Paddy Upton's Barefoot Coach

Paddy Upton is not just a sports coach. He is also a researcher and professor. Instead of anecdotes and personal coaching style tips,  he brings-in a comprehensive thesis on achieving excellence based on latest research findings in this great book. He provides a lot of insights for individuals as well as leaders. For a cricket crazy nation, this book is bound to resonate very well and I hope many reads it. I am not that much into Cricket(or any other sports for that matter), but I found the lessons  interesting are equally applicable to any pursuit. 

Core part of the story is about what did Paddy, as mental conditioning coach for Indian cricket team in the ICC 2011 world cup campaign,  try and how it helped in India winning the cup. Key takeaways in my opinion are 

1. Identify your values(if have not done already) and take it seriously
2. Focus more on ones strengths rather than weakness
3. Focus on the process rather than the outcomes
4. Empower the individuals or if you are that individual be empowered
5. Use your intuition appropriately
6. Practice to be in the moment and operate in the 'zone'. Consciously avoid distractions
7. While the advice is not to focus on the outcome, don't use that as an excuse. Be 200% committed to the outcome. 
8. Review and learn from failures and then move on

These points would sound obvious and boring, that is why I urge everyone to read this book and put the insights you learn into practice. Become your best self.

Learning, Thinking and Thinking about Thinking aka Metacognition

“It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

Why? 

I am passionate about Learning and Knowledge(Just to be clear, I am not bragging that I am a learner or knowledgeable person. It's the process I am curious about). As usual I need to answer the why question at the outset and at a very basic level. Otherwise, this piece wont progress. 
Learning is not about intelligence or even basic cognitive capabilities. Even inanimate things learn. At least that is what my hypothesis is. For example light knows(?) to travel exactly at a constant speed. No more and no less. How did that happen? We can extend this argument to every observable behavior of animate and inanimate things. How did a Deer learn to run at the sight of a predator Tiger? All these can be explained with evolutionary theory. Any Deer that wanted to stand and fight a Tiger would have died a long time ago giving it no opportunity to leave an offspring for us to observe. Similarly an inanimate thing has its behavior because anything else would have been unstable and died off long time ago. May be there was an universe where light was traveling at different speed but it was unstable and got destroyed.
The point for the humans with cognitive capabilities is that if we don't continuously learn the right thing we will disappear.  Nature gives a long rope we can do a lot of stupid things and still not perish. That is why even when we do not know what is that absolutely correct way of behaving we are still able to survive. No one knows, no one would ever know or there is no such absolute correct way of behaving. But it is clear that there are many things which we absolutely should not do if we don't want to perish. Humans or anything for that matter will eventually learn, but the choices for us are, either we leave the control of learning process to evolution or take it in our hand and constantly learn so the pursuit of knowledge can be accelerated.
As a species named sapience( knows), not just knows but knows that it knows, it's an obligation for humans to continuously learn. Learn so we don't perish and continuously because knowledge is evolving continuously.
Fixed Mindset and Growth mindset.Then the question comes how to learn effectively? Learning is generally associated with intelligence and smartness. We celebrate smart people. But latest research suggests smartness is achieved via hard work and practice. The more we praise smartness/intelligence a person tends to assume since they are already smart they don't have to work hard for learning. This is called fixed mindset, and it results in sub-optimal learning outcome. But if we celebrate and praise the hard work and process of learning more than the outcome itself, a person tends to work hard and practice more and more for learning. This is growth mindset. Researchers have shown kids and adults with a growth mindset do much better in learning outcome compared to the ones that have a fixed mindset.
UnlearningAnother aspect of learning is the unlearning part. The moment one is so sure of what they know and become dogmatic in the face of evidence to the contrary, it becomes a downward spiral. We need to cultivate the habit of unlearning things that don't work anymore.
Metacognition
We learn not just by hearing a lecture or reading a book. We learn mostly by thinking about all that we have received and observed. In fact thinking goes deeper. Consider this.

“I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am ” - Charles Horton Cooley

Ok, that's too much thinking there. But will you dispute that 'Thinking' defines us. In that case, don't we have to understand how we think. That is what Metacognition. Thinking about thinking. We need to take a step back and observe how we think and how we learn facts and form opinions. When we understand that, it makes us less susceptible to bias, pseudo sciences, and fake narratives.

Why to be ethical at all?

Organizations that have a long term outlook should also have a strong purpose for their existence and they also must have an ethical guideline that navigates them towards their purpose. This is applicable for individuals as well. That ethical guideline should also stand the scrutiny of a very fundamental investigation. More often than not, it is not the case. What is the right thing to do has become a matter of convenience.  Taking a step back and asking a more basic question "Why to be ethical at all?"

Here, I try to answer that question with Game Theory. Consider a game in which two players he and she can do the right thing or convenient thing. Their pay-offs can be shown in the diagram

If he and she act independently they would act rationally and both would do the convenient thing and that would result in an overall inefficient result. In case both of them cooperate and decide to do the right thing that would maximize the over all result. In such a case, doing the right thing is ethical but if one of them decide to break the contract and do the convenient thing he will much more in return and she who did the right thing according to the contract will be losing. This scenario can be projected to the ethical dilemma we face as individuals and as an organization. A society that has rational and ethical actors will always do the right thing. This may be influenced by moral norms of the society, systematic nudges and enforceable laws. A society that achieves the group level rationality will maximize the returns for all actors. But a society that fails in achieving this equilibrium due to majority actors breaking the ethical contract, eventually settle for suboptimal equilibrium of both actors doing the convenient thing and thus having much lower overall return.

So the first principle argument for why to be ethical is, it is in one's own interest to do the right thing and encourage others to do so. If one indulges in an unethical act, it may create benefit for self in the short term, but eventually its lose-lose for all involved. And in societies that have strong ethical system, doing the convenient thing may be bad even in the immediate term.

So do the right thing!

Ref :  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-ethics/

Nurturing Intuition

Zen Buddhist and Japanese nationalist Master Nissho Inoue started a group popularly known as "Blood Oath Corps" in the early 1930s, with a purpose to restore the degrading national character of Japan by resorting to violence against politicians and rich business owners. One of the members of the group assassinated the Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai on 15 May 1932. Many attributes this assassination as one the defining events that eventually led to consolidation of power which emboldened Japan to enter World War II. Though the core teaching of Buddhism is compassion to all, what caused a committed Zen master to resort to violence and murder.

In his trial when asked about his political ideology behind his actions, he replied: "It is more correct to say that I have no systematised ideas. I transcend reason and act completely upon intuition." 

As a fan of mindfulness and Zen, I was bewildered while reading this insightful Aeon article on "Zen Terror". We were discussing about the power of intuition and this case shows, acting completely upon Intuition, even for a seasoned Zen master, could result in terrible outcomes.

Acting based on pure reason may be impractical, that is the reason all of us resort to intuition to make quick decisions. And many glorify the intuitive decision making. I think, while we use intuition all the time, we need to be careful about it. Intuition is essentially informed by reasoned analysis. In his book “The Power of Intuition” , Gary Klein suggests we should not be depending neither on analysis  nor on intuition alone and rather we should use a blend of them. His model of intuition as shown in the picture below involves having a mental model and quickly rapidly simulating the scenario in the model and taking decisions upon the action script that passes the model. 

Illustration - https://readingraphics.com/book-summary-the-power-of-intuition/

By constantly reviewing the decisions and adjusting the mental model with reasoned and analytical inputs we can nurture the intuition. Considering intuition as a natural or divine gift and making intuitive decisions without regular reviews would lead to a toss of coin situation eventually.

Ennui and Meaning

We all want to succeed in life. One may measure it with different yardstick, nevertheless most of us want success. And in the pursuit of success we may miss life itself. In “Man’s Search for Meaning”, Viktor Frankl says 

“Don’t aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen and same holds for success; you have to let it happen by not caring about it” 

If success can not itself be a goal, what else should it be? That goal, that ultimate purpose or the meaning of existence itself is not a single answer to a simple question. It’s a journey. Its life itself. 

Existential philosophers would say life is inherently meaningless. If we look at the universe, long long time from now, it would achieve a cold equilibrium where nothing more could happen and life could not exist. Ultimately even universe is going to cease to exist. So the whole thing actually sounds meaningless. Isn’t it depressing to hear?   But we are here and now and can realize all these cosmos and the vibrant life that continuously recycles star dust. I think this paradox itself is immensely beautiful and provides countless opportunities to be amazed and to find meaning for our existence. Finding the meaning uplifts an ordinary life to an extraordinary one. Lack of meaning makes life mediocre if not depressing. That mediocrity creates ennui; the existential despair. Everyone experiences it now and then. Most come out of it. But sometimes, we may be going through a long phase of ennui unknowingly. It is important to pause and ask as the existential question “what am I doing?” and “what is my ultimate purpose?”. Answering these questions sincerely is difficult. The people of Okinawa tribe in Japan call the answer as their “Ikigai” - meaning “what makes one get in the morning?” One's Ikigai will be ‘what one is really good at, one wants to do, the world needs most and pays one sufficiently’. Having that Ikigai makes the Okinawa tribe to be happier and live longer than any other tribe.

In ‘Good to Great’, Jim Collins will introduce the concept of Bhag, Big Hairy Audacious Goal. It is for good companies that want to become great. I think that concept is applicable for individuals as well. Bhag is almost similar to Ikigai. It is what one is good at, one is passionate about and one would be paid well. Those companies that found their Bhag and went after it single mindedly were empirically proven to return order of magnitude higher returns to the stockholders compared to good companies that wander without a Bhag.

Both the concept of Bhag and Ikigai are applicable equally to self as well as organizations. Meaning of the existence for self and organizations should be transcending the monetary scale of success, as Viktor Frankl says. At the same time the ultimate purpose has to be placed in the context of the inherently meaninglessness of the whole thing. Then one can laugh at life as well whenever we feel so.

Back to basics

It is the results season. Kids and parents are talking about what they have scored and which college to study next and how much money its going to cost. Lots of courses are talked about. But one thing I am very sure about is no parent or kid is talking about studying philosophy as a course. I am not even sure if BA philosophy is even offered as a degree course in some college. 

We want results and now. Job and immediately after degree. Profit and right after one starts of business. When I read about "First Principles Approach" I just fell in love with that concept. One can say it's a fancy way of saying "Ask Why", which it kind of is.  Nevertheless when we look at the world from a "First Principles" point of view it gives a completely different meaning to even mundane things . Your decisions become much more clear. It also shows how people are completely unable to do simple reasoning on their every day decisions or when they take a political position. Don't get me wrong, this is not hubris. Most people would take a much better decision than me, but I am also certain most people don't have solid reasoning on why they take a particular decision. Social and empirical rules influence our decisions a lot or at least help to get to one quickly. But the problem is that decisions that doesn't have solid reasoning also hampers the society and self in making progress. Irrationality creeps in and costs a lot of money, time, opportunities and creates avoidable problems. I think that's why studying philosophy will train the society to reason right and wrong, ethics and morals, instead of just taking deciding from empirical formulas.

I was extremely glad when I saw the an assignment on Kantian and Utilitarian approaches to ethics in our Information Systems course. I was hoping that we would have detailed discussion. But due to lack of time and probably also due to our aversion of anything philosophy we did not delve into the first principles of ethics of privacy policies of IT companies in our class. I would have enjoyed that session.

I am kind of digressing; it's getting late and you are losing interest. My argument is that we think education and learning is a way to get a job or advance our career or improve the profit as a business. I think it is wrong and counter productive. We need to go back to basics, learn the first principles, and have a philosophical construct. Then one would learn to make better decisions and that will help him/her with better jobs, advance career and help improve profit of their organizations.

I am looking forward to a day when Logic and Categorical imperative is taught in Kindergarten and beyond.

Personality Types

I think it was in 2008. In a two days corporate training program I took the MBTI(Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) test. We had extensive lecture and group work after the test to understand the dichotomies and the personality types. I couldn't recollect now the exact type I classified into. But I do remember that what I got from the test and what I felt about myself pretty much matched except for one dichotomy. The whole program was fun and I vividly remember some of the exercises.

Cut to 2019, in the OB class we had a lecture on Self-Awareness, Social Awareness and as part of that we took the MBTI again. What was striking to me was that this time I have got kind of middle score in three of the dichotomies and in the dichotomy for which the test indicates a strong preference, I think my nature tends to be the other one. Obviously the test has its limitation and I do not think we can bucket so many billion folks into just 16 categories accurately.

But, I do like this exercise. It is a way of looking at and trying to understand self and others. The most important learning though is that personalities are just different types and there is nothing good or bad in itself.  This is applicable for self and for others. So, when dealing with others we can avoid judgements & stereotypes, better understand their point of view and appreciate their contributions.

The actual MBTI test is quite costly, but there are many free equivalent tests. This time I took the one at - http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality

If you want to understand what a given personality type means - check this out https://www.16personalities.com/