Change | The Fourth Revolution Blog

How Our Brain Remains Highly Plastic at All Age

I have been quite astonished lately to read a number of accounts of nerve rewiring that work. Nerve rewiring is about taking some nerves from a distinct region to rewire a region that has been cut-out for some reason. And suppose the brain will make sense of the change to regain functionality.

Prosthetic limbs operated by thought - the result of nerve rewiring — Prosthetic limbs operated by thought – the result of nerve rewiring

It starts to become a way to treat people with damage to their spine (like here) and also a way for amputees to operate their prosthetic limb (like here and here in the Economist in 2010).

I read the most bizarre account of such a possibility in Scott Adam‘s (the cartoonist creator of Dilbert) latest book ‘How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life‘. Scott Adams has been suffering from a condition called spasmodic dysphonia: his vocal cords did not respond in a normal manner when speaking in public. A very debilitating condition, and Scott Adams could not find any solution for years. The full account is also in this Wired post. Finally the solution was found when a surgeon proposed to reroute some neck nerves with other functions to his vocal chords. Suddenly after 3 months, as predicted, after his brain had learnt to use these new entry points, Scott was able to speak again, and after some exercise, regained his voice.

All these experiments prove that our brain is able to relearn and rewire at all ages, and keeps an astonishing plasticity to adapt. We need to stop believing these industrial age cliche that our brain is formed in our 20s’. It continues to evolve, and can even manage dramatic changes, any time during our lives.

How Artificial Intelligence is Already Influencing Our Genes

Artificial Intelligence is already reorganizing humans. The statement developed in this post ‘AI will reorganize the human population‘ by Silver Keskküla struck me. But “it is actually difficult to argue. Surely there are thousands of kids born to couples that found each other on internet dating sites and since often the matching algorithms on those sites are based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, then we effectively have AI involved in the matter of whose DNA gets mixed.”

And this is even when speaking only of “Weak AI” (“computational agents that exhibit problem solving abilities in restricted domains that we typically assume require intelligence“), not even of higher levels of artificial intelligence that we fear might maybe sometime try to overcome humankind.

Thinking about it, since our emotions are increasingly influenced by social networks, which are increasingly monitored and facilitated by Artifical Intelligence, AI does indeed progressively enter our lives, and even our intimate lives.

The rest of the post is a bit of an advert for the author’s new startup, but his idea to influence human migration by proposing easier comparison of different cities globally depending on one’s project is quite amazing.

In any case, let’s realize that AI is already influencing our lives probably more than we currently imagine, on a day-to-day basis.

How to Properly Challenge Our Limits

Following on the argument of our previous posts ‘How Acknowledging our Limits is Source of Happiness, but Is That Enough?’ and ‘Why We Need to Challenge Our Limits for Full Happiness‘, while we need to acknowledge most of our limits to be happy, how should we proceed to challenge those limits?

Of course it is a mainstream view nowadays – and that I have quoted in this blog – that “Life Begins at the End of your Comfort Zone“. I fully concur with it, having several times jumped outside my comfort zone.

But should you jump outright? It can be dangerous to jump without a parachute – or at least without the minimum of precautions.

Hence here are some key rules which I believe need to be followed when attempting to reach beyond one’s limits – while still maintaining a sufficient degree of happiness now and in the future:

don’t test all your limits at the same time – narrow the challenge and continue to acknowledge the other limits,
before you depart, make sure that the journey will be enjoyable, do not just focus on the ultimate goal (the journey will necessarily be somewhat uncomfortable but at least make sure it will be fun and interesting!)
be flexible on where the journey will bring you – just choose the general direction, but remain flexible on the circumstances.

Yes, we need to challenge our limits, but let’s do that in a way that brings us satisfaction and builds happiness along the way.

By the way – when do you start?

Why We Need to Challenge Our Limits for Full Happiness

Following on the argument of our previous post ‘How Acknowledging our Limits is Source of Happiness, but Is That Enough?’ – we probably need to respect the limits placed on us in general, but to reach full happiness shouldn’t we at the same time challenge some of those limits ?

Or, as the saying goes, when we respect those limits, are we really happy – or just comfortable?

Staying in the limits set on us or set by us is a good way to be happy now but might give after a while a sour aftertaste of unexploited possibility.

Therefore I believe that it is still a necessity to achieve true happiness in the long term to challenge those limits we have acknowledged – and broaden our perspectives.

Lack of comfort is not necessarily related to unhappiness. The journey beyond our pre-set limits will not be comfortable but can lead to a higher level of happiness – during the journey and when it reaches a new limit.

However, this trespassing of our limits needs to be done in a proper way to maintain sufficient happiness, and that is what we will explore in the next post.

How Acknowledging our Limits is Source of Happiness, but Is That Enough?

Acknowledging in general our limits (physical, social, economical, geographical etc.) is generally required to reach happiness.

This is probably because not acknowledging these limits leads to permanent dissatisfaction, jealousy, to constant craving for more or for something different. This craving troubles the internal piece required for true happiness, and prevents from being sufficiently in the present to appreciate what happens around us right now.

This explains why people suffering from severe disabilities can be happy, when they acknowledge the limits these disabilities place onto them.

Some people also create their own limits to find happiness, even if they are just illusions created by themselves – in particular, in the social environment.

At the same time, many systems exerting social pressure based on the respect of social limits use the same argument to state that happiness is still possible in the context, how harsh the rules might be.

We thus need to acknowledge those limits, but the question remains of how much should be respect them? In an interesting contradiction, we also need to challenge some of them to be truly satisfied.

That happiness paradox is an aspect we will investigate in a series of posts.

Why Most of Our Problems are Problems of Perception

“Engineers, medical people, scientific people have an obsession with solving the problem. in reality, when actually once you reach a basic level of wealth in society, most problems are actually problems of perception” – says Rory Sutherland.

Rory Sutherland is a name in the advertisement industry and probably knows better than most the power of the frame of perception in which people are. Changing the frame is often the solution – alas it is also often hard and long to do. That’s a tool that coaches are using though when it comes to helping people overcome challenges or situations where they feel loss of control.

The key of Rory’s point, however, is that scientific, objective, mathematical approaches are certain to fail. It is all in the way people look at issues. Therefore even if it is difficult, effort needs to be made to change the frame of perception rather than to try to persuade using objective arguments. It comes down to effecting deep changes in people, and this needs a lot of help and support.

Is your problem a real issue or only a problem of perception? What about changing your frame of reference?

Hat tip to Valeria Maltoni’s always excellent blog, and the post ‘The Power of Reframing Things‘

How Our Attitude to a Problem Might be the Problem

“The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude with the problem” – quote from Pirates of the Caribbean, which we all know is a famous Hollywood philosopher (at times).

Still I like this quote because it summarizes very well the issues we all face sometimes. And it is also directly linked to the issue of what to do when we have to face truth (and we don’t want to hear it).

We all face problems, some large and some smaller. And at the end it boils down to our attitude with regard to these problems. Depending on our attitude they can destroy our lives and make us miserable; or build on our problems to find opportunities to transform our lives.

Next time we face a nagging problem, let’s ask ourselves whether it is not our attitude that is the problem.

How to Communicate on the Truth When People Don’t Want to Hear It

I love this quote: “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” – somehow apparently wrongly attributed to James A. Garfield (former president of the US). Yet I find it ever to true in particular because part of my job as consultant is sometime to tell the truth everybody sees in the organization but no-one dares tell top management.

One issue with telling the truth is that it needs to be done the right way: it needs to be done in a way that avoids outright rejection. If rejection happens, then it was no use.

In these tough situations, there are several ways to avoid rejection, which are best combined:

establish a trust relationship with the person you need to tell the truth (the longer relationship the better; good references also help),
tell the truth in a manner that passes the message while still being (borderline) acceptable by the recipient; the best is to interact at that occasion to calibrate the message,
exploit time to make the revelation gradually accepted, through repetition and letting time and nights do their work in the subconscious.

I am convinced that Truth will hurt on the short term, still it is a much better remedy on the longer term. Tell it, and tell it the right way.

How to Overcome Your Limits

Imagination is the real limit of what you can or what you can become. And we are all somehow locked into the limits of our imagination.

Hence one way to overcome our limits is to give free flow to our imagination.

It is an interesting approach because it does not call for action or overcoming our fears. It just suggests as a first step to dream ourselves into what we want to be, beyond the limits we impose to our imagination right now.

Do you put any limits to your imagination? What if you would remove them and dream about what you really want to be? Imagine… and make it happen!

Why Systemic Understanding is Required for Deciding on Changes

It is amazing how most people think and act to optimize their little corner without taking into account the entire system they are in.

In my consulting practice I am involved in a number of process changes in organization. The more these organizations have integrated systems and processes, the more delicate any changes are because of the consequences across many disciplines. Still, a lot of people are just trying to optimize their small segment of work, generally trying to remove some stuff they are doing not for their own sake, but for the sake of the organization. It is not the solution!

This is particularly visible in large projects, which generally involve Engineering, Procurement and Construction. These different areas are deeply inter-related, and most people don’t understand that. Changes in one area can have significant consequences in other areas. It takes experienced people that have a systemic understanding to accept or refuse those changes. We can’t let people try to optimize locally. Optimization needs to be global, systemic.

The complexity of our lives increases. We don’t always understand the indirect consequences of our actions. Let’s try to systematically take a systemic view before changing things.

How Room Temperature Can Change Dramatically Meeting Outcomes

Marshall Goldsmith describes an astonishing experience in his new book ‘Triggers‘: “Many years ago I was speaking at an off-site gathering of partners from a consulting firm. Although my previous work with this firm had gone well, this time something wasn’t working. No give-and-take, no lively laughter, just a group of very smart people sitting on their hands. I finally realized that the room was too hot. Amazingly, by merely turning down the temperature in the room, the session got back on track”

I think Marshall makes an excellent observation and it’s a key learning point for me in my facilitation activities for the future! Marshall Goldmith has now decided that room temperature was a key parameter to set: “Like a rock star demanding red M& Ms in the dressing room, I’m now a bit of a diva about insisting on a cool environment for my presentations.”

Up to now, while I knew that it is important to care about the comfort of the participants, I had not identified how temperature plays such an important role. Maybe we should also review that parameter in our offices and where we do important presentations!

Why We Need to Enroll our Environment in any Change Intent

Marshall Goldsmith, well-known coach, writes in his last book ‘Triggers: Sparking positive change and making it last‘: “Our behavior is shaped, both positively and negatively, by our environment— and a keen appreciation of our environment can dramatically lift not only our motivation, ability, and understanding of the change process, but also our confidence that we can actually do it”

The core theme is that it is quite difficult, even impossible, to change anything without taking into account our environment, and in particular our social environment. It will require to inform them that we intend to change; and even to draw the people around us to participate actively to our change. That is in particular the case when they are affected and easier if they support the change.

Because without changing our environment, most of our change efforts are doomed. Everyone must recognize that you intend to change, and that you are changing.

If you intend to introduce a substantial behavioral change in your life, make sure to involve the people around you, up to having them play specific roles!

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