i did not take any notes. Since the subject and book is interesting, i started making notes.

Enough of reasoning. Let us move on.

The first section talks about "Three Surprises About Change". The section provides motivation to read the book further. I have bought many books in the past and hardly can complete any. But when i read the first section, i get the feeling that I should read this. The first section does a good job of giving an overview on Change - what is a good change pattern and what are common misunderstanding about impediments.

The first section introduces us our brain - "Rider" and "Elephant". Rider analyzes, thinks, provides direction and look into the future. Elephant gives us energy, motivation, love, compassion. It discusses few case studies why it is critical to involve both "Rider" and "Elephant" for the change to be successful. How "Rider" and "Elephant" derail the change.

The first section brilliantly demystifies the following the myths.

Surprise #1: What it looks like people problem is often Situation Problem

Surprise #2: What looks like laziness is often Exhaustion

Surprise #3: What looks like resistance is often Lack of Clarity

The following case studies are used as supporting materials

1. Stale Popcorn in Bigger and Less Bigger Bucket to discuss how the situation changes people's eating behavior
2. Clocky - The Running Rogue Clock to discuss Rider and Elephant fight
3. Chocolate Cookies and Radish to discuss exhaustion
4. Stegner's 242 Gloves to discuss what happens when Rider and Elephant are engaged
5. Making West Virginia to adopt 1% milk to be healthy to discuss the importance of direction
6. Saving 100000 lives by Donald Berwick to discuss what scripted change and a successful change

Sum up: Overall the first chapter is delight and sets the stage to read further.

Next: Switch (Part 2) - Direct the Rider, Find the Bright Spots

Want to read all the posts on Switch. Click here

Disclaimer: I neither get commission for a writing review nor using Affiliation of any Bookstore. The whole purpose of these posts is to provide value to my readers and give them information to be better.

Influences

*** Not a rocket science yet a rocket science ***

All the posts that i write here comes from the books i read, the people i meet, my observation on events around me and many other ways - Influences

When i read book, i read with an intention of getting something out of it. I am motivated to read it. The results are mostly conscious.

Events around me - Whether are or not i am motivated, get registered in my mind. It gets registered in my sub-conscious and manifests in some form at later point even if i do not heed. If i have awareness on what happening, i place a filter before the events. My orientation depends on the filter. How i store the information depends on the filter/awareness.

Everyone and everything around me gives me opportunity to learn more and be better and "Influences" my future decisions/reasoning.

Help and Giving

Tamil Nadu floods - see it good and bad sides

Bad sides - Lives are lost, Losing basic amenities of life, Pushing people to migrate to different part of city, Psychological issues, Material losses.....

Good Side - You got to know you are not alone. People are with you. People helped people. People donated to People. Some gave part of their salary. Some gave everything they had. Some might borrowed from someone to give people.

For a common man. "Giving" is big thing. Giving without advertisement for vested interest is another big thing. It shows your deep care for others. "How much" you give is not important. There is no price tag for the help done in needy time.

This picture summarizes everything.