Strive For Human Scale

Edition #149

Dec 18, 2024

Introduction

Welcome to The ContraMind Code.

The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.

The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.

The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation here.

Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.

Remembering Charles Handy

Charles Handy, the 92-year-old renowned management thinker and Co-founder of the London Business School (LBS), passed away last week.

For a world-renowned management thinker, Charles Handy, saying ‘why management is a misleading term’ is more than just revolutionary. He also espoused the theory that the world’s big corporations may not be set up to attract and keep the next generation of talent unless they understand them as people and not simply as human resources.

Charles Handy had imagined that employees would work remotely, jobs would be outsourced, and workers would have “portfolio careers,” where they would work not only for themselves but also contract their skills to companies!

Here are some of the thoughts and powerful ideas of Charles Handy which are worth looking back and reflecting on:

Reinventing Education: Charles Handy was a passionate believer in reinventing education. He believed that knowledge gained from education needs to prepare young people to collaborate and cooperate in a rapidly changing world. In his own words, he said, “Education still requires us to “upload knowledge” and then “download” it onto an exam paper.”
Reinventing work: Charles Handy envisaged and wrote about the decline and fall of large corporations. He believed these companies would be replaced by networks where people would exchange their skills and trade their time somewhat differently from how we do it now.
Reinvention and Resilience: Charles Handy believed that whenever there are periods of reinvention or change, people will have to start afresh, and during these phases, there will be periods of loss during times of transition. However, investors and shareholders want precisely the opposite -to make money continuously without any ups and downs. They want a continuous upward return on their investments. The inability of people and businesses to have the resilience to handle a downside during a transition stops individuals or organisations from reinvention.

You can read the Wisdom of Charles Handy here. This is a fantastic collection of his thoughts.

Unleashing Innovation Through Creativity

A recent episode of The Forrester What It Means Podcast offers an interesting perspective on innovation and what it takes to unleash it in organisations. VP and Research Director Pascal Matzke and Principal Analyst Bernhard Schaffrik decode why creativity is often undervalued and share strategies for leaders to foster it within their organizations.

Here are some key thoughts that are shared in this conversation, and they provide an alternative view on this topic:

Creativity is the hidden key to innovation.
However, more often than not, innovation is always thought of as doing something different than before, but creativity is a precursor to innovation.
Creativity is also about doing something out of the norm, but most companies want people to work within the norm. This inhibits ‘innovation thinking’.
“Albert Einstein once said that creativity is intelligence having fun.” How you can embrace and practice this culture in organisations can form as a fundamental pillar of innovation.
Being creative is not enough, but having an innovation process is vital.
Tough times require large doses of creativity, and during these times, leaders must not focus solely on efficiency and the bottom line.
Great execution generally inhibits the creative types of work from happening. However, allowing a bit of fun and a child-like play environment can make a difference in the innovation process.
Dedicating time to thinking about a problem is essential. This spurs creativity, which can lead to innovation. The key is to give people time to understand the challenge and the problem more deeply.
Creating an environment that allows for mistakes to happen, forgiving rather than punishing them, downplaying power differences, breaking down hierarchical barriers and encouraging people to collaborate and take risks makes them more creative, and that eventually spurs innovation.
Companies must not focus on linear processes of their business but connect between practices or functions, which often brings creative thinking to the table. This leads to an innovation mindset.

You can also listen to this episode on:

Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube Music

Which Country Has The Best Education In The World?

One of the questions we always ask is whether our country has the best schools and how our schools compare with the best in the world.

BBC’s The Global Story podcast shares some interesting findings from the OECD's global research on which nation has the best school system in the world. On this episode of The Global Story, Lucy Hockings speaks to the BBC's Sean Coughlan and Professor John Jerrim, from University College London, about which countries have the most successful education systems in the world and what others can learn from them.

This study benchmarks and ranks the quality of school education across countries against some common parameters. It is an excellent way to understand where education systems stand across geographies and what makes some countries better than others.

Here are some key takeaways on what a good education really means:

The PISA test, which covers key areas of reading, math, and science, is a standard measure used to assess school education systems. It is taken by children between the ages of 15 in about 80 countries. Not all countries participate in this test.
Asian schools, which include South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong, often come on top in these tests, and Nordic countries also rank high among schools worldwide.
The PISA test recognises that a good education is a much broader concept. It measures softer skills, and recently, a creativity test was also introduced. The test also captures things like kids' well-being and confidence.
Many people believe that high-quality teachers are essential in schools. However, the findings show that this is probably not a significant component. Surprisingly, the US, UK, and German schools come way down in the rankings!
Class size is also widely believed to be a key factor affecting good education, as teachers don’t give enough attention to students. However, the findings suggest that this does not seem to be the case. East Asia has huge class sizes, which does not affect children.
Do girls outperform boys? They appear to do better in some subjects, but reading is the one that stands out clearly.
Finally, how do schools need to impart the best education to children? They need the right number of teachers and the right equipment, they need to be warm, and they need to make sure the children are well-fed, comfortable, and able to learn.
Click this link for more interesting ideas, discussions, research reports, and lessons learned from the PISA Tests conducted in different countries.

You can click the above link to watch the video.

Strive For Human Scale

Charles Handy coined the term ‘Human Scale’, which is a brilliant idea that triggers many thoughts and possibly many curious questions.

Human Scale seems like a perfect example of an oxymoron where Charles Handy has tried to fuse together two words that have an inherently opposite ‘meaning’ but have the potential to create a lasting impact.

Maintaining a core human-centric culture becomes challenging when businesses and organisations scale. As you scale, people are treated as resources, and jobs are treated as tasks. Things become very transactional. As Charles Handy puts it, ‘People become a cog in the wheel.’ While every message and language within the organisation reiterates people's importance, the systems, processes, and behaviours rarely leave people with that ‘feeling’.

However, when organisations are small or young startups or small businesses that have not yet scaled, a human-centric culture becomes the only ‘glue’ that holds the company or business together. Ironically, they are unsure about many things at this stage - business model, market acceptance, revenue growth, customer acquisition and retention risk, etc. However, people know people here. They know each other by their names and come together to accomplish almost impossible things. It’s not rare for people to remember the great time they had long after they have left such work environments.

The idea of ‘Human Scale’ breaks the mould by demonstrating that it is possible to scale while remaining completely people-centred, and small, people-centred businesses can still scale by keeping people at their core.

What does it take to strive for human scale?

As you scale, building an organisational structure with small, autonomous, but connected units is essential. Charles Handy's analogy of a village and platoon as a way to build an organisation makes it vivid and easy to imagine and understand.
Avoid a hierarchical organisational structure with many layers filled with people. It’s often built for redundancy and does not create a sense of ownership and accountability.
The ‘language of the conversation’ between people, teams and senior leaders often defines the culture that makes it easy to build human scale. Avoid using words like resources, tasks, deliverables, output, etc., as these words treat people as things, not humans.
Try to avoid having managers in the organisational structure. Managers manage things, and people don’t want to be managed inherently.
Human scale happens when you encourage, inspire and lead people, not manage resources and output.

Transactions don’t create human scale. Inspiration does.

Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:

Companies need to understand their talent as people, not as human resources.
Creativity is a precursor to innovation.
Good education must impart more than subject knowledge. It must also include soft skills, prepare students to be more confident, and care for their well-being.

Why Non-Cognitive Skills Will Matter As Much As Your Cognitive Skills.

Edition #148

ContraMinds Labs

Dec 11, 2024

Introduction

Welcome to The ContraMind Code.

The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.

The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.

How The Ivy League Broke America

This article by David Brooks is truly phenomenal because it traces the philosophy and approach to education over the last few decades. He writes about how the definition of meritocracy in academic institutions has lost its meaning in today’s context and why we need something new. More importantly, he poses some challenging questions about whether the objectives of meritocracy using ‘standardized intelligence tests’ in Ivy League schools have achieved their desired results. He then outlines and redefines what merit must mean and the qualities it should embrace.

Here are some thoughts that David Brooks has shared that can make you think and provide you with some points for reflection:

‘Teachers can’t teach what they love, because the system is built around teaching to standardized tests. Students can’t focus on the academic subjects they’re passionate about, because the gods of the grade point average demand that they get straight A’s.’
‘Two people with identical IQ scores can vary widely in their life outcomes.’
‘Intelligence is not the same as effectiveness.’
‘Success in school is not the same thing as success in life.’
‘If you don’t keep succeeding by somebody else’s metrics, your self-worth crumbles.’
‘The challenge is not to end the meritocracy; it’s to humanize and improve it.’
‘Our definition of ability shouldn’t be narrowly restricted to who can ace intelligence tests at age 18.’
Keys to meritocracy and qualities that need redefinition, according to David Brooks:
- Curiosity
- A sense of drive and mission
- Social Intelligence
- Agility

Read the entire article here.

Dr.Duvvuri Subba Rao, Former RBI Governer On His Life and Career

In the Point Blank Show, Abhishek Kumar does a fantastic job of asking very probing and inquisitive questions to dig deep into the beliefs, values, and experiences of Dr.Duvvuri Subba Rao, one of the most respected governors in recent times in India. This conversation contains insights and life lessons that no leadership course or education can give you.

Here are some key takeaways from the conversation:

If you are driven by excellence and the need to be the best in what you do, you prepare irrespective of the number of years of experience or achievements - “I prepared for this like a 25-year-old. So, you know. Every interview, every event is important.”
The importance of discipline in life: “Discipline gets you a long way. He taught us not only the importance of being disciplined but to enjoy being disciplined.”
Failures are common, even for the best of the best, so don’t focus too much on them. “You have to learn from your faults, from your mistakes, from your failures. But when you're doing something, pay your full attention to that.”
There is no better experience than being in the market or on the ground to get a first-hand feel of the reality: “To be an effective IAS officer, seeing is believing. If you actually go and see that, it's a much more enriching experience than sitting in your office and reading a paper, reading a file.”
When you are a senior leader, remember that every visit to the market or a client office or an update is carefully curated by your team, so find ways to break through this shield: “Dr. Manmohan Singh very rightly said, if the prime minister goes to a village, he's not seeing the village as it is. Once the people understand that you don't want this paraphernalia, the paraphernalia will disappear.”
You may not always get to do what you are passionate about, but you must find ways to do anything you are given with passion: “My experience has been that life does not offer you or give you the opportunity to pursue your passion. To succeed in life, you have to do whatever you are enjoying to do with passion.”
As a leader, you need to learn from others to lead: “The challenge of an IAS officer is to learn from the people you have to lead. You know, you don't know many things. You ask your staff, what is this?”
You need to learn to make decisions without having all the data in hand: “Challenge of taking decisions without having data in place in real time. You need people at the top because they've got to make judgment calls. And that's what I had to do in my limited roles.”
Learning how to communicate is vital: “One of the things I learnt is straightforward communication, unambiguous language is very important..”
Doing a job cannot be transactional and entirely rational: “Am I doing my best because I'm being paid, or am I driven by a larger cause?”
To become a great leader, you must become a great teacher: “They ask difficult questions, but then you learn as you teach.”

You can also listen to this episode on YouTube.

Big Ideas In Tech 2025

A group of 50 a16z partners shared their ideas on ‘What big ideas in tech will define 2025?’

If there is one takeaway that you can have, it is the final closing that caught our attention, which summarises where technology will be going in the next few years: ‘Bringing Romance Back to Production’.

Here are some big ideas that you can start to get ready for.

Why Non-Cognitive Skills Will Matter As Much As Your Cognitive Skills

It’s an interesting coincidence and commonality that one encounters when reading David Brooks’ article and watching the big tech ideas of 2025.

First, let’s look at the most critical insights from the a16z’s big tech ideas of 2025. As we can see from the trends, tech is rapidly becoming embedded in many industries like never before. Whether you are in sectors like Pharma, Finance, Engineering Products, Education, Consumer Products, Medicine, Healthcare, Art & Design, Professional services like law or chartered accountant or architect firms, citizen services in government, etc., driving tech-design thinking and adoption is not an option but a necessity.

Looking at it from another viewpoint, if you are in technology and don’t develop a deeper understanding of the industries mentioned above, you may not have a future as a pure-play technologist in the coming years. Some terms that sounded interesting but transformational were:

‘Future jobs will cross the chasm of hardware and software.’
‘Bring romance back to production.’

So, just technical skills may not matter anymore, but understanding industries, their ecosystems, consumers, long-held beliefs, behaviour, and industry challenges requires strong non-cognitive skills like curiosity, agility, social intelligence, etc., including a sense of ambition, drive and mission in every person. Because you will need to solve problems that have never been done before.

At the end of the other continuum, if you are a doctor or, a lawyer or, a creative person or, a production engineer or, a procurement specialist or, an electrical engineer, or an automotive engineer, technology is something you can’t wish away from. You must develop and improve your cognitive skills to imagine tech applications in anything you design, develop and deploy. Or, at the very least, learn to work alongside tech, AI tools and platforms.

So, how do you prepare yourself for the change that is happening around you:

Learn more about industries and their businesses. Don’t confine yourself to the area or field you work in. Inter-disciplinary knowledge will be vital for future jobs.
Experiment and build a zillion hypotheses on what works or does not work in that industry or technology stack that is deployed currently.
Be ready to stretch yourself to ‘zones of discomfort’.
Get comfortable with handling failure, as not all experiments will be successful.
Stay persistent. Do not get swayed by short-term reactions or disruptions.
Learn to work and co-create ideas collaboratively with people.

David Brooks summarizes this beautifully: “Is your IQ the most important thing about you? No. I would submit that it’s your desires—what you are interested in, what you love.’

To succeed in the future, you must bring your cognitive and non-cognitive skills to play at anything you do.

Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:

Cracking the school system and having a high IQ does not guarantee success in life.
Learn to enjoy being disciplined.
Future jobs will cross the chasm of hardware and software.

Finding A True Mentor

Edition #147

ContraMinds Labs

Dec 04, 2024

Introduction

Welcome to The ContraMind Code.

The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.

The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.

Take 5: Not So Fast!

A little patience can lead to better ideas, stronger organizations, and more ethical conduct at work.

In a fast-paced world, we always look for instant gratification - be it our career, outcomes for the work we do, the effort we put in, results of the strategy we implement, quick adoption of new ideas that we come up with if you are in a startup, etc. This article from Kellogg Insight is an excellent reminder to accept that sometimes good things will come to us if you are willing to wait.

Here are some key points for you to ponder from the article:

When there’s a problem, many of us think we should take fast, decisive action—but those actions can backfire. According to Prof. Sridharan, “CEOs are under a lot of pressure to meet market expectations. Sometimes, these market pressures may compel some CEOs to try to manage reported earnings, but such efforts can hurt the firm in the long run.”
The right long-term decision can look like a bad short-term decision. According to Prof. Daniel Powell, “Doing something that looks like it might not be efficient today may actually help to cultivate long-term relationships.”
Short-run thinking can often contribute to corner-cutting—or even outright delinquency. According to Prof. Loran Nordgren, “Thinking of your future self can help curb this tendency.”
None of us is getting any younger—and many of us perceive that brilliant ideas are linked to youth. But that’s not always the case. According to Prof. Benjamin F Jones, “If you look at age and great achievement in the sciences in general, it doesn’t peak in the twenties. It’s more middle-aged.”

Read the complete article here.

From A BSc Student to Advertising Legend: The R. Sridhar Story

In this conversation, R.Sridhar, who served on the Ogilvy Management Board and founded Ogilvy One Worldwide in India, discusses his life journey and lessons. It is an incredible masterclass for any marketing and advertising professional on what it takes to become a legend in this business.

Here are some key takeaways from this conversation:

Success in advertising comes from understanding human psychology and motivation, not just creative excellence.
The best mentors don’t just teach skills but help overcome self-limiting beliefs. David Ogilvy and Mani Ayer helped Sridhar see his perceived weaknesses as strengths.
Brand building requires holistic orchestration across all touchpoints. It’s not just about communication but about aligning every aspect to build trust and influence behaviour.
Leadership is about empowering teams through persuasion rather than authority. Sridhar’s experiences show how giving people freedom within a framework produces better results.
Career growth should focus on fulfilment rather than conventional success metrics. As Sridhar demonstrates, following your interests while staying open to learning leads to meaningful achievement.

You can also listen to the entire conversation on:

Apple Podcast| Amazon Music | YouTube Music

The Thrill and Threat of Mind Hacking

Can your mind really be hacked?

We have heard of computers being hacked, but is it really possible for human minds to be hacked?

In this Bloomberg Originals story, answers to these questions are becoming possible with brain implants.

The way computers will change in the future is that we will be able to integrate an individual’s mind or emotions as a core component of a computer.

Brain-computer interfaces are enabling direct communication between the brain and the machines.

Will AI break the last barrier to human free will? Nobel Laureate Geoffery Hinton defines free will as doing something to achieve one's own goals, not doing something to achieve somebody else’s goals.

Once we open our minds to these devices, tech companies and the government will have access to our thoughts. Would they take advantage of it? Geoffery Hinton’s answer is cryptic, “ Why would they not?”

You can watch the above video by clicking on the above link.

Finding A True Mentor

A true mentor has a lasting impact on one’s life.

Listening to the conversation with R.Sridhar and his life journey, it was fantastic to observe how mentors can make a difference in one’s life principles, ambition and one’s own definition of success. More importantly, they leave evergreen memories of lessons learnt, actions, and behaviours they exhibited in the person’s mind even after they are long gone.

In an era where being a coach or a mentor is widely prevalent, what differentiates the best mentors from the average?

Interestingly, only some of your bosses or managers can be your mentors. Only a select few can play the role of mentor in your life. Most may be there because of an organisational hierarchy or structure to do a specific task or role. But, the true mentors among them ‘invest their time at the cost of their own career priorities’ to genuinely prepare you for the future, not just the present.
Sometimes, people in higher positions confuse designation, power, authority and experience as a passport to being a mentor. They are the ones who you should stay away from.
The best mentors see the potential that their mentees have yet to see in themselves. This requires a deep understanding of their mentees after thoroughly observing what they do, analysing their talent, attitude, and work ethic and instilling a sense of hunger in them to succeed.
To find the best mentor for yourself, you need to look at the following markers that differentiate the best mentors from the average:
- Don’t confuse career achievers to be great mentors. That’s really what the market is filled with. Some of the best mentors may not be successful as career achievers but possess deep knowledge of techniques and expertise that they are willing to share and groom people into.
- The best mentors tend to be lifelong learners. They continuously upgrade their skills and capabilities not for a few more dollars or promotions but to be the best at their work or what they do.
- Best mentors are hard to work with rather than easy to work with. The best mentors are candid and ruthless in their feedback and expectations. They don’t want the ‘best manager’ or ‘best boss’ award. They have one single-minded focus - your personal growth and success.
- The best mentors are doers. They practice what they preach. If they expect you to work really hard and put in effort, you will see them put in more effort and hard work than expected. They are the ones you should seek mentorship from.
- The best mentors are uncompromising. They have strong viewpoints, are deeply convinced about what works, and fight for their approach to be followed, adhered to, or practised, regardless of what you think or feel at that moment.
- Best mentors invest time. The best mentors don’t sell their time for money alone. They know it takes time for you to get convinced of what you need to do, are patient and persistent in their follow-through, and look for that ‘one moment’ when you get inspired to start putting inordinate effort without having to push you.
- Best mentors follow your progress. You may have moved on or become professionally more busy and successful. But they follow your progress even though they have nothing to benefit or gain from. They continue to give tips and advice as your success is foremost in their mind.
- Best mentors have a ‘divine dissatisfaction’ about your achievements. They believe you can do more and may still feel you are not giving it your best even though, in the eyes of others and the world, you are seen as successful. When the world celebrates your achievements, they have an eye for your improvement to achieve further.

The best mentors don’t live for the world but for their own benchmarks and values. They are genuinely interested in your success ahead of theirs. It’s hard to find them if you don’t honestly search for these traits and seek them out.

Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:

Good things will come to us if you are willing to wait.
The best mentors don’t just teach skills but help overcome self-limiting beliefs.
Success in advertising comes from understanding human psychology and motivation, not just creative excellence.
Tomorrow's computers will integrate an individual’s mind or emotions as its core component.

Why It’s Fine To Embrace Moments Of Unproductivity

Edition #146

ContraMinds Labs

Nov 27, 2024

Introduction

Welcome to The ContraMind Code.

The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.

The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.

Smart Productivity Vs Wisdom Productivity

This is a very thoughtful and reflective note from Sajit Pai. He provides a nuanced perspective on the difference between smart productivity and wisdom productivity.

Here’s his perspective that can make you think and appreciate the difference:

“Smart productivity asks how you can be better, faster, and do more. It profers advice such as calendaring instead of to-do lists, eating the frog, removing notifications / reducing distractions, scheduling time for deep work, using templated reply lists etc.
“Wisdom productivity operates above the actual actions of becoming productive, and instead discusses the costs and consequences of trying to be productive all the time. It asks if you really need to do all of that in all this time.”
“Smart productivity is about how you can win/play better. Wisdom productivity asks where should you play, if at all.”
“Smart productivity seems more correct.. but it is an unending treadmill.”
“Wisdom productivity on the surface can seem lazy..but lay down ground rules of response.”
“…time is finite….And whatever you do, it doesn’t seem to be enough. This is when you start acknowledging the futility of smart productivity…. and embrace wisdom productivity.”

Read the entire article here.

When Will AI Change The World?

In this episode of Forrester’s What It Means Podcast, a compelling perspective on AI is raised and answered, not just from a short-term perspective but a longer-term perspective, regarding the effect and impact of AI Computing, which is slowly taking centre stage.

Here are some takeaways from this conversation:

Generative AI enables, for the first time, a fundamental protocol change in how we ask for and receive information, which will be transformational for many industries.
This technology is trying to understand humans using a context, which is what will unlock value going forward.
AI is not just an interface design change but a linguistic design change. This is what makes it disruptive and transformational.
This will unleash a new architecture of applications where smart, intuitive interfaces communicate with humans in natural language and coordinate with a set of agents to get the work done.
Each of us may have our own personal agents trained for our wants and needs, like how to shop, invest, etc. Each brand will have an agent who will negotiate with consumer agents.
How will enterprises leverage AI? They need to capture the knowledge, learn to deploy it, use it, and identify more sources of knowledge.
There will be AI agents that represent that consumer. For example, hypothetically, Amazon could turn that on for 100 million people tomorrow.

Listen to the entire episode here:

Spotify | YouTube

How To Enter Flow State

People like sports stars and musicians often get into a flow state. So, what is a flow state, and what does it do to your learning and achievements? What does it take for us to reach a flow state? This TEDEd video explains this very well.

Flow is an altered state of consciousness.
When people are in flow, people tend to feel they are effortlessly engaged in a task. They feel a sense of oneness with what they are doing.
Flow tends to diminish feelings of worry and self-judgement.
When you do things that are ‘intrinsically motivating’ and have meaning and purpose in what you do, you tend to enter into a flow state.
Flow cannot happen when you do tasks because you ‘have to’ rather than ‘want to’.
How to get into a flow state:
- Find a quiet environment free of noise and distraction.
- Break your tasks into small bundles that are easy to track.
- Set tasks that are challenging but not frustrating to you.

You can click the above video and watch it.

Why It’s Fine To Embrace Moments Of Unproductivity

The idea of ‘wisdom productivity’ conjured many conflicting thoughts around what we have come to believe and perceive as productivity.

One of the questions it threw up was, how do we measure productivity in human beings, and can we afford to stay in the ‘high productivity zone’ all the time?

The study, methods, and tools used to manage and measure human productivity are very similar to those used to calculate the productivity of machines. But humans are not machines.

It will be worthwhile to examine the evolution of measuring efficiency and productivity and see if there are any lessons we could learn or unlearn.

Perhaps the early study of business efficiency started with Fredrick Taylor's now famous Time-Motion Study. The emphasis here was more around the content of work. It sought to fix and maximize productivity irrespective of the physiological cost to the worker.

In another thought-provoking article about the ‘productivity paradox’ in IT investments, the findings and thoughts here are interesting:

‘Output value cannot be determined solely from the quantity of "widgets coming out of a factory", but requires the consideration of various other intangibles, ranging from quality, timeliness, customization, and variety.’
‘Perhaps the most common example of productivity lagging behind investments is the case of the electric dynamo. The time needed before productivity benefits were realized in the technological sector (especially since software is still a relatively new field) was about 40 years if we are to believe the studies of the 1990s that show significant productivity achievements.’

Hence, one common theme that seems to emerge is that no direct formula can improve productivity, especially when it comes to cognitive work. We must factor in the physiological cost of human effort and attention, which is not easy to control through tools alone. One interesting fact we need to understand is that productivity also has a lag effect. We usually measure productivity in a cycle that is too short, such as having a productive day, week, month, quarter, etc.

This is really where ‘wisdom productivity’ has a lot of meaning. There are moments in a day or a week when you don’t have to be busy and active instead of always being active. It is a conscious attempt to stay unproductive for a while. Some people take pride in being a ‘busy bee’ with back-to-back meetings and respond quickly to everything. However, it makes a lot of sense to block chunks of time to do nothing but think, reflect and iterate on projects or ideas that you have not been able to give enough time. It allows you to deep dive into ideas without the pressure of the next project or meeting. It will enable you to explore many areas without the constraints of time and deadlines.

In a study by the University of Warwick on lessons learnt from artists about productivity -‘Models of creativity acknowledge the need for periods of incubation and reflection in the creative process. With a few exceptions, most writers, musicians or artists do not follow a conventional working day. Most…..will devise their own routines and structures which will inevitably include some fallow periods.’

Being unproductive makes up the foundation for hyper-productivity.

Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:

Decide whether you want to follow ‘smart productivity’ or ‘wisdom productivity’.
AI is not just an interface design change but a linguistic design change.
Flow cannot happen when you do tasks because you ‘have to’ rather than ‘want to’.

How Forced Negativity And Induced Positivity Impact Handling Reality

Edition #145

ContraMinds Labs

Nov 20, 2024

Introduction

Welcome to The ContraMind Code.

The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.

The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.

It Literally Pays to Love Your Work

Here’s a very insightful article that raises a lot of curious questions.

This article was published in Kellogg Insights by Dylan Walsh. It features Jacob D. Teeny, Assistant Professor of Marketing, and the research work done by the team Paley, Anna, Robert W. Smith, and Daniel M. Zane.

The research attempts to understand the link between how much someone enjoys making a product and people’s perception of its value. The one research question the study was trying to address was - ‘How much someone enjoys making a product or providing a service—or their “production enjoyment”—….. affect how we view the quality of that product or service.’

Here are some interesting research findings from the study:

Studies showed that buyers associated production enjoyment with greater product quality and value, consequently increasing their willingness to pay for it.
Buyers associate production enjoyment with intrinsic motivation—the way people derive value from a process itself rather than its outcome or external rewards.
The research study showed that ‘whereas buyers were willing to pay more for high production enjoyment, sellers were willing to charge less.’
‘…When someone enjoys the work, they may view the emotional satisfaction as part of their compensation and therefore charge a lower price.’
“One way to signal you have a great product is to show that you enjoy the work,”

Read the full article here.

The Trends Around News Fatigue and Avoidance

Thomas Baekdal is a Founder, media analyst, author, and publisher. In this podcast, he discusses the growing trend of news fatigue and news avoidance.

In this podcast, Thomas talks about an experiment he did where he decided to test by not reading news for a week, which then turned into a month. According to him, “This was both scary and quite interesting. Because while some assumptions people have aren't true(about news consumption), it also helped me see things I hadn't noticed before.”

There are thoughts and experiences that Thomas shares in this conversation:

“Today, the way we publish news online seems to be designed to cause people stress. Every single news story is written in a way to make you feel the news, rather than understand it.”
The first day Thomas stopped reading the news, he noticed an interesting behaviour- “On the first day alone, according to my browser history, I did this 23 times(checking about news items). And every time I had to stop myself and say: "Hey, wait-a-minute. Why am I reading the news? Stop doing this!”
“So, during the first week, I didn't actually learn anything about news fatigue, I only learnt that I was addicted to news. Slowly, over the next couple of weeks, my mental state started to change. I started feeling a big difference in my everyday mood.”
“You are not hearing about the news, you hear about the outrage. I only heard about the topics that drove the most outrage.”
“If we can get people out of that day-to-day outrage, we have something bigger to work with.”
“Instead, it felt as if it was some kind of parallel universe where the journalists were trying to create a type of forced negativity.”
“So, I would encourage every newspaper to think about how to create value over time, for each article. Ask yourself if what you are writing about has any real relevance tomorrow, a week from now, or even next month.”

The Brutal Truth About Startup Success

Giuliano Iacobelli, former Apple's Director of Product Management, shares the reality of his startup experience and shatters some of the myths and principles associated with running a startup.

Here are some of the highlights of his talk, which is laced with brilliant examples and anecdotes:

The startup journey is quite intense, and you experience mood swings, pressure, and disappointments. These make up a larger share of daily life than the moments of positivity, wins, and joy.
Learn to test the demand for something that you trying to build without writing a single line of code!
It is vital to experiment and test as many hypotheses as possible, which can help you learn early and learn often.
Remember, 80% of the business is in sales! You can sell what you haven’t built yet.
First-time founders are obsessed with the product, while second-time founders are obsessed with distribution. The stronger your network, the better it will be.
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence are what win championships.
Communication is vital - to clients, to investors, to employees.
Remember, nothing is as good or as bad as it seems during that moment.
Market dynamics will trump individual performance.
When you pitch to investors, try to hold their attention with known patterns and analogies they can relate to.
Fundraising is a full-time job when you are still running the company. That is really hard.
Plans are useless, but plans are indispensable.
Being stubborn in your followups is vital. Every single ‘NO’ is getting closer to your ‘YES’.
Effort and sacrifice will be a part of the story every day.

You can click and watch the above video.

How Forced Negativity And Induced Positivity Impact Handling Reality

The effects of forced negativity and induced positivity strongly impact one's ability to manage and handle the reality around them.

Forced negativity is a phenomenon that is not restricted to only journalism today. It is also related to any message and conversation around you, whether at the workplace or in a personal setting. This not only creates a lot of stress and anxiety for colleagues but also an unwanted fear that the worst is about to happen. This affects our behaviour because it changes how we assess risk, and pain gets heightened.

When surrounded by people who spread the forced negativity syndrome, there is a lot of exaggeration about the dire consequences rather than an accurate assessment of the situation. Some people inherently can’t handle uncertainty or are unprepared for it. Therefore, in a workplace, if you observe closely, there is constant chatter about the boss, the management, the work environment, the company, clients, etc. In reality, things may not be as bad as they seem, but the negativism is so much in the air that it starts to affect the morale and motivation of people. The same applies to personal settings where only adverse incidents and negative consequences are discussed.

Similarly, induced positivity is at the opposite end of the continuum when there is a false narrative that everything is hunky-dory. One example of an induced positivity narrative is when people are hired for a job. There is a lot of exaggeration about the opportunity, the company’s culture, the role and position, the future, etc. The candidates join with heightened expectations, and if there is a slight deviation, it creates dissatisfaction very quickly. Leaders face the problem of induced positivity by the people surrounding or reporting to them, who only share the good news that the leaders want to hear. Soon, these leaders lose touch with what’s happening on the ground till a crisis hits the company, leading to a client loss or major restructuring or transformation that needs to be done. People with induced positivity carry a false sense of optimism, which starts influencing their perceptions and decisions.

Therefore, when there is a high dose of forced negativity or induced positivity, people’s behaviour swings to their extremities. Hence, facing reality becomes challenging as they live in their own shell. As a result, people become too pessimistic or too optimistic.

There needs to be a sense of neutrality in your head when facing or handling reality. The great Charlie Munger believed that people should accept reality, even when it's unpleasant or uncomfortable. He believed that this mindset helps people make better decisions and navigate challenges.

Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:

When you enjoy making your product or doing your work, people's perception of value increases, and they are willing to pay more.
Learn how and what can create value over time as you write and share your thoughts. Don’t get obsessed with immediate impact or response.
Startup journeys are intense and filled with highs and lows. Learning to accept it is vital.

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