Brain Bugs (Non-Fiction 235pg)

Brain Bugs
 -- By Dean Buonomano
(Score - 8/10)

This book looks at how our neurological wiring has bugs, which leads up to biases, wrong decisions and marketers exploiting us to their advantage. Very objective and the author has reduced complex scientific research to an every-day level.

Here are a couple of examples:
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Read the following list of words:

candy, tooth, sour, sugar, good taste, nice, soda, chocolate, heart, cake honey, eat, pie

Now read them again and take a few moments to try to memorize them.

Which of the following words was on the list: tofu, sweet, syrup, pterodactyl?

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Answer the first two questions below out loud, and then blurt out the first thing that pops into your mind in response to sentence 3:
1. What continent is Kenya in?
     2. What are the two opposing colours in the game of chess?
             3. Name any animal.

Roughly 20 percent of people answer “zebra” to sentence 3, and about 50 percent respond with an animal from Africa. But, when asked to name an animal out of the blue, less than 1 percent will answer “zebra”.

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The Power of Habit (Non-Fiction 285pg)

The Power of Habit

 -- By Charles Duhigg
(Score - 8.5/10)

This book looks at the neurological aspect of habit formation, and how habit patterns can be replaced at this deepest level. Some relevant text from the book:

Toward the centre of the skull is a golf ball sized lump of tissue that is similar to what you might find inside the head of a fish, reptile or mammal. This is the basal ganglia, an oval of cells that is central to recalling patterns and acting on them. When doing something new for the first time, the basal ganglia explodes with a flurry of activity, analysing each sight and sound in an effort to find patterns. The brain has to work at full power to make sense of all the new information. But after a few hours/days/weeks (depending on the complexity) of the same routine, the parts of the brain related to smell, or sight, or decision making or memory go quiet. It is as-if the whole routine is internalized. This is, in effect, the basal ganglia taking over and putting us in a "pilot" mode, which is effectively, the base of formation of habits. The process in which the brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine is known as "chunking". There are dozens - if not hundreds - of behavioural chunks that we rely on every day. Some are simple - you automatically put toothpaste on your toothbrush before sticking it in your mouth. Some, such as getting dressed or making the kids' lunch, are a little more complex. Others, such as the act of backing the car out of the driveway, are remarkably complex.

Thus, habits emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often. But conserving mental effort is tricky, because if our brains power down at the wrong moment, we might fail to notice something important. So our basal ganglia devised a clever system to determine when to let habits take over. It's something that happens whenever a chunk of behaviour starts or end. This process with our brains is a three-step loop. First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into the automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering in future. At the end of the activity, when the reward appears, the brain shakes itself awake and makes sure everything unfolded as expected.

But this is not enough. For the routine to become a habit, there also has to be a craving for simulation.

Change in organizational habits is easier when there is a crisis. In fact, many leaders induce a sense of crisis or prolong a crisis to be able to drive changes in behaviours that they desire.

To be able to change habits, the key steps are:
1. Identify the routine - What are the components of your cue-routine-reward cycle?
2. Experiment with Rewards - Rewards are powerful, because they satisfy cravings. But we are often not conscious of the cravings that drive our behaviours. So if we go to drink coffee more times than we desire, is this because we desire caffeine or desire fresh air, or desire the social company and some chit-chat? You can test four or five different rewards, such as taking a walk in the part, or stopping by a co-worker's desk to speak. After each of these activities, jot down on a piece of paper the first three things that come to mind when you get back to your desk. They can be emotions, random thoughts, reflection on how you're feeling, or just the first three words that pop into our head. Then, set an alarm for fifteen minutes. When it goes off, ask yourself: Do you still feel the urge for that cup of coffee?
The reason why it is important to write down three things - even if they are meaningless words - is twofold. First, it forces a momentary awareness of what you are thinking or feeling. And later, it allows you to recall and analyse your thought patterns. And why the fifteen minute alarm? Because the point of these tests is to determine the reward you're craving. If, fifteen minutes after stopping to talk to a colleague, you still feel the urge to drink coffee, then your habit isn't motivated by the craving to seek social company. On the other hand, if you find it easy to work after fifteen minutes have passed, then that means that you've identified the reward - temporary distractions and socialization - that your habit sought to satisfy. By experimenting with different rewards, you can isolate what you are actually craving, which is essential in redesigning the habit. Once you've figured out the routine and the reward, what remains is identifying the cue.
3. Isolate the cue: Experiments have shown that almost all habitual cues fit in one of five categories:
   > Location
   > Time
   > Emotional state
   > Other people (who else is around you)
   > Immediately preceding action
So if you write down these five things the moment the urge of drinking coffee hits you, you will be able to figure out the cue that kicks in the habit.
4. Have a plan: Once you have figured out your habit loop, you can begin to shift the behaviour  You can change to a better routine by planning for the cue and choosing a behaviour that delivers the reward you are craving. What you need is a plan. To re-engineer the habit, we need to be making different choices. And study after study has shown that the easiest way to do this is to have a plan.

The Story of Stuff (Non-Fiction 352pg)

The Story of Stuff

 -- By Annie Leonard
(Score - 8.5/10)

The below excerpt (appearing on page 50 and 51) pretty much captures the essence of the message of this book:
"In fact, all of us on the planet collectively are consuming more resources than the planet produces each year;  we're consuming about 1.4 planets' worth of bio-capacity resources annually ... ... ... Now the extra is running out. ... ... ... If all countries used resources at the rate that the United States does, we would need about 5 planets to sustain us. That's clearly a problem, since we have only one ... ... ... to reduce overall resource use, sustain ecological and community health, and ensure that the resources used are shared equitably. In order to achieve these goals, One Planet Living promotes a vastly reduced materials economy alongside new cultural norms that are proportionate to the resources we have."

The book focuses on each stop of the "Stuff" journey, i.e. Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption and Disposal, with issues at each stage of the journey, and a way forward for sustainable living. The biggest leverage is available at the Production stage, because it is this stage that drives what gets extracted and what gets distributed. The plethora of choices that we see on the shelves of the Supermarket are in fact no choices at all. For example, you can only choose from the set of brands that are available on the shelves, but you cannot, for example, choose a T-shirt that guarantees that everything from the cotton growth to production of t-shirt has been done in a way that is just to the community involved at each stage. Those kind of choices are simply not available at this point.

The book also talks about how toxic the environment in which we live is. Everything from sleep mattresses that are treated with flame retardants (i.e. dipped in bromide - PBDE - PolyBrominated Diphenyl Ethers) to our playstations that have Coltan (a conflict metal from Congo) to PVC shower curtains that de-gas (creating the 'new car smell') adds to this toxicity. Some toxins are carcinogens, i.e., these cause cancer - and PVC is one of those.

Finally, it paints a picture of what a changed and sustainable world could look like in 2030 - which includes composting culture, working lesser hours, sharing in a community rather than buying new stuff and disposing and producer responsibility for disposing items at the end of their life-cycle.

The book lists resources such as cosmetics-database (that rates most FMCG brands by their level of toxicity) and Good Guide (which also has an app, and rates electronics, personal items, etc.), which attempts to break beyond the advertisement clutter and rates goods and products on environment, health and societal impact. 

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (Non-Fiction 286pg)

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

 -- By John Gray, Ph.D.
(Score - 8/10)

The central takeaway of this book is understanding and tolerance of the opposite sex, by laying out how men and women are from different planets, and therefore have different beliefs, different ways of talking, and even different meanings to words even when the words are the same. Agreed that the writing style is not the most lively, but the book is very practical and (from my attempts at trying to implement the concepts) works!

The key messages that I retained from this book are:
> Women need to be cherished.
> Men need to feel trusted/ needed.

I would recommend this as a must-read to gain a better appreciation of relationships with the opposite sex.

Outliers: The story of success (Non-Fiction 304pg)

Outliers - The story of success

 -- By Malcolm Gladwell
(Score - 8.5/10)

In his indomitable style, the author argues that success is rarely about the way it is portrayed in biographies or on TV - which is that a driven individual self-made his destiny and riches. Success is more about how opportunities came by, the social setting, cultural heritage and of course, the ability of the individual to be motivated to take opportunities that come his or her way.

The story starts at a small town of Roseto (Pennsylvania, USA), inhabited exclusively by immigrants who originally came from a single small town in Italy. Almost no one in this town below the age of 65 had heart disease. This was surprising in the USA of the day, and a physician called Wolf started to dig in further to investigate. After ruling out diet, genetics, location and other such factors, Wolf realized that reason Roseto was an Outlier was because of Roseto itself. This was a town where the Rosetans visited each other, stopping to chat in the streets, cooking for one another, going to the same church and following an egalitarian approach where neither the wealthy flaunted their wealth, nor the poor were allowed to fail. Thus, not having heart diseases was nothing to do with the individual - it was about the culture of the place.

The author then moves to Canadian hockey league and proves that most players in the highest elite league were born between Jan-Mar. He goes on to show how the cut-off date of 1-Jan automatically biased the system to select kids who were born between Jan-Mar, since they were physically stronger than the others who were born later. Once selected for the league, these players then got extra training and extra practice, which ensured that they got to be the best. (It takes around 10000 hours of training to master any activity). The result was that even if the system was supposed to be meritocratic, in reality it was biased simply because of the cut-off date. This is the flaw of using an arbitrary cut-off date to determine merit selection. For example, if a school promotes kids to advanced classes based on the ability displayed as of a cut-off date, then invariable kids whose birth-date is closest to the cut-off date stand to gain an unfair advantage.

The author takes up various example, including how nationality of pilots is a good predictor of the probability of plane crashes. He explains this with a concept of PDR - Power Distance Ratio. In individualistic societies such as those of the West, PDR is low - i.e. subordinates are not afraid to present their points of views directly. In high PDR societies of the east, deference to authority is in-built in the culture. The implication is what in emergency situations, where the co-pilot of flight engineer should be clearly telling the Captain of any errors committed, the eastern culture people choose to give indirect hints rather than taking control - resulting in a higher probability of crashes.

The book also talks about the difference in parent styles between poor kids and rich kids. Whereas for poor kids, parents leave the kid to indulge in free play and make up games as they wish, the richer parents show a more direct involvement in the activities of the kid and make the kid aware of his or her entitlements. The result is that the kid is not afraid to ask questions of an authority, and take responsibility for his or her actions.

Finally, the author debunks the myth that Summer vacations are good or even essential. He does this by quoting a study where the California Aptitude Test CAT was administered to students at the start of the school term, at the end and then immediately after they came from Summer vacations. While there was not much difference in the scores at the start and end of the term between poor and rich kids, the rich kids clearly outscored the poor kids in tests when they returned from Summer vacations.This clearly shows that the rich kids kept learning even during summer vacations, possibly because their parents involved themselves much more in the learning process. The author points out that US Schooling has 180 days of school in a year, while Japanese schooling has 230+ days, allowing them to cover more and cover it at a leisurely pace, so that no kid is left behind - thus sustaining the kids interest in the studies. 

Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy (Fiction 1485pg)

Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy
 – Fifty Shades of Grey (514 pg)
 – Fifty Shades Darker (393 pg)
 – Fifty Shades Freed (578 pg)
      - E L James
(Score: 7/10, 6/10, 8/10 for the three books in that order. I especially loved the last section of the last book, which went back to the beginning, and presented the story from another character's perspective. That finish was a flourish!)

Drive (Non-Fiction 272pg)

Drive - The surprising truth about what motivates us

 -- By Daniel H Pink
(Score 9/10)

When it comes to motivation, there is a gap between what science knows and what business does. out current business operating system - which is built around external, carrot-and-stick motivators - doesn't work and often does harm. 

Here are examples - or rather social experiments - which prove this. 

1) Rewards kill intrinsic motivation: Three researchers (in 1978) watched a classroom for several days and identified children who chose to spend their free-play time in drawing. They they fashioned an experiment to test the effect of rewarding an activity these children clearly enjoyed. They divided the children in 3 groups - the first was "expected rewards" group which was shown a "Good Player" certificate and asked if the child wanted to draw in order to receive the award. The second group was the unexpected-award group. Researchers asked these children simply if they wanted to draw. If they decided to, when the session ended, the researchers handed each child one of the "Good Player" certificates. The third group was a no-award group. Researchers asked these children if they wanted to draw, but neither promised them a certificate at the beginning, nor gave them one at the end. 

Two weeks later, back in the classroom, teachers set out paper and markers during the preschool's free play period while the researchers secretly observed the students. Children previously in the "unexpected-award" and "no-award" groups drew just as much, and with the same relish, as they had before the experiment. But children in the first group - the ones who'd expected and then received an award - showed much less interest and spent much less time drawing. Clearly, just in two weeks, those alluring prizes, so common in classrooms and cubicles, had turned play into work. 

2) Punishments kill intrinsic motivation: In 2000, researchers studied a group of childcare facilities in Haifa, Israel for 20 weeks. The centres opened at 7:30 AM and closed at 4:00 PM. Parents had to retrieve their children by closing time, or a teacher would have to stay late.

During the first four weeks of the experiment  the economists noted how many parents arrived late each week. Then, before the fifth week, with the permission of the day care centres, they posted a sign which effectively laid down a fine of around 3 USD per child every time a child is collected after 4:10 PM. 

The theory underlying the fine was straight forward - when negative consequences are imposed on a behaviour  they will produce a reduction of that particular response. 

But that's not what happened. After the introduction of fines, there was a steady INCREASE in the number of parents coming late. The rate finally settled, at a level that was higher and almost TWICE as large as the initial one. 

One reason most parents showed up on time is that they had a relationship with teachers - who, after all, were caring for their precious little ones - and wanted to treat them fairly. Parents had an intrinsic desire to be scrupulous about punctuality. But the threat of fine edged out this intrinsic drive. 

We need an upgrade from Motivation 2.0. And the science shows the way. This new approach has three essential elements - 

1) Autonomy - the desire to direct our own lives. 

2) Mastery - the urge to get better and better at something that matters; and

3) Purpose - the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

1) Autonomy: Our "default setting" is to be autonomous and self-directed. Unfortunately, circumstances - including outdated notions of "management" - often conspire to change that default setting and turn us from Type I to Type X. To encourage Type I behaviour, and high performance it enables, the first requirement is autonomy. People need autonomy over task (what they do), time (when they do it, team (who they do it with), and technique (how they do it). Companies that offer autonomy, sometimes in radical doses, are outperforming their competitors. 

2) Mastery: While Motivation 2.0 required compliance, Motivation 3.0 demands engagement. Only engagement can produce mastery - becoming better at something that matters. And the pursuit of mastery, an important but often dormant part of our third drive, has become essential to making one's way in the economy. Mastery begins with "flow" - optimal experiences when the challenges we face are exquisitely matched to our abilities. Smart workplaces therefore supplement day-to-day activities with "Goldilocks tasks" - not too hard and not too easy. But mastery also abides by three peculiar rules. Mastery is a mindset: It requires capacity to see your abilities as not as finite, but as infinitely improvable. Master is a pain: It demands effort, grit, and deliberate practice. And mastery is an asymptote: It's impossible to fully realize, which makes it simultaneously frustrating and alluring. 

3) Purpose: Humans, by their nature, seek purpose - a cause greater and more enduring than themselves. But traditional businesses have long considered purpose ornamental - a perfectly nice accessory, so long as it didn't get in the way of the important things. But that's changing - thanks in part to the rising tide of ageing baby boomers reckoning with their own mortality. In Motivation 3.0, purpose maximization is taking its place alongside profit maximization as an aspiration and a guiding principle. Within organizations, this new "purpose motive" is expressing itself in three ways: in goals that use profit to reach purpose; in words that emphasize more than self-interest; and in policies that allow people to pursue purpose on their own terms. This move to accompany profit maximization with purpose maximization has the potential to rejuvenate our businesses and remake our world.

So "if-then" rewards do not really work, except in rare cases where the task does not require right brain thinking is a specific short task towards reaching a specific (mostly physical) goal. Rather, replace the "if-then" awards with "now-that" awards at times. Now-that you have achieved going to the gym for one week, here is a little massage for you. Now-that you have finished your grade 2, here is a bike for you.

Type I for Parents and Educators: Nine Ideas for helping our kids:
Schools are re-doubling their efforts on routines, right answers, and standardization. And they're hauling out a wagon full of "if then" rewards - pizza for reading books, iPods for showing up to the class, cash for good test scores. We're bribing students into compliance instead of challenging them into engagement. Here are some ways to get away from this and move towards Motivation 3.0:

1) Is the homework today stealing time from kids in the service of a false sense of rigour? Apply a 3 part test before doling out any homework:
  > Do students have autonomy over how and when to do this work?
  > Does the assignment promote mastery by offering a novel, engaging task, as opposed to rote reformulation of something already covered in class?
 > Do students understand the purpose of the assignment? Can they see how doing this additional activity at home contributes to the larger enterprise in which the class is engaged?
Let's not waste time on meaningless activities. Let's turn homework into homelearning.

2) Have a FEDEX day: Like Atlassian does, set aside an entire day and ask kids to come up with a problem to solve or a project to tackle. In advance, help them collect the tools, information and supplies they need. Then let them have a go at it. The next morning, ask them to deliver - by reporting back to their class or family on their discoveries and experiences.

3) Try DIY report cards: Too many students walk through the school door with one thing on mind - to get better grades. And all too often, the best way to reach this goal is to get on with the program, avoid risks and serve the answers that the teacher wants. Good grades become a reward for compliance, but have little to do with actual learning. Meanwhile, students whose grades do not measure up often see themselves as failures and give up trying to learn. Type I learning is different. Report cards are not a potential prize, but a way to offer students useful feedback. So try experimenting with a DIY reportcard. At the beginning of the term, ask students to set their own goals and at the end, they can record in their own report cards what they have achieved, the areas in which they have succeeded and where did they fall short. Once students have completed their card, they can compare their's with the teacher's card - and any differences can serve as the starting point of conversation on how they can proceed on their path to mastery.

4) Give your kids an allowance and some chores, but do not combine them. By linking money to completion of chores, parents turn the allowance into an "if-then" reward. This sends the message that the chore in itself is not worth it, unless accompanied by the reward. Going down this route would mean that the quantum of rewards expected would keep increasing in order to get the same level of motivation to do the chore. The intrinsic message of doing a chore - which is that 'we are a family, and we need to help one another out' - is completely lost when adopting the rewards approach.

5) Offer praise, the right way:
> Praise Effort and Strategy, not Intelligence: Children who are praised for "being smart" often believe that every encounter is a test of whether they really are. So to avoid looking dumb, they resist new challenges and choose the easiest path. By contrast, kids who understand that effort and hard work lead to mastery and growth are more willing to take on new, difficult tasks.
> Make praise specific: Parents and teachers should give kids useful information about their performance. Instead of bathing them in generalities, tell them specifically what they have done which is noteworthy.
> Praise in private: Praise is a feedback, not an award ceremony. That is why it is best to do it one-on-one and in private.
> Offer praise only when there is good reason to do it: Don't kid a kid. He can see through fake praise in a nanosecond. Be sincere - or keep quiet. Overpraising becomes an "if-then" award, that makes earning praise, rather than moving to mastery, the objective.

6) Help kids see the big picture: In education systems that are tilted towards standardized tests and grades and if-then rewards, children often have no idea of why they're doing what they're doing. Turn that around by helping them glimpse the big-picture. Whatever they are studying, be sure they can answer this - Why am I learning this? How relevant is this to the world I live in now? Then get out of the classroom and apply what they are learning. If they are studying Spanish, take them to a Spanish Community Centre or Spanish film ... or even Spain. If they are learning Geometry, ask them to draw an extension to the house.

7) Check out these 5 Type I schools:
> Big Picture Learning - www.bigpicture.org
> Sudbury Valley School - www.sudval.org
> The Tinkering School - See "Five Dangerous Things you should let your Children do" which is Tulley's TED talk from 2007. www.tinkeringschool.com
> Puget Sound Community School - www.pscs.org
> Montessori Schools - www.montessori-ami.org, www.montessori.org, www.amshq.org, www.whywaldorfworks.org.

8) Take a class from unschoolers: The home school movement promotes autonomy by allowing youngsters to decide what they learn and how they learn it. They encourage mastery by allowing children to spend as as long as they'd like and to go as deep as they desire on the topics that interest them. Even if homeschooling is not for you, you can learn a thing or two from John Taylor Gatto's extraordinary book, Dumbing us Down. Take a look at Home Education Magazine and its website. www.homeedmag.com, www.unschooling.com and www.sandratodd.com/unschooling.