“We are what we repeatly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”;
── ARISTOTLE;
The little book of Talent :
52 tips for improving your skills;
DANIEL COYLE, 2012, author of the talent code.
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John Hargrave, Mind hacking : how to change your mind for good in 21 days, 2016
p.149
Repetition is key. Also, repetition is key.
One of the best parts about living in Boston, besides the wealth of technology talent, is sledding in the winter, It's a thrill seeker's dream, because you can sled as long as you want, as often as you want, and, unlike roller coasters or hallucinogens, it's totally free.
I live near Wellesley College, the renowed all-women's college that has produced notable alumni like Nora Ephron and Hillary Clinton. Wellesley has a sledding hill that is just phenomenally dangerous. It has (what feels like) an 85-degree incline, where you attain (what feels like) speeds of up to 75 miles per hour. On one side of the hill, a fifteen-foot oak branch spreads out across the snow, like a giant, deadly limbo stick. If you don't press your body flat into the sled, you will be decapitated by the tree. It's insane that they allow sledding on the hill at all, but even more insane is that the women of Wellesley college sled down the hill on plastic trays from the dining hall. (It's funnier if you picture Hillary Clinton on a tray.)
As any sledding enthusiast knows, if you get to the hill after a fresh snow, it's just clean powder. Then, as people sled down the hill, it creates grooves, or tracks, in the snow. After a few days the Wellesley students have built snow ramps and moguls at the bottom, so that the sledding down one of these tracks will launch you into orbit.
A few days after a snow, you'll find one set of snow tracks that take you under the Oak tree of death, and another set that will shoot you off the Ramps into hyperspace. Even if you start your sled on another area of the hill, you end up locking into one of those two tracks.
Our minds are like that hill. The constant repetition of our negative loops cuts deep mental grooves, and it's natural for our minds to “lock into” those grooves, even when the negative loops are self-destructive.
p.150
The good news is, through repetition, you can cut new groove. When I take my kids sledding at the hill, we often have to cut a new track, packing down the snow where we want it to go, when physically slowing and redirecting ourselves to the new tracks. The sled “wants” to lock into the existing groove, but by patiently working the new path we can eventually get the sled to lock into the new one instead.
( Mind hacking : how to change your mind for good in 21 days / Sir John Hargrave., 1. thought and thinking., 2. change (psychology)., BF441.H313 2016
158.1--dc23, 2016, )
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Allan J. McDonald with James R. Hansen, Truth, lies, and o-rings, 2009 [ ]
p.573
James R. Hansen
A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
--Old English Proverb
What he came to fathom about the subject conformed well to what the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle taught over 2,300 years ago: Human beings are what we repeatedly do.
(McDonald, Allan J., Truth, lies, and o-rings : inside the space shuttle challenger disaster / Allan J. McDonald with James R. Hansen., 1. challenger (spacecraft)--accidents., 2. whistle blowing--united states., 3. space shuttles--accidents--invesetigation., 4. united states. national aeronautics and space administration., 5. united states--politics and government., 2009, )
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Robert Greene, Mastery, 2012
p.297
he already saw boxing from a perspective that was much wider and deeper than that of other trainers. And so when he felt that there was an even higher level to aim for, this intuition was based on the depth of all those years of practical experience. Inspired by this feeling, he was able to analyze his own work up to that point and see its limitations.
─
p.297
Roach knew from his own career that so much of boxing is mental. A fighter who enters the ring with a clear sense of purpose and strategy, and with the confidence that comes from complete preparation, has a much better chance of prevailing.
It was one thing to imagine giving his fighters such an advantage, but it was quite another to bring it to pass. Before a fight there are so many distractions, and during a match it is so easy to simply react emotionally to the punches and lose any sense of strategy. To overcome these problems, he developed a two-pronged approach ── he crafted a comprehensive and fluid strategy based on his perception of the opponent's habits, and he imprinted this strategy into the nervous system of his fighters through hours of mitt work. On this level, his training did not consist of individual elements that he worked on with his boxers, but of an integrated, seemless form of preparation that closely simulated the experience of fight, repeated over and over again. It took many years of a hit-and-miss process to create this high-level training, but when it all came together
(Mastery / Robert Greene., 1. successful people., 2. success., 3. self-actualization (psychology), includes bibliographical references, BF637.S8G695 2012, 158─dc23, 2012027195, )
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“Conditioned reflexes are phenomena of common and widespread
occurrence: their establishment is an integral function in
everyday life. We recognize them ourselves and in other
people under such names as ‘education’, ‘habits’, and
‘training’; and all of these are really nothing more than the
results of an establishment of new nervous connections
during the post-natal existence of the organism.”;
── Ivan Pavlov, Conditioned Reflexes:
An Investigation of the Physiological Activity
of the Cerebral Cortex, 1927,
translated from the Russia,
St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy;
Tom Butler-Bowden, 50 psychology classics, 2007,
p.210
Nicholas Carr., "The shallows : what the Internet is doing to our brains", © 2011, 2010
[p.29]
"Neurons seem to 'want' to receive input," explains Nancy Kanwisher of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research: "When their usual input disappears, they start responding to the next best thing." 23
(Carr, Nicholas G.; 'The shallows', © 2011, 2010, [612.80285-dc22], published by Norton, )
("The shallows : what the Internet is doing to our brains", Nicholas Carr., 1. Neuropsychology, 2. Internet-Physiological effect., 3. Internet-Psychological aspects., © 2011, 2010, [612.80285-dc22], pp.27-28, pp.28-29, p.29)
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Tom Butler-Bowden, 50 psychology classics, 2007 [ ]
1927
Conditioned Reflexes
Ivan Pavlov
pp.210-215
p.211
Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex, translated from the Russia, is a collection of lectures first given by Pavlov at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg in 1924. In mind-numbing detail, it summarizes the 25 years of research carried out by his team that ultimately led to a Nobel Prize.
p.211
He paid tribute to philosopher René Descartes, who three centuries earlier had described animals as machines who reacted predictably according to stimuli in their environment in order to achieve a certain equilibrium with it.
p.211
There was a psychological element to the dogs' saliva reflex; that is, they would begin to salivate simply when they thought they were about to get food.
p.212
He showed that the cerebral cortex, the most advanced part of the brain, was very malleable, as were the nervous pathways linking ot it. So-called instincts could be learnt--and unlearnt, since he was also able to demonstrate that reflexes could also be inhibited or extinguished by associating food with something the dog didn't like.
p.212
Yet Pavlov also noted limits to the creation of conditioned reflexes. They either wore off over time, or the dogs sometimes did not bother to respond and just fell asleep. He concluded that the cerebral cortex cannot be overworked or changed too much. It seemed that a dog's survival and proper functioning required it to retain a certain amount of stability in its brain wiring.
p.213
p.213
We know that the best way to learn something is to do it in stages, ... .
p.213
☯ The way human beings are trained, disciplined, and enculturated is
not that different to how dogs are taught to do things. We know that
the best way to learn something is to do it in stages, in the same
way that the dogs' conditioned reflexes were effected in steps. And
as he found with dogs, human have to unlearn things as well as
learning them.
pp.213-214
☯ Pavlov had a special soundproofed building created for his
experiments because he found that external stimuli affected
the ability to condition reflexes. In the same way, most of
us cannot study a book if a movie is showing at the same time;
and we find it hard to “get back into things” after a holiday
or some break from routine. As with the dogs, neuroses and
psychoses occur as the result of extreme stimulation that
cannot be properly incorporated into existing thinking and
reactions.
p.214
☯ The reactions of the dogs could not be predicted. Pavlov recalled
when one of Petrograd's famous floods swept through the experimental
quarters, some dog grew excited, others frightened, some withdrew.
In the same way, he noted, we can never predict how a person will
react emotionally to, for instance, a strong insult or the loss of
a loved one. These reactions seemed to mirror the two common
psychological reactions to shock recognized in both dogs and
humans──neurasthenia (fatigue, withdrawing, immobilization) and
hysteria (neurotic exictation).
p.214
..., Pavlov's implication was that evolution has ensured that we cannot not react to a major event──we must take account of it some way. To eventually return to a state of stability, we have to incorporate what we have experienced. To eventually return to a state of stability, we have to incorporate [or not incorporate by ignoring and self-deception] what we have experienced.
p.214
These reactions seemed to mirror the two common psychological reactions to shock recognized in both dogs and humans--neurasthenia (fatigue, withdrawing, immobilization) and hysteria (neurotic excitation).
p.214
..., Pavlov's implication was that evolution has ensured that we cannot not react to a major event--we must take account of it some way.
p.214
The implication for humans? Although we live for the most part through habit or enculturation, we are in a position to change our behavior patterns. We are as susceptible to conditioning as any animal, yet at the same time we also have the ability to break our own patterns if they ultimately prove not to be in our interests. Via feedback from our environment we learn what are effective responses to life and what are not.
p.215
[Pavlov's] focus on measurable physiological reaction alone was almost the opposite approach of the Freudian immersion in “inner drives and wishes”, yet that focus enabled psychology to come to rest on harder scientific ground.
p.215
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born in 1849 in Ryazan in central Russia, the oldest of 11 children, and his father was the village priest.
p.215
His doctorate concerned the centrifugal nerves of the heart.
p.215
In 1890 Pavlov set up the physiology department of the Institute of Experimental Sciences in St. Petersburg, where he did most of his work on digestion and conditioned reflexes.
(50 psychology classics, Tom Butler-Bowden, 2007, pp.210-215 )
--
NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C., section 107, some material is provided without permission from the copyright owner, only for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of federal copyright laws. These materials may not be distributed further, except for "fair use," without permission of the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
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─ once established, processes are meant NOT to change
Clayton M. Christensen, Innovator's dilemma, 1997, 2000 [ ]
p.188
One of the dilemmas of management is that, by their very nature, processes are established so that employees perform recurrent tasks in a consistent way, time after time. To ensure consistency, they are meant NOT to change — or if they must change, to change through tightly controlled procedures. THIS MEANS THAT THE VERY MECHANISMS THROUGH WHICH ORGANIZATIONS CREATE VALUE ARE INTRINSICALLY INIMICAL TO CHANGE.
(Innovator's dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen, copyright © 1997, 2000, 658.4 Christen, )
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Dave Oliver, Against the tide, 2014 [ ]
p.74
Of course, the people who appreciate the need to follow process may not be the same individuals who embrace innovation. A successful organization needs people with both personality types to coexist and excel. The critical management question is, How in the world should talent be parsed to accomplish both goals?
We have discussed how the nuclear-submarine forces approached this problem. They determined what was routine, established a process to control that action, assigned the routine processes to the junior personnel, and tasked senior managers (expected to be more capable) with innovation. But what happened when a bad process was inadvertently installed and accepted?
p.7
A example of how pernicious this problem can be is the story of the repeating rifles, another disruptive military technology. The first of these weapons (Spencer's and Henry's) grew out of the technological marriage of precision manufacturing techniques and new copper cartridges.3 Both rifles were introduced into the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Unlike previous muzzle-loading guns, the new rifle enables the soliders to shoot multiple times before pausing to reload. Repeating rifles thus generated a much greater rate of fire than anything heretofore known in history. These transformative weapons were preferentially used by Union forces after 1863, as well as in Europe during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.
As should have been obvious, against a force armed with repeating rifles it was nearly impossible to overrun a position between successive volleys (while soldiers were reloading). Repeating rifles thus altered an open-terrain charge from a tried-and-true tactic to an invitation to a massacre. Yet, fifty years later, when World War I began, the American Army was still conducting charges on horseback. The downside of culture is that the stronger it becomes the more difficult it is to internally recognize a need to change.
(Against the tide : Rickover's leadership principles and the rise of the nuclear Navy / Rear Admiral Dave Oliver, USN (Ret.)., 1. Rickover, Hyman George., 2. admirals--united states--biography., 3. united states. navy--officers--biography., 4. nuclear submarines--united states--history--20th century., 5. nuclear warships--united states--safety measures--history., 6. marine nuclear reactor plants--united states--safety measures--history., 7. united states. navy--management., 8. leadership--united states., 2014, )
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Clayton M. Christensen, Innovator's dilemma, 1997, 2000 [ ]
pp.197—200
creating capabilities to cope with change
If a manager determined that an employee was incapable of succeeding at a task, he or she would either find someone else to do the job or carefully train the employee to be able to succeed. Training often works, because individuals can become skilled at multiple tasks.
Despite beliefs spawned by popular change-management and reengineering programs, processes are not nearly as flexible or "train-able" as are resources — and values are even less so. The processes that make an organization good at outsourcing components cannot simultaneously make it good at developing and manufacturing components in-house. Values that focus an organization's priorities on high-margin products cannot simultaneously focus priorities on low-margin products. This is why focused organizations perform so much better than unfocused ones: their processes and values are matched carefully with the set of tasks that need to be done.
For these reasons, managers who determine that an organization's capabilities aren't suited for a new task, are faced with three options through which to create new capabilities. They can:
• Acquire a different organization whose processes and values are close match with the new task
• Try to change the processes and values of the current organization
• Separate out an independent organization and develop within it the new processes and values that are required to solve the problem
... [...] ...
(Innovator's dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen, copyright © 1997, 2000, 658.4 Christen, pp.197—200)
p.259
Fourth, the capabilities of most organizations are far more specialized and context-specific than most managers are inclined to believe. This is because capabilities are forged within value networks. Hence, organizations have capabilities to take certain new technologies into certain markets. They have disabilities in taking technology to market in other ways. Organizations have the capability to tolerate failure along some dimensions, and an incapacity to tolerate other types of failure. They have the capability to make money when gross margins are at one level, and an inability to make money when margins are at another. They may have the capability to manufacture profitably at particular ranges of volume and order size, and be unable to make money with different volumes and sizes of customers. Typically, their product development cycle times and the steepness of the ramp to production that they can negotiate are set in the context of their value network.
All these capabilities — of organizations and of individuals — are defined and refined by the types of problems tackled in the past, the nature of which has also been shaped by the characteristics of the value networks in which the organizations and individuals have historically competed. Very often, the new markets enabled by disruptive technologies require very different capabilities along each of these dimensions.
(Innovator's dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen, copyright © 1997, 2000, 658.4 Christen, p.259)
(Innovator's dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen, copyright © 1997, 2000, 658.4 Christen, )
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