Abhijit's Sketchnotes No 14
... because we remember pictures, not text
This is the 13th Edition of my #MondayMailer - a weekly compilation of useful ideas turned into visuals. Get your own free copy by adding your email below.
Please feel free to use any of these sketchnotes for your own work. Just share the subscription link to my newsletter in turn.
Most tweetchats (Twitter conversations) are uninspiring. Not this one, that I want to share with you. You will read about the changes in our emotional states that are happening because of the lockdowns. And you will see the same strains echoing in what Twitter discovered by analysing billions of tweets from 2016-2019. There is a tribute to Sir Ken Robinson. But before that let me ask you …
1. Why don’t facts change our mind?
Stress and spicy food cause stomach ulcers, right? No they don’t. But enough people still blame ulcers on the wrong reasons. Robin Warren and Barry Marshall found in 1982 that the bacteria helicobacter pylori, causes stomach inflammations and ulcers. They shared the Nobel Prize in 2005 for their discovery.
Organization Psychologist Adam Grant says:
The MBTI is astrology for nerds. Say it with me again: personality types are a myth, traits are on a continuum, and the major dimensions include extrovert-introvert, agreeable-disagreeable, reactive-stable, open-traditional, conscientious-spontaneous.
Now to introduce you to #lrnchat on Twitter. Look for the hashtag #lrnchat on Twitter and discover why it tickled my curiosity. Here is what happened. At 6:00 am last Friday, I was reading stuff on Twitter and found this tweet chat, and I was hooked even though I was late to the party. According to my friend Kavi Arasu, the timings are 6.00-7.00 am IST every Friday (Mar-Nov). 5.00-6.00 am (Nov-Mar). Join Twitter on Friday and look for the hashtag #lrnchat
Why do we not change our mind even when faced with facts?
There is safety in numbers. That is just what happened when Pythagoras said that the earth was spherical
Many practitioners don’t read. Many proudly announce, ‘I am a practical person. The last book I read was in college.’
People who sell snake oil often rely on finding a large well-known organisation to sell their stuff to. Then tell someone gullible, ‘X organisation is using it’.
Check the scientific studies and evidence. Remember, spicy food and stress are not the causes of stomach ulcers. If facts don’t help us change our mind, what does? Leave a comment by clicking the comment button below
2. The First Career Transition - why it matters
Being a team leader very often means transitioning from being an individual contributor to a people manager’s role. That often comes with a salary bump and a career path that gets more attention everywhere. Doing well as an individual contributor has no bearing on how well the person does as a people manager.
I spoke about this in this podcast on Apple Podcasts <LISTEN TO THE PODCAST> or on Spotify <click here> Or you can Google “Unabashed podcast SHRM” and it will show up.
Being a people manager is the first taste of discretionary power one experiences very early in career. It is the first taste of responsibility for the success of others beyond one’s own self. It is the first opportunity to help and coach others to scale up and reach the desired goals. The leader’s role is to help the team achieve synergy not just remain the sum total of everyone’s results.
Read about the first big career transition and the 3 shifts every people manager must be trained to manage <Read this>
3. Three Emotional Priorities
Parents who have been home with their children have had to juggle work, restless children trying to do their classes on video and then the household chores. The result is a shift in the emotional imperatives that affect consumers’ choices. The three shifts are:
Guilt free “me time” to indulge myself
Being positive, optimistic and resilient.
Be myself. Be authentic. '“I don’t want to live up to others’ expectations.”
Bosses must shift their focus from productivity to mental well being of their employees. Set aside time to talk to everyone to understand what they are grappling with. That means building a sense of psychological safety where the other person is not afraid of being judged. Read about the 3 shifts here
What do I miss most about the lockdown? I crave to be with my friends and colleagues, do you?
What do these shifts mean for brands <read here>
4. Cultural Insights from Twitter
The emotional shifts that are showing up seem to be validated by the conversations happening on Twitter. From January 1, 2016, through December 31, 2019, billions of Tweets were analysed to uncover the most-used hashtags, then mapped to cluster themes of conversation. Some quick trends
Shift from body image to mental health and whole body wellness
Curiosity about matters of spirituality, nature & the cosmos
One planet view of the world. Sustainability, ethics and clean corporations.
Creativity is social currency. Line between personal passion and profession is blurred. Video-centric communities are on the rise
Virtual reality and augmented reality are changing industry, commerce, entertainment and creation.
My identity, my rules. There are new communities and expressions of fandom; gender equality and acceptance. Represent “me” in culture, appearance, identity and beliefs.
Read more <click here>
Sir Ken Robinson - a tribute
Sir Ken Robinson passed away on Aug 21, 2020. I first learned about his work through his TED talk - Do Schools Kill Creativity That talk has been watched 66 MILLION times - more than any talk ever. (I may have contributed to a million views myself!). The core idea he speaks about
Children are not afraid of being wrong until adults stigmatise mistakes and ‘educate people out of their creativity’
There is a hierarchy of subjects with Math on top. The most useful subjects for work in the industrialised world seems to be at the top (think Science and Math). Drama and dance are at the bottom. Math is important but so is dance, said Sir Ken Robinson.
Don’t let academic ability define ‘intelligence’.
Rest in Peace. We have a lot of work to do to rethink education. Which of his ideas resonated with your own experience? Tell us by leaving a comment
This newsletter is a labor of love. If you want to reach me, email me at abhijitbhaduri@live.com
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Dear Abhijit,
As always interesting sketch notes.
My Comments are as follows :
1) Why don’t facts change our mind? - Humans tend to learn more out of experience than by other methods. Even facts therefore needs to be experienced to be acknowledged and to be learnt.Experiences validate perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, self concept, communication and so on.
2) The First Career Transition - why it matters. It matters as people management skills hold greater importance in highlighting one's professional talent or expertise in a discipline. People tend to first like the person and then like his/her expertise or the skill. One has to be liked first and be agreeable to the Client/Customer where for example the congruence of Values or intent or purpose becomes a pre-requisite before engaging or paying for an expertise.This is how "Trust" gets generated first, before the partnership commences.
3) Do Schools Kill Creativity -
Creativity should lead to critical thinking, right questioning skills, creativity has to enhance affective domain (matters related to heart such as Ethics, morality, and values) and psychomotor (should enable easeness or seamlessness in using limbs, or enhance comfort and physical ease). Creativity cannot be just cognitive - matters only related to how mind works. Therefore Schools should impart holistic education. Few Schools teach creativity holistically. They teach / promote critical thinking and questioning skills for example. To illustrate with my personal learning - Once in my MBA Class at IRMA I solved a Production & Operations Management problem in a creative way and the answer was correct. My Professor gave me an F (utter fail grade) in that quiz. When enquired he replied correct answer doesn't fetch marks. Correct process and the correct thinking is what is being tested. He said "Your answer is right but method to arrive at the answer or the solution is wrong". I learnt from life experiences in the course next 25 years that Professor is right. MBAs are being paid for adopting right processes to arrive at decisions. and NOT for decisions being correct. I do not know if you disagree with me on this.