Serendipity and Learning

A few weeks ago, I got an innocuous request. Can you help a small team frame conversations with their stakeholders. I spoke with a couple of the stakeholders and heard them out in terms of the way the problem was framed. I was lost after the initial framing. This was a topic that they had dealt with in depth through two frameworks in 6 months and I was wondering how to take them through this. This was my uncertain territory where there is a search for a solution. I usually like this uncertainty because it results in some insight sooner or later. And sure enough thats what happened. I was able to break conversation skills into a few distinct parts, break it into what they are doing now (stakeholder inputs) and in doing so, what are they missing out on. The breaking in the parts was not a surprise for them or for me. The what they are doing now was also not a surprise. What was not obvious was the final framing of what are they really supposed to do (as opposed to what they are do...

Recently, in an train, we saw a bio toilet. Indian Railways toilets have evolved little from a hole in the floor - but it looks like they are into producing newer coaches with bio toilets. This is a very good initiative except that they are looking at over a 100 years of behaviour to be modified. The previous toilets were just a hole in the floor and people would throw just about anything into it - garbage for example or used bottles - among other things. But in the new toilet, throwing anything into the toilet -will mess with the bio digester. Read more here . Now the problem. When one enters into the bio toilet there is nothing that tells you that this is a bio toilet. I mean, there is a notice, but from what I gathered not too many people are into reading notices in train toilet. So, how does one change the behaviour? From my experience, behaviour change requires a bit of nudge or a cue. In this case, biotoilets should 'scream' biotoilet from the time one enters int...

Over the past few gatherings, where we have had so called professional photographers at functions, I have seen this trend of taking more than one picture at a time. The photographer takes a picture and holds up the hand with the index finger and clicks one more picture. Now, back in the days of analog photography, there was no way one could be sure, but yet, very rarely, we took backup pictures. And of course, the film storage method was price intensive, and the results were not visible until the film was 'washed' and 'developed'. But in the age of instant gratification, the picture takers tend to take up back up pictures - when in reality that is not needed. Why does this happen? One possibility - is that the picture takers are not 'professional' photographers. And in many weddings, 5 year olds crowd around with digital cameras taking pictures - so it is not a big deal for anyone to be taking pictures - even with an SLR - and many of them rarely adjust the...

Appearances are important - in everything. A part of being in business is the appearance of doing business. Exhibit 1: I was travelling in a bus a few years back - and the bus made a halt at some unearthly hour for 'tea'. The tea-shop was a bustling place with atleast 10 buses at that specific point while we halted and I am sure over the night, serviced many more vehicles. For 3 am, the place sure was busy. But what was intriguing was that a biscuit stall owner, right next to the tea stall was busy, incredibly busy arranging his biscuits, moving them a bit here, a bit there and generally appearing busy. And he was doing brisk business. There was no reason to be cleaning the shop at 3 am which in all probability was his busiest part of the day. Perhaps. Exhibit 2: There is this 'pressure cooker' repairman I often see. To be fair, I have seen him handle a real customer just once. At all other times, he is incredibly busy. Walks up and down, cleans the co...

Over the course of our life - day in and day out - we gather/learn lot through our 5 senses. Out of that, what sticks in our minds? And why is that? Undoubtedly bad memories last for a long long time - and so do good. And both of these can be triggered by certain "triggers" - in the absence of a better word. But in the context of this post, I dont mean just memories - I mean, things we learn. But as you will see, memory is an important part of the learning process. Click here to see the types of memory . A typical example of how we learn something is best explained using the bicycling paradigm. The four stages of competence . We start from "unconscious incompetence" - I dont know I know. Then we move to "conscious incompetence" - I know I dont know. Then "conscious competence" - where we need to put in effort to learn. And finally, the rewarding stage - "unconscious competence" where the learning is internalized. Each of the memo...