Learnt From Video Games

Does anyone learn anything by playing video games? I think there are some Level One/ Amateur Level answers, “It improves their motor skills.” Then there are some answers which are Advance Amateur/ Level Two responses, “It teaches them to stay focused on a task for a while.” Then there are what can be a  Level 3 response, “I noticed my kid getting interested in history and science because of the video games they play.” I came across this response which is from a parent – clearly one that will be categorized as Masters of the Universe response endorsing games, Read more

Make Better PowerPoints

The Wikipedia told me about the “Chinese water torture”. This was a torture that was supposed to drive its victim insane with the stress of water dripping on a part of the forehead for a very long time. It was characterized by the inconsistent pattern of water drips. Supposedly, the desire for the human brain to make a pattern of the timing between the drops will also eventually cause insanity to set in. That was then. Today that method is replaced by subjecting unsuspecting colleagues to horrible presentations that makes the water torture look almost benign. There are many reasons why presentations go haywire. You have probably suffered through many sessions where the speaker reads through what really looks like the pages of a book – except that all 5000 pages including the graphs and tables of research data – all put into one slide. The font is small enough to inspire people not delay any more the decision whether to wear specs or not. Worse still many presenters feel that the slide is like a teleprompter. They read it out line by line and imagine that the audience is either illiterate or so lazy that they will not read stuff even if it is in front of them.

Here is the big secret -

1. If you have sentences to share with your audience, use a Word document
2. If you have data and graphs to show – use Excel. Give them a printout that they can either read ahead of the meeting or can deliberate upon out after you have gone home
3. If have a conclusion to share or an idea you want them to remember use PowerPoint

The Slide Rule (pun intended): Have a single point on a slide – preferably with a visual. The visual should be about the story that goes with the slide. The slides are for the audience to remember as key take aways. Slides are not speaker notes. It is not about the slides anyway.

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In Praise of Irrationality

We have all grown up in a world that clearly values rationality and rational behavior. Being emotional was frowned upon. Whenever someone displays emotions in public view it makes news (Think of Maradona’s expressions as the team played and lost) and the world turns its cameras to look at the person who just “lost it”. When I studied Science in school, I was told by my teacher that if there was something that cannot be explained by Science it was not worth knowing and that it was obviously irrational. Such was the vehemence with which I was nudged towards being rational. As I grew to develop my own view of the world, I got fascinated by the limitations of rationality. Rational stuff had a logical sequence and clearly activated that part of my brain that I had difficulty accessing. You try this one and you got to do this real quick: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Write down your answer. If you said that the ball costs 10c, then you are part of the majority. That is the good news. The bad news is that the correct answer is 5c. Shane Frederick, Prof at MIT Sloan posed this question to more than 3,000 students at eight different universities. Fewer than half gave the correct answer. The trick is to not go by your instinct which gives the wrong answer, but to take a second more and reflect on it. Shane has developed a 3 question test – that question is one of the three – that can be almost as accurate in predicting characteristics that other tests like the SAT, ACT, or the Wonderlic Personnel Test. He also found that those who do well on the cognitive reflection test tend to be more patient in decisions between smaller sooner rewards and larger later rewards.  Before you pat yourself on the back (your own or anybody else’s for that matter) remember, they are also more willing to gamble in financial domains. Read more

The Value of Role Models

What do you want to be when you grow up? The answer is very often influenced by the kind of person who you view as a role model. Role models inspire. Role models resonate with what we want to be. A role model has to walk the talk. Authority figures are inevitably burdened with the task of being exemplary in their conduct at all times. Parents of very young children realize that the children tend to emulate their behavior whether or not it is appropriate or even safe. Many parents have walked in to discover their three year old trying to apply lipstick like Mummy or shave like Daddy – sometimes with disastrous results.

We learn our values from the role models around. There probably aren’t too many parents who tell their children to be dishonest or to take the crooked path. Yet, enough youngsters have learnt that their parents do not follow the advice they dish out. While the parent tells the kid to tell the truth, they find the parent lying (“Tell him Daddy is not home.”). BBC quotes research to say seeing violence perpetuated between parents was found the be the greatest risk factor for being the victim of a violent partner as an adult. Both men and women who witnessed domestic violence were likely to grow up to abuse their partners. Read more

Being a Trusted Advisor

Anyone who works for a “staff function” or a “support function” will tell you that the nature of this function is advisory. The people belonging to this function investigate, research, and give advice to their line managers or clients. The value of the function really then lies in becoming a trusted advisor to the business. Being a trusted advisor simply means that the “clients” value the deep subject matter expertise that the specialist brings to the table. All advisory professions have to earn the trust of the client without which they are not relevant. That view is as true for a Human Resources professional as it is for a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant … the list goes on.  The feeling of professional self worth of such service providers is very directly linked to how valuable they and their advise is, to the others. The more they are consulted the more valued they feel. A doctor who sees a crowded waiting room outside her clinic feels good about how valuable her service is to others.  So what makes a person a trusted advisor? What makes us trust someone? Read more

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