Thought for the Day - Why You Must End Conversations With a Question

My friend R told me this morning that his had father enquired about R's stuttering business venture and said - 'Maybe there is some thing you are missing'.

R was indignant. 'I have done everything. It is showing results. I explained to him why I was not missing anything.'

I asked R to start a new practice from this morning. Of ending all conversations with a question. Place the burden of answering on the other person. This gives you a three fold advantage 1) great freedom of 'not knowing' 2) encourages others to provide more ideas and 3) improves relationships with the other person who feels better at having contributed.

When we say 'I asked for suggestions but nothing happened' - we are defensive. We have told ourselves that we have done right and convinced our mind that the matter at hand is over. It is not over because we could have gained from this interaction.

If, instead of defending himself and feeling the need to provide the answers, R had asked -'How do you think I should go about it?' or 'What would you have done in my position?' he would have placed the burden on his father. The father would have shared his valuable experiences and maybe out of a 100 such ideas one fresh idea could have emerged. If R was genuinely listening.

More importantly, questioning makes the mind flexible and open to learning other ways of doing things. It might open new gates where we are struggling with opening a small stuck ventilator.

It is deviously simple - the only way to learn is by asking questions. It's so easy, and so much freedom for us. And we gain. All we have to do is listen. In fact this is what we do as kids - ask, ask, ask, As we grow up however we feel the necessity to know all the answers. I think this comes from the fact that answers are encouraged and not questions - in schools and in society at large. In their eagerness to give the right answers, children slowly stop asking questions when they do not know and fall into a 'I know' behavior which paints them into a corner. These are also classic symptoms of the 'Fixed Mindset'.

The 'I know' syndrome places the burden of knowing everything on us. Not only is this not true as we know, it also stops us from learning. So there is a twin disadvantage in saying 'I Know' which are two of the worst words as far as learning is concerned. In contrast, the best three words we can develop are 'I don't know'.

Be the one who questions. End with a question and seek others  opinions. It will fetch more ideas, improves our knowledge, improves listening skills and certainly improves relationships and social interaction because people will enjoy talking to you.

I for one have now decided to make asking questions a practice.

Think you have something to add?

The Paradoxes of Our Lives - To Know Is Not to Know, To Not Know is To Know

When we say 'I know', we don't know.

It is only when we say we 'don't know', that we know. We know this much - what we know and what we do not.

And that we know what we know is not all that is known.

Chupke Chupke - Movie Review

I never cease to be amazed at the timelessness and ingenuity of some movies. For the nth time I laughed loudly at Parimal Tripathi and his antics, Sukumar Sinha and his nervous dilemmas and the sheer mischief that remains the common thread binding all the characters in the movie. From the hefty biology teacher (who gifts a monkey cap to Parimal Tripathi on his wedding) to the watchman who has no qualms in proposing marriage between P and S, to David, the thief who blackmails the owner, James and his 'diffrential mein lafda hain' and his midnight poetry of ek gulab, its heavenly stuff. I wonder how the director chose to pick only the mischievous chord in every character including the two ladies Mrs. Jijaji and Mrs. P.K. Shrivastav (the first one who comments on the dissimilarity between their drivers James and Pyare and the second one who points out to Vasudha that she is an 'ass' and not just an 'S').

I also wondered at the ages of the older brother of Sulekha (Sharmila Tagore) played by David who always looked like he was 80 and even the age of Jijaji Omprakash (who also looks 70 forever) who has a college going daughter and then - a five year old child. That five year old was interesting. Why? But somehow it all seems perfect despite these odd ages. How did they conceive characters like that? Funnily the older daughter of Omprakash never makes an appearance in the movie and is only referred to.

I viewed the residence of Asrani and his large office, the home of Sukumar Sinha and the old world comforts of those days and wondered if I had been lulled into thinking that as life goes on people somehow are entitled to get all these things in the normal course. The 'movie' or 'advertisement syndrome' I guess - where you believe that you are entitled to have a life like the ones on screen by just brushing with that toothpaste, or being somewhat similar to them in thought and deed.

Nice songs too. And they look so good - D, S and A.

Nice Link - Friends Build Tiny Town To Grow Old Together

Nice!
http://peacefulwarriors.net/best-friends-build-their-own-tiny-town-to-grow-old-together/

Talk at Hyderabad Business School, GITAM

Thanks to Dr. S.S. Prasada Rao who heads the HBS and who is highly pro-student development, I got an opportunity to interact with the MBA students of HBS.

Expectations from the course
I asked what the students' expectations were from their course - mostly it was about 'good' jobs or starting businesses.

How to Equal the IIMs
There's a way to equal the IIMs and other premier MBAs.

Mindset - New Psychology of Success
The 'growth' or 'learning mindset' is the key - learn (not about showing that you are smart), take up bigger challenges, set higher standards, persist in the face of setbacks, see effort as the route to mastery, take negative feedback positively, get inspired and learn from the successes of others. Purposeful and organised effort required to reach higher was established.

Measure Effort
IIMs put in 3000 hours a year (an approx calculation based on 10 hours a day and 300 days a year though the students felt that they put in 15 hours a day). The average MBA puts in 300 hours a year (taking a one hour a day standard). The gap over two years is 5400 hours.
Combined with the preparation already gone into the making of an IIM student, quality of faculty and the sheer pressure of relentless work, they are bound to be ahead.

To catch up with them, it is essential that the same number of hours are put in and high standards set.

Putting in 5 hours a day
Start by putting in 5 hours a day in an organised and purposeful manner. Hours during travel (2 hours minimum), social media time, college time - can easily be used purposefully. Students seemed reluctant to cut down on sleep of 8 hours though.

The 10,000 hour rule to expertise
We discussed the 10,000 hour rule to expertise (Eric Andersson) and Malcolm Galdwell's 'Outliers'.

How to learn anything new in 20 hours - TED talk by Josh Kaufman
Viewed 'How to learn anything new in 20 hours', a TED talk by Josh Kaufman. 20 hours is all it takes to learn anything new, provided we 1) deconstruct the skill, 2) learn enough to self-correct, 3) get rid of practice barriers and then 4) put in the 20 hours.

Where to use the 20 hours rule
The 20 hours can be effectively used to to improve 1) oral skills 2) listening skills 3) writing and 4) presentation skills, 5) core business skills, 6) quantitative skills and other desirable skills sought by the industry from MBAs.

Getting into the top 10%
Only 10% MBAs are considered employable according to some studies. By putting in 5 hours of purposeful work in developing desirable attributes, the students can easily get into the top 10%. All extra effort will get them higher.

Prescription to success
Effective utilisation of existing resources of time (6000 hours?) and energy in the two years at college, importance of clarity of goal, maintaining a journal to measure progress, making notes on patterns of success and failure, maintaining mentors and teachers to seek help, gathering new experiences, taking initiative and responsibility etc.

Learning attitude is about saying 'I don't know'
Say 'I don't know' when you do not know (and stop acting like you know). Ask for help from a person who knows the subject and the process.

It was 90 minutes well spent. The ride however takes almost 75 minutes either way.  

The Angriest Man in Brooklyn - Movie Review

Meet the angriest old man in Brooklyn (Robin Williams) who has a long list of things he is mad about (he is coming off a once-happy marriage which broke up on the untimely death of one of his sons, his second son choosing a different career and his wife preferring a different partner). Old man is heading to the hospital to meet his doctor as follow up to some tests done for his headaches and survives a crash by a cab driven by a foreign cabbie. Instead of his philandering doctor he meets the doctors lover, another doctor who substitutes for him and who has to break the news of a brain aneurysm to him. This new doctor is highly strung - her cat committed suicide, her lover is using her and she is a dug addict. In this highly volatile mix comes the news of his aneurysm. She tells him that he has 90 minutes to live inspired by a magazine cover.

The man runs out of the hospital in his gown and wants to make love to his estranged wife, meet a bunch of old pals, make up with his son and stuff like that in 90 minutes. The doctor recovers from her pill popping and realises that she had told the man something she should not have and tries to get him. On and on until the man gets some moments and finally dies in eight days.

It has some terrible reviews on the net and when I write the story it does seem terribly contrived but while I watched it I had no problem so maybe I was in a good mood or this movie has something different about its treatment.

Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands - Ivan Turgenev

Two short stories 'District Doctor' and 'Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands' told in a distinct style.

In 'District Doctor' we meet a penitent doctor who cannot get over the guilt of the death of a woman patient he falls in love with but despite his best efforts could not save from death. Nor even could he give her the pleasure of dying in the knowledge of his love for her. In her last moments he attributes her confession of their love to her mother as her hallucinations from the fever.

Penguin Classics, 56 p, Rs. 49

In 'Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands' we meet the mysterious Kasyan, a dwarfish man who lives in a manner unlike most, and who it is rumoured has an ability to heal. Kasyan has an immense love for life and all of its forms which makes him a unique person. He is gentle and feels for all life and the story somehow brings out the connection he has with life in all its forms.

Both stories have a rustic flavour and somehow the characters appear more alive than in any other story. Turgenev was an eighteenth century writer and playwright. The stories are from his 'Sportsman's Sketches' or  'Sketches from a Hunter's Album'.