ARTISTIC MANAGEMENT

Jean Piaget, who has done phenomenal work in the stages of the cognitive development of a child emphasized that every child learns best by observing the effects of his own actions. When a child performs a certain action, it notices the change in properties of the objects around him, which helps him develop new knowledge and new insights. Once a child has constructed these new kinds of knowledge, he or she can start using them to more complex objects and carry out still more complex actions.

As an example, Piaget says that if a child observes water being poured from a wide-based beaker to a very thin glass jar, looking at the high level of water in the thin jar, the child may conclude that the thin jar is bigger than the wide-based beaker. In fact, if an attempt is made to pour back the water from the thin jar to the beaker, the child may feel scared that the water in the beaker may overflow...

As the child goes through various actions in life, there will be a time when the child will be able to figure out the truth about the sizes of the two vessels.

However, if you go ahead and describe the child complete details about how the wide-based beaker is larger but because of its great width, the water-level there looks smaller—it will create a "gap" in the cognitive development of the child.

Really?

Suppose this is true. Imagine, what our education system has done to us, and what we might be doing to those people who we are supposed to coach or mentor or manage...

Psychologists have called this the "expression feedback loop". Any knowledge is most useful when it is the result of one's own expression.

There is absolutely no "knowledge" gained if information is gorged into one's head, as if pouring liquid into one's brain through a funnel.

It creates a much bigger box of worms than you can imagine—this need for expression.

Look at the way we conduct meetings. We emphasize good listening skills in meetings and we advocate and urge all our team-members to listen, and listen carefully.

On the other hand, cognitive psychologists have figured out that in meetings, the most powerful feeling that over-rides all others, is the "need to express". Do you remember those occasions when you had something to express in a meeting but had to walk out without having given an opportunity to voice it?

There are much more significant impacts of this "expression feedback loop" which the conventional wisdom about management ignores totally, whose consequences are borne by everybody involved.

How can we use the power of "expression feedback loop" to create better teams and generate better efficiency and productivity?

The onus lies on you—the manager. You can utilize this power easily through the power of "right questions".

If your team-members are passive recipients of information, strategy, best-practices, and everything else, you have a set of powerful bombs which have been totally defused.

If you know how to generate powerful expression feedback loops in your team-members and are able to manage them efficiently with "right questions", you will have a powerful nuclear weapon in your hand that you can tame. You can unleash the creative potential of all your employees and harness these creative energies in the right direction.

The output of these two types of teams just cannot be compared.

It takes an instant to cause this transformation.

Would you like to have a bomb that is totally sterile and at best, can only be used as a stone?

OR, would you want to have a bomb, which, if triggered, generates unlimited amounts of energy?

Isn't this Plan Stupid??

In the Korean-American war, the Koreans had taken a number of Americans as prisoners of war. When these POWs were released, it was found to the shock of the rest of the world that they appeared on a number of international channels shouting pro-communism and anti-American slogans. The world was quick to conclude that these POWs had gone through lots of torture after which they had accepted pro-communist ideologies.

The truth was far from this. These POWs had not gone through any atrocities or torture with respect to their beliefs about communism. This entire process was something that was literally translated in English as "wash brain" that formed the origin of the word "brainwash".

What the Koreans used to do was to ask the Americans to explain whatever positives (however so small) they perceived about communism, and whatever negatives (however so small) they perceived about America.

These sessions started off with very minor points in both the categories. However, as these American soldiers expressed more positives about communism and negatives about America, they started coming up with bigger and stronger points in each of these categories, till a point was reached when they were genuinely in love with communism and hated America.

Imagine, what would have been the outcome if the Koreans conducted All-Hands Meet for these American soldiers to "educate" them on the benefits of communism and the evils of America? Or, punished them till they accepted it?

The next time you have this temptation to "educate" or "inform" or "convince" or "persuade" your employees, remember this story and ask yourself— "Isn’t this plain stupid?"

"Achieve success in any area of life by identifying the optimum strategies and repeating them until they become habits."