Understanding Human Psychology

Technology was created to make life easier, solve problems and phones are meant to bring people closer. Think about when mobiles came in the market, it gave us the ability to connect with someone sitting miles away, hear their voice, today we even see their face and feel closer despite the distance. But somewhere along the way, the way we are exploiting this tool has changed. Today, we sit in the same room with our loved ones, each occupied with our own screens. We have hundreds of contacts but may struggle to find someone to talk to. Technology that was meant to connect us sometimes keeps us away from the people sitting right next to us. And with the rapid growth of AI and other technologies, we are also beginning to question how much of our work, our decisions and even our future we are willing to hand over to machines. I don't think technology itself is the problem. It is how we choose to create, use, and control it that matters. The same technology can educate, heal, connect an...

Once upon a time, a dog decided to teach three students how to cross a creek by jumping from one side to the other. The first student was a rabbit. The dog demonstrated the jump, and the rabbit followed effortlessly. The dog and the other students clapped. The second student was a little crocodile. He tried to jump, failed, and tried again. Eventually, he stepped into the water, swam across, and reached the other side. The students clapped, but the dog was disappointed. “I asked you to jump, not swim,” he said. The third student was a sparrow. She tried to jump, but couldn't. Instead, she spread her wings and flew across. Once again, the students clapped, but the dog shook his head. “I asked you to jump. Better luck next time!” Now, what went wrong here? The rabbit could jump. The crocodile could swim. The sparrow could fly. All three reached the other side, but the teacher was so focused on *how* they reached the goal that he failed to appreciate that they had reached it at all. H...

When we wear a perfume, we are very conscious of its fragrance at first. For the first few minutes, we notice it. We can smell it clearly. But as the day goes by, we stop noticing it consciously. We are still carrying the fragrance, but it becomes part of the background. I think skills are much like that. When we learn something new, we are very conscious of it. We practise it. We remind ourselves to use it. We may even consciously think, “I need to apply what I learned.” But with practice, the skill becomes natural. We stop thinking about it. We simply use it. That, to me, is when learning has really become a skill. Just like perfume, you may not consciously notice the fragrance anymore, but you are still carrying it with you. Maybe the real goal of learning isn't to keep remembering that we learned something. It is to reach a point where we don't have to think about it anymore. We simply become it.

Most conversations start off with "How are you?”..“I’m fine.” How many times have we had this conversation in our everyday? We say “I’m fine” so casually that sometimes it has almost become an automatic response. But when someone asks, “How are you?”, I think there are actually two questions hidden inside it. How are you physically? And how are you mentally? In today’s times, when there is so much stress in the environment in which we operate, I wonder if we should be checking the second one a little more often. How are you doing today? How are you feeling? What kind of mindset are you carrying into this conversation? How is your day looking? What do you want this day to bring to you? These questions may take a little longer to answer. Allow the person to ponder more. But maybe that is the point. In our work conversations, we often start with small talk. And small talk is not a bad thing. It is often the door that opens a conversation. But somewhere, we have started making it so r...

Are You Scanning the Boundaries of Your Work? I was reminded of something very simple the other day. Someone who works at my home was talking to me about something that came up, and she casually mentioned, "You know, if the house help doesn't come, there are now mobile apps and online services where you can call someone for even one or two household tasks, or for the whole day. There are different packages available." I stopped for a moment. She knew. She was aware of what was changing around her work. She knew what her alternatives and competition could look like. She knew that the way people get household help is changing and that there are new options available. And I thought — isn't that exactly what we mean by scanning the boundaries of our work? Whatever field we are in, there is a world around it that is constantly changing. New technology, new ways of working, new competitors, new expectations, new skills, new tools and sometimes completely new ways of doing t...