Category: Change

How We Believe The First Explanation We Hear

I did not realize it so forcefully, and I have been impressed since I became conscious of the effect. Whatever first explanation on some event or phenomenon we hear we tend to believe, until some more persuasive explanation is forced upon us – and we have a tough time to change our beliefs then. There is an incredible power in the first convincing explanation we receive.

Something many believed not so long ago: flat earth

This may explain for example, why it may be difficult to change our mind from explanations provided by our parents or social entourage when we were young, or from explanations provided by our cultural environment. It takes being exposed to obvious observations that the initial explanation is not sufficient or inaccurate to change our mind.

This effect has of course serious impact in our daily life: there is a premium to the first explanation we hear. If it is fake, unscientific or an attempt at manipulation does not matter – if it’s credible, we will take it for granted until a better explanation is imposed upon us. This explains in part the power of fake news and social media, and conversely the importance of subscribing to reliable information sources.

Being better conscious of this ‘first explanation effect’ is also useful to be less reluctant to change our view when we are offered more credible alternative explanations. Be more aware!

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How Simultaneous Invention Shows that Progress is Inevitable

There seem to be an increasing awareness that simultaneous invention is more the rule than the exception. This means that when society reaches a certain stage of technological development, certain inventions become inevitable – and this tends to happen more and more often. This excellent Quartz post ‘Simultaneous invention’ summarizes this awareness, that can be complemented by Malcolm Gladwell’s article in the New Yorker ‘In the Air’.

“The whole history of inventions is one endless chain of parallel instances. There may be those who see in these pulsing events only a meaningless play of capricious fortuitousness; but there will be others to whom they reveal a glimpse of a great and inspiring inevitability which rises as far above the accidents of personality.” It would be the availability of scientific knowledge, and its continuous increase, that would create this inevitability.

We need to accept that invention results from building on others’ ideas and findings, and that as more and more people devote time and effort to invention, more and more inventions will be simultaneous in several places and contexts.

Of course, as the Quartz article remarks, this creates an increasing issue with the concept of Intellectual Property – why give the benefit of temporary monopoly to the first that publishes? Isn’t that rather detrimental to society and not as beneficial as conventional theory exposes (the benefit being the publication of the patent)?

Those questions are at the core of the future of Intellectual Property law and should not be underestimated.

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How Social Media are Perfect Tools for Autocrats

Following up from the previous post ‘How BUMMER Became a New Acronym for Social Media‘, there is some debate about the social destruction brought about by Facebook and the likes, and whether those applications do not undermine democracy – such as in this article in the New York Review of Books titled ‘The Autocracy App‘.

The article states in summary that:

  1. Facebook as a company has lot control of the consequences of the usage of its services, that are being used by pressure groups and rogue users to create instability, chaos and even ethnic cleansing
  2. There is a growing consensus that the power of such a dominating company needs checking, as the tools proves to be much more useful to autocrats while it undermines democracy. Addiction and closure of the horizon of people around their interests hurts the debate, while data can be used by autocrats against users.
  3. There are several ways to deal with the situation, from an user movement (promoted by Jaron Lanier) to anti-trust regulation. However for the moment the current frameworks seem to have difficulties to be effective.

As any tool that becomes prevalent, Facebook demonstrates shortcomings in parallel to benefits. The fact that there is no real governance of the company with Mark Zuckerberg keeping the control does not help. I really believe that regulation is the only way, and there have been positive effects of european law on social media. This needs to be reinforced, because it is true that the impact of social media changes our world, and that democracy is impacted.

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How the Collaborative Age Seems to Create Increasing Rural Abandonment

Rural abandonment is an increasing reality. It is also a key driver of politics in many countries, with votes being increasingly differentiated between city and countryside; and votes in the countryside being increasingly extremist. One of the latest examples is the cancellation of rural bus lines over the entirety of west Canada: ‘Decline of Greyhound service mirrors rural Canada’s plight‘.

Abandoned basic services in rural France

A few years ago, with the the rise of internet, visionaries were considering rather the contrary, with city people moving back to rural places, creating life again there, and working remotely from home. There are still regularly a few stories about such experiences, but more often, people are just moving from larger to smaller cities for an improved lifestyle.

As of now, rural abandonment seems in general to increase, and additional forces tend to reinforce the trend:

  • agricultural work seems increasingly ripe to robotisation, as work is performed in a relatively simple environment, and GPS based optimisation can increase yield significantly,
  • weaker government resources reduce subsidization of rural public services
  • the mix of ideas is much better in cities, creating additional value and an increasing value gap
  • in a negative cycle, the loss of basic businesses and services in rural areas makes life harder and increases the migration to local towns

The rural territory is an asset and should not be seen as a burden or just as a playground for city folks. Some isolated initiatives give new economic life to certain territories but they are still far apart.

This issue of rural abandonment needs to be addressed proactively by governments: otherwise the burden of maintenance will increase dramatically. I am looking forward to hear about possible initiatives.

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How To Play With the Psychological Lunch Effect

A famous and often quoted study ‘Extraneous factors in judicial decisions‘ shows that judges’ decision-making is greatly influenced by timing, and particularly whether they are hungry: the proportion of parole granted goes down to a flat zero just before lunch.

Percentage of positive decisions based on time in the day

This tends to be an excellent illustration of the effect of timing of our decision-making abilities.

Using the lunch effect is one of the dirty secrets of facilitating: I often make sure that the hardest decision-making topics are tackled at the end of the morning just before lunch time, just to be able to use the fact that I can postpone lunch until a decision is taken. When participants become hungry they suddenly tend to agree on some decision, letting their fights on the side.

The lunch effect can thus be positive or negative, just know how to use it to your advantage.

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How Emotions Drive Organisational or Social Change

I love this Gapingvoid post ‘Why change management is emotional‘. It just hits the nail that every organization leader should avoid. Contrary to general belief, change can’t just be created by an executive decision and a powerpoint deck.

“The only thing that drives real change are emotions.

A major change is emotional brain chemistry and can be ignited just by a simple thing you do or say. Once you’ve flicked the switch, amazing things can happen. It should be supported by reason or argument”

It follows that it is essential at the start of a change management process to identify which are those emotions which you expect to change and address.

It may look hard, but actually when taken from the emotional side, change can be quite easy. What’s difficult is to figure out the hot button that will make the organization respond.

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How to Take Action on Uncertain Opportunities

Following up on our post ‘How to be More Lucky in Life: the Luck Factor‘, one specific aspect is taking action on opportunities. Once one has increase the number of potential opportunities, remains the need to take action to benefit from the luck. And it is sometimes difficult – and often makes the difference.

It is always psychologically difficult to decide to enter an uncertain venture. It is a bet and there is no certainty as to its outcome. How can one be more comfortable taking those decisions?

Based on my experience here are some pointers. And I find that the stock market is an excellent teaching ground to determine behaviors that can later be applicable to many other fields :

  • the foreseeable worst case outcome should not impact substantially our well-being. For example for financial decisions its worst possible impact should be less than a limited % of our total assets, or the time involved should not burden excessively our calendar.
  • The possible best case outcome should produce substantial value
  • It generally boils down to the confidence we may have with certain people. How is the fit with those people, what is our hunch?
  • Do we have a portfolio of opportunities that spreads the risk and ensures that on average, there will be benefits and possibilities to enhance further lucky strikes?

In addition, one should be ready to stop losses when it becomes obvious that the opportunity does not work out (including in time and money involved), and the other aspect is not to be too persistent on luck: know when to fold on a lucky opportunity, it will not last forever.

Grab opportunities, act on them: the secret for luck to realize! Are there opportunities lying there where you did not take action? Go for it!

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How Creating Lateral Growth Opportunities Becomes Rarer in the Modern World

Following up from the previous post ‘How to Create More Opportunities in Your Life‘, I am concerned how modern technology rather tends to close us up to new opportunities.

Typical modern restaurant scene: everyone on their own screen!

This is extremely obvious in public transportation of even at restaurants: people are closing themselves in their own chosen world, sometimes including with headphones, and remain in their bubble. Human interaction and the possibility of chance encounters diminishes drastically.

In addition it is well known that most social networks tend to close us further in our bubble of interests and opinions. While they do give opportunities to meet with new people with similar interests on a global scale, they don’t encourage us to encounter contrarian opinions and views.

Therefore, there is a real premium to those that will know how to take some break off this modern addiction to create lateral encounters that can create substantial new opportunities and make oneself grow in new directions: read books that bring new ideas, participate and listen to meetings and presentations with new approaches, etc.

How much time to you take to create those lateral opportunities in your life?

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How to Create More Opportunities in Your Life

Following up from the previous post ‘How to be More Lucky in Life: the Luck Factor‘ inspired by the book ‘The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind‘ by Richard Wiseman, let’s dwell on the specific issue of increasing opportunities in our life (whatever their luck content). When I read this book I realized I may need to do some effort in that respect.

In this instance, Richard Wiseman exposes 3 sub-principles:

  1. Lucky people build and maintain a strong ‘network of luck’
  2. Lucky people have a relaxed attitude towards life
  3. Lucky people are open to new experiences in their life

It is all about trying not to be closed-in in our usual world but be open to new ideas, new people, new encounters and welcome those inputs that may be outside our comfort zone. Richard Wiseman insists on the opportunity offered by meeting new people we don’t know and the need to be able to accept widely different worldviews to open our horizons and create new opportunities.

“Luck is when preparation meets opportunities”: the issue here is to create more opportunities, and then be prepared to act on them through openness and availability (in terms of time, mentally and emotionally).

For me, this acts as a useful reminder that it is extremely important to act laterally, meet people and go to meetings that may not be directly connected with what I am doing, but that allow to expand my worldviews; and also to try to take advantage of chance encounters as much as possible. I have tried to increase those opportunities in the last few months.

And you, what will you do to create more opportunities in your life?

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How to be More Lucky in Life: the Luck Factor

I read with great interest the excellent book ‘The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind‘ by Richard Wiseman, a professional magician turned psychology professor. He studied scientifically, through a number of experiments, how “lucky people” differ from “unlucky people”. The interesting point is that it basically describes what are the behaviors to have in a random world where a number of events happen, that can be good or bad.

He describes 4 principles for a lucky life:

  1. Maximize your chance opportunities
  2. Listen to your lucky huches
  3. Expect good fortune
  4. Turn your bad luck into good

When looking at those principles, it is all about: 1 – increasing the flux of possible events (lucky and unlucky) in your life, 2 – based on your conscious and subconscious analysis, bet more on those that appear lucky, 3 – be open-minded and persist, 4 – do not persist in bad luck, and consider positively what you learn from bad luck to get more lucky the next time.

This is the application to life of the right behaviors to have for example when speculating on the stock market: increase the frequency of bets, try to bet more on stocks that have good fundamentals, be positive and persistent but cut losses when they appear.

The interesting part is that it seems that by applying those principles more consistently, it is possible to become more lucky in life. What about trying?

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How Electrical Mobility Can Spread Without Subsidy

In an interesting twist, this Bloomberg article describes how e-rickshaws are becoming the norm in India, despite the lack of subsidies and totally independently of any government initiative: ‘India’s Rickshaw Revolution Leaves China in the Dust‘.

“The South Asian nation is home to about 1.5 million battery-powered, three-wheeled rickshaws – a fleet bigger than the total number of electric passenger cars sold in China since 2011. But while the world’s largest auto market dangled significant subsidies to encourage purchases of battery-powered cars, India’s e-movement hardly got a hand from the state.”

It is just that e-rickshaws are easier to maintain and operate and generally more lucrative than conventional petrol-powered machines. And this creates great benefits in terms of atmospheric pollution which can already be measured.

This just shows that even if governments can try to influence markets through subsidies, progress can come from other places, and that the market does not wait when a product just becomes better. The issue for widespread electric vehicle adoption is thus not to subsidize more, but to make the vehicle more practical and usable than petrol-powered vehicles. Vehicle producers, you are warned!

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How to Decide When To Persist or to Quit

Following up from the previous post ‘How the “Entrepreneur Struggle Myth” May Becomes Excessive‘, the issue of when to quit on an entrepreneurial endeavor comes up front from the fact that struggling too much may be detrimental.

In the previously mentioned excellent piece “No More “Struggle Porn”” by Nat Eliason, he explains that “Working hard is great, but struggle porn has a dangerous side effect: not quitting. When you believe the normal state of affairs is to feel like you’re struggling to make progress, you’ll be less likely to quit something that isn’t going anywhere.”

This is complemented by a great post by Tim Berry, ‘You Have to Know When to Quit‘, based on the same piece. And of course he refers to the excellent little book by Seth Godin ‘the Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)‘. I love Tim Berry’s simple explanation of the choices in an entrepreneurial or creative venture: “There’s no virtue to persistence when it means running your head into walls forever. Before you worry about persistence, that startup has to have some real value to offer, something that people want to buy, something they want or need. And it has to get the offer to enough people. It has to survive competition. It has to know when to stick to consistency, and when to pivot. So persistence is simply what’s left over when all the other reasons for failure have been ruled out.”

Therefore, be persistent and work hard but only when you see progress and some pre-conditions are met that demonstrate that your project has some chances to become something workable!

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