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.
Allow Errors into Your Life
Here’s an interesting article about why we should allow errors to happen in our lives and the joy associated with it. Mistakes carry a formal penalty very early in our lives, and there are red underlines on our worksheets, report cards, answer sheets, etc. Our brain constantly makes predictions on what will happen next based on past experiences. And the brain tries to avoid uncertainty and works on surprise-minimization.
The article recommends we need to gamble on decisions sometimes. Try to do something that you may not have done before or are unsure of, mess with your algorithms and create some space for yourself for the unexpected and unknown.
End of Invention
This is an exciting series on BBC where Economist Sam Bowman says he is worried that the productivity of scientists and inventors is slowing more than what was seen in the early part of the 19th century. He argues that there was far more rapid technological progress in the world till the second world war and after Second World War there was a period of stagnation. There are some interesting short interviews with people who lived at that time who had gone through many ground-breaking inventions in their life and how it impacted them.
Sam Bowman says that private companies look for profitable inventions, not revolutionary ones.
Scaling-up Excellence
Prof. Huggy Rao of Stanford School of business talks about what it takes to Scale-up Excellence. This is based on a book that he and Robert Sutton have written called Scaling-up Excellence. There are some interesting questions that he asks and answers:
How do you define Excellence?
Can Scaling of Excellence be Learned?
What are the First Steps a Leader should take to Scale-up Excellence?
What are the most common mistakes organisations make when scaling-up Excellence?
Handling Error-Excellence gap
The Error-Excellence gap is a thought that crossed our minds. We are typically taught not to make an error in anything we do or take up. Also, given that there is a penalty for committing an error in lower scores, bad appraisals, denied promotions, etc., we have error-avoidance behaviour in anything we set out to do. One thing that we could look back on every day is a count of the number of errors that we did or committed or rectified quickly. If we don’t have any counts to add, then we may not be taking enough risks or doing new things. We must as much try risk-avoidance behaviour due to our error-minimisation mindset.
On the other hand, excellence is about doing the right thing when nobody looks over your shoulders. This means to achieve excellence, you need to do the right thing, the right way and at the right time. This is bound to create many ‘error episodes’ in your life. You may not always do the right things since it may not be acceptable, or you may not do it the right way as you are not confident you will be able to do it the best, or you may not do it at the time when it is utmost needed. These situations are bound to create errors or mistakes in anything you do. You may constantly be looking for approval from others when you do certain things, and that may not always be the ideal thing to do, and that dramatically increases your chances of making an error. Hence, how you balance taking risks while pursuing excellence is a critical skill we need to learn and get better at all the time.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
When an error occurs, information is gained. Always make room for an error before and after a decision. Your mental algorithm improves as your brain continuously updates its response model.
Excellence is doing the right thing when nobody is looking over your shoulder.
If you want to see an acceleration in breakthrough inventions, would public investment work better than the private enterprise-profit investment approach? Need to search for more answers here.