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.
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.
A DIY Guide to Career Growth
KelloggInsight provides a pertinent perspective about how you must take accountability and responsibility for your career growth. Gone are the times when you expect your boss or the company that you work for to take charge of your career. Instead, it would be best to take control of your career growth during volatile business cycles, disruptive macroeconomic environments, intense competition from new companies, new business models that challenge existing businesses, etc.
Here are some key points that are quite provocative and appealing:
Solve for blind spots - Seeking feedback from others and assessing the areas you need to work on is essential. This requires an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses and the ability to accept the harsh realities of areas you need to improve. Ruthless self-assessment is critical.
Reduce gaps - Understand the skills needed - short-term and long-term- to succeed in your role and map the gaps you need to fix.
Create a learning circle -Reach out to industry peers and develop an understanding what are the old skills that need to be unlearnt and new skills that you need to learn and apply in your job day-to-day.
Read the article here.
Innovator’s Dilemma - A Conversation with Matt Christensen
Aidan McCullen, the host of The Innovation Show, has this inspiring conversation with Clay Christensen's son, CEO & Managing Partner at Rose Park Advisors, Matt Christensen. The Innovation Show is dedicated to the life, work, and theories of Clayton Christensen.
Here are some key takeaways from the conversation:
The importance of committing time for our family irrespective of the priorities at work, how Clayton Christensen believed in it and practised it himself. There are a lot of references from Clayton Christensen’s book - ‘How to Measure Life’. If you have not read it, pick a copy today. It’s incredible.
The importance of parents teaching kids to do their work themselves and how it gives a sense of independence and ownership when they make them do it.
‘Doing something that you want unlocks your ability to really commit yourself to it. It helps you discover your potential. If you are chasing something somebody has told you is important, or they are pushing you, or you do it for other people rather than something you want to do, the feeling is totally different.’
The Innovator’s Dilemma talks about most companies’ dilemmas of balancing short-term and long-term strategic decisions, especially when a new business model is incompatible with their current business model. ‘Just because you know something needs to happen does not mean you should do something about it'.’
The story of ‘Blockbuster Total Access’ and its initial success is fascinating. However, since it threatened the existing business model of Blockbuster and its traditional KPIs, this made them junk the idea, which led to the rise of Netflix and the downfall of Blockbuster.
‘There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly'. Unfortunately, many business ideas or units in large companies are like that, and they get shelved or are not backed with enough capital and independence, leading to the failure of the main company itself over time.
Sustaining Vs Disruptive Innovation - Some remarkable observations and examples about them.
Should You Trust Your First Impression?
In this TED_Ed Video, Peter Mende Siedlecki, Associate Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, shares some interesting insights into how first impressions tend to create bias in our decision-making and perception.
Here are some interesting points that he makes:
We tend to infer stable character traits about a person from a single behaviour.
Usually, bad or immoral behaviour has a deeper impression and lasting impact - called ‘Impression Updating’ on our brain compared to positive or highly moral behaviour.
Bad behaviours tend to make us more diagnostic in how we absorb them. Hence it leaves higher impact impressions on the brain.
However, the exact opposite happens when it comes to our impressions of a person’s abilities and competencies. As a result, the positives get more weight in how we form impressions. For example, if a player scores a goal, then it makes a more impactful impression than if they miss a goal.
Behaviours that tend to be less frequent are the ones we rely on heavily to form an impression and update them in our brains!
Our brain responds to new information that is inconsistent with initial impressions. For example, when updating an impression, it asks, ‘Is this person’s behaviour typical or out-of-the-ordinary?’.
Therefore, we tend to give higher weightage to negative or immoral behaviour rather than positive, highly moral things as we often assume that is an infrequent occurrence as there is a more frequent occurrence of people being normally good.
So, the next time you change your mind about someone, stop and ask this question - ‘ Was my updated impression of that person based on something you expect anyone to do, or is it because that behaviour something out of the ordinary?’
DIO Vs DIY Careers - What differences can you see and expect?
The KelloggInsight and HBS Disruptive Voice Podcast episode on Innovators’ Dilemma provided powerful arguments and points on how successful careers are built. However, while reading and hearing them, thinking, understanding, focusing, and reflecting on workplace behaviours and attitudes are essential.
DIO( a term we coined- Doing It for Others) career attitude and work ethic are very different from DIY( Doing It for Yourself) careers that you can see if you closely observe people and what they do at work. DIO career mindset is a ‘Reluctant mindset’ or maybe more of an ‘Indifference mindset’. When asked, ‘Why are they doing this job, role, or task?’ the standard response is ‘, That is what I have been asked or told to do.’ You will see the impact of this attitude in many ways below:
How do they take ownership of the problem
How they apply their minds to the problem
How they detail the issues and solutions
How do they draw out clear timelines and stick to them
And finally, drive it to closure through relentless follow-up and involvement.
For the ones with a DIO mindset, there will be cracks in all the above areas. There is a sense of ‘reluctant accountability’, and you will find gaps in how they get them done. This arises due to a lack of involvement and a tendency to blame others or complain constantly. They lack the ambition to excel and the will to learn. Soon, they come to a cross-road in their career when the 3Es get misaligned - Experience, Expertise and Economic Value. By then, it is too late - either they are too experienced with very little expertise and very poor economic value for the company or in their role and being relevant in the industry. They struggle and get into a ‘Survival Mindset’. They live year-to-year, job-to-job, role-to-role, company-to-company, till they stare at a bleak future in their careers. They soon become unemployable.
Contrast that with people with DIY career mindsets, and you will see they are constantly driving themselves and not by the agenda of others. They have a seemingly clear goal in what they want to be and achieve. They are not influenced by the workplace environment, the people around them, or their bosses. They know what they want to achieve and find ways to make it happen. They try to find an opportunity in every piece of work they are given or asked to do or proactively seek and take up. They don’t depend on the company or their bosses to chart their career journey. They have a work ethic which more accountable, dependable and one where they are willing to learn and relearn. They don’t get carried away and are very practical in evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, which they keep working on and improving over time. They find ways to improve the 3Es - Experience, Expertise, and Economic Value over time. They don’t give the same stress or push on all the 3Es in their career. At one point, it will be a push for expertise over experience and economic value. At another point in time, experience prevails over the other 2Es, and at a later point, there will be economic value over experience and expertise. They don’t follow the herd mentality of what others will think and value. They are open to change and keep changing the course without being stuck with a pre-dated mindset.
The ones with a DIY career mindset outpace the ones with a DIO career mindset. They are driven from within and not influenced by external factors. They are willing to play a patient waiting game and have a high level of tolerance for constraints and failure while honing their skills continuously while honestly evaluating their skills and capabilities.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
Gone are the times when you expect your boss or the company that you work for to take charge of your career. Instead, taking control of your career growth would be best.
Whether a start-up or an established company, you must understand the implications of ‘Sustainable or Disruptive Innovation’ for their growth and long-term survival.
Our brain responds to new information that is inconsistent with initial impressions. Behaviours that tend to be less frequent are the ones we rely on heavily to form an impression and update them in our brains!