Positive Psychology by Alan Carr

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY - The Science of Happiness and Human Strengths by Alan Carr (2004), Routledge - Taylor & Francis Group (London & New York) p 388

My interest in happiness and well being drove me to understand the constituents of positive psychology (PP) in deep.  I met C R Snyder in 2004 and we discussed about his Hope Theory and Pathways. When I read his text on PP (coauthored with Shane Lopez and published by Sage), I got little more interested in PP and that introduced me to Alan Carr and his work and that is how I landed up reading this rich, simple, systematic and superb text.  For a student of psychology PP is an interesting area which has evolved in the times of work stress, work life balance, organizational pressures and competition and related developing issues which have assumed more importance in the wake of globalisation and focus on mobility. 

Though Snyder's text was an exhaustive and illustrative one, Carr's work is relatively brief concentrating on the development of concept of different constituents of PP. The development of psychology from a science of managing disability to clinical solutions has added a new vista as to deal with human strengths and concentrate on individual happiness and well being.  This is the basic premise of PP.  The book is divided in 9 chapters - Happiness, Flow, Hope and Optimism, Emotional Intelligence, Giftedness, creativity & wisdom, Positive traits and motives, Positive self, Positive relationships, and Positive change.  These are the constituents or basic elements of PP and Alan has elaborated each one of them brilliantly supported with relevant research citations and related literature. Research tools and instruments are discussed with their application and derived findings to strengthen the defense and develop a stronger concept.  

Researchers and authors like Edward Diener, David Watson, Martin Saligman, Charles Synder, Christopher Peterson, Michael Argyle, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Daniel Kahneman, David Myers, etc have contributed extensively in the development of different aspects of PP and their measurement. Their contributions have been cited wherever appropriate. 

Each chapter begins with learning objectives and ends with implications, controversies, summary, questions, further reading, measures for use and glossary. The writing of the text is very simple and easy to understand. Though this text was written around ten years before, it provides strong foundation for this emerging field of knowledge in the area of psychology.  Alan's contribution to the cause of expanding PP shall go a long way in its development and academic sustainability. For a beginner and entry level psychology student this shall immensely help.

F?@K Knows by Shailendra Singh

F?@K KNOWS by Shailendra Singh (2013), Rupa, p 234

Last month I was reading a business magazine and found this book reviewed.  First the title caught my attention and as I read the brief review. I got inclined to buy this title and read it. So that's how I got this book. I knew about Percept and its foray into advertising and people management. I admired this company and gave its example many times to my students in the class. But I did not know Shailendra Singh as a person.   

After having gone through this book, I can really admire the individual as well for his guts and grain to have penned down his experiences and the journey so wisely traveled. Many of the lessons are quite similar to my personal growth as more or less we belong to same generation, which has witnessed the growth (economic) of India and the upsurge of organisations resulting in huge shift in work behaviour of people involved in managing the resources of the organisation.

Jack Welch's Straight from the Gut taught four key lessons, It's nice to be small, however big you become, it's all about people, boundaryless organisations, efficiency over quality. I somehow learnt these lessons through this very unconventional and crude title F?@k Knows. Personally I have strong belief in what Shailendra mentions - Journey is more important than the destination. We need to focus on journey and enjoy every bit of it and rest assured you are going to go places, you are going to reach to a perfect destination. If one is destination driven, one misses on enjoying the journey. I have been sharing my views on happiness at many formal as well as informal fora and in that sequence this title adds some more value to my learning so I have something more to share with the defense of F?@k Knows. Interestingly this book seems to be the target of the the author and as he mentions at many places in the book, he has been wanting to write the book.  I wonder was it his ambition or he wanted to honestly motivate people through his life lessons.

I really liked two of his chapters which directly focus on having opposing view on Robin Sharma, as Shailendra suggests, one does not need to sell one's ferrari in order to lead a happy life (the monk who sold his ferrari) and I'd rather have them laugh with me while I'm alive, than cry for me when I die (who will cry when you die). The logic is convincing. It shows the originality in this title as one flips through chapters after chapters, though the author suggests that one should read one chapter at one time.  

The family wisdom that he conveys through his relationship with his father, brother, wife and mother makes the book quite grasping and honest. I am sure many of us also find ourselves somewhere in the book, though he keeps addressing the younger generation at many places in the book. The language is crude at times and gives a very different feel (may be that is what Shailendra is known for, so his original style), yet I think it makes sense as it is coming through the heart of the author and at that he scores points for being blunt and bizarre in some chapters.

It makes a good read and I assure, though it may not have a capacity to become a bestseller, it would not disappoint the reader. Time spent on reading this book is worth and it does teach many things in simple and practical way. Thanks Shailendra for having shared your journey.

>>>Some Lessons<<<

Make a 'to do' list

Enjoy every bit of life

Stop thinking, start doing

Give 100 percent

There is nothing which is right, or which is wrong

Being wealthy rather than being Rich

Being Healthy rather than being fit

Replace 'have to' with 'want to'

Smile increases your face value

Your body is your temple

==============

Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman

THINKING, FAST AND SLOW by Daniel Kahneman (2011), Allen Lane - an imprint of Penguin Books, p 499

Last week while my wife was shopping from a small departmental store at Shillong, she observed one of the vendor (from Hindustan Unilever) talking to the shopkeeper and insisting on keeping Ponds Talcum powder on the shelf, the shopkeeper responded by showing the old stock.  The shopkeeper was telling him the feedback of the customers - 'the customers these days want deo, not talcum powder'. His response was driven by the fact that there is a shift in the customer choice driven by the change in the time, expectations, competitor's response, etc etc.  

While she shared her experience with me, I was also thinking that with the emergence of new products the old ones are fading off. The choices which the customer is making in the market is also the effect of aggressive advertising and increase in the purchasing power.  It was sheer a coincidence that I was going through this book entitled 'Thinking Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman. This book was able to answer some such questions.  How the decisions are taken? Which is a better choice? Why do people think what they think? Why things/people are not as they look? There were many such questions which kept pondering over my head and I began to connect them with the contents of the book.

I heard and learnt about Daniel Kahneman only through the accolades that he received after getting the Nobel Prize in the area of economic sciences in 2002. It was precisely the year when I started teaching organizational behaviour though it had been a subject very close to my heart and I have been reading related literature. There was a time (some 25 years back) when I developed interest in Psychology during the period I was doing masters (commerce), I wish we had Psychology as a subject in our college.

Later while in teaching profession, I went through some papers of Kahneman and could always share the learning with students and colleagues whenever I got chance.  When I read the review of this book after its release, I acquired a copy and started reading it. I should not say just reading it, rather studying it, which included, lot of breaks in between as I wanted to read some of the cited works in the book, so honestly it took much more than an usual time which I take to complete reading a book. I think if I recollect, I might not have taken this much time of reading a book as I took for this title. The experience of going through this book made me so rich through innumerable downloads of related material, scanning through some of the experiments available on the web, buying some of the books, and going through cited work in depth in few cases.

As the title suggests, the whole book classifies the thinking process through two systems, System 1 (thinking fast), and System 2 (thinking slow). System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control, and System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations.  The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice and concentration (p 20-21).  As mentioned in the book System 1 and System 2 as terms were first used by Keith Stanovich and Richard West, who call it now Type 1 and Type 2. Kahneman uses the original version. With numerous experiments and illustrations he establishes the practicality of these two systems which invariably operate while we make choices, decisions, judgments and calculations. The use (and also the conflict) of these two systems by an individual in different circumstances portray mental conditioning and preferences. System 2 is primarily used to overcome the impulses of System 1, which is in charge of self control.

Many times we suffer from bias, using system 1 and falling prey to mis-judge the outcome. Many times the illusory sense dominates over the factual existence of the object as projected through Muller-Lyer illusion. The bat and ball puzzle (originally devised by Shane Frederick) is so apt that one makes judgment without using System 2 and over estimating the conformity through System 1. While I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's BLINK, it made lot of sense to believe on the gut feel, which is based on System 1, though the decision or judgment not always leading to the correct view.  As one keeps turning the pages of the book it becomes more and more convincing that one needs to take time in decision making and not necessarily that one has to go by the gut always, which increases the degree of risk one bears on making choices based on System 1.  

As known, Kahneman and Amos Tversky had questioned the belief that by nature human being are rational and in case of emotions as fear, anger, hatred, affection, people depart from rationality. This book discusses and defends their stand through applied psychological frameworks, findings of various experiments and works of many researchers. Divided in five parts comprising of 38 different chapters, with the ‘speaking of …’ statements at the end of each chapter, the book strongly narrates the causation factor of decisions, making choices out of different alternatives, the follies of statistics, risk policies, etc. 

I remember vividly about the media reports on Kahneman’s Nobel achievement which highlighted Irrationality of stock investors, however what he emphasizes is no rationality.  The argument of irrationality not being opposite of rationality is quite firm and convincing. This is where Dan Ariely's contribution becomes more relevant. Kahneman's acceptance of Dan's work is well placed in this context. The learning through the book is immense. At many instances where I was to use System 1, I chose System 2, which took little more time.  

Richard Layard, dedicated his book - Happiness, lessons from a new science, to Daniel Kahneman. Richard mentions in his book that it was Kahneman who opined that happiness can be measured. Kahneman developed a tool named as Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) based on remembering self and experiencing self which reports on the feelings of individuals. DRM is used by many researchers in different geographies to measure the satisfaction level which is used as a proxy of well-being.  

The book conveys vehemently the basic premise that it is easier to recognize other people's mistakes than our own (p 28), whether we think fast using system 1 or we think slow using system 2.  The book is strongly recommended for the students of contemporary psychology.

How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M Christensen, Allworth and Karen Dillon

HOW WILL YOU MEASURE YOUR LIFE? - finding fulfilment using lessons from some of the world's greatest businesses (2012) by CLAYTON M CHRISTENSEN, JAMES ALLWORTH & KAREN DILLON, HarperCollinsPublishers UK, p 221

We have an inherent instinct and desire to live longer, healthier and wealthier.  During the course of performing our duties we try to achieve our set goals and in cases where goals are not set, take up things and activities into our stride and perform our best in the interest of the stakeholders.  This is an ideal thinking and many a times we ignore this ideal expectation and pursue something which is not so desirable of us. This is what makes our life miserable and we regret later but at that time it is already too late.  Clayton M Christensen, along with James Allworth and Karen Dillon brings out this book entitled How Will You Measure Your Life to get us focused and to let us introspect whether we are on the right path. 

A personal experience sharing style of presenting this book through the real life examples of business organisations make this book engrossing, interesting and convincing. It is sheer a coincidence that I picked up this book just after reading Breakout Nations by Ruchir Sharma, who is a regular columnist with Wall Street Journal without really having any clue as to Clayton while in his early 20s wanted to become the editor of WSJ.  Though Clayton could not become the editor of WSJ, he chose his career otherwise.

The book is written in a very simple, easy to understand, and common self-help book style though it refers to some of the most cited researches like Michael Jensen's Agency/Incentive Theory, Herzberg's Hygiene theory, McCall's Right Stuff, Todd Risley & Pretty Hart’s contribution on Talking amongst Parents and children, etc.

The book is divided in three sections as Finding Happiness in Your Career, Finding Happiness in You, and Staying Out of Jail.  These three sections are basically titled out of his personal oath to the students while they leave the college.  Each section has chapters on different related fields.  Management theories have been explained briefly in a layman’s style and their application in organisations and then in personal lives are elaborated so convincingly that one starts thinking of those theories as the ones primarily meant for individuals and not organisations.  His personal recount of the events in his personal life makes the book more authentic and authoritative.  Clayton has been advisor and consultant for many firms and government agencies and he is primarily known for the concept of 'disruptive innovation'.  He has been quite successful in documenting his interactions with CEO's and others and through that reaching out to lot of life lessons.  The examples of Andy Grove of Intel, Steve Jobs of Apple, Sam Walton of Walmart, Nolan Archibald of Black & Decker, are well placed.  His experiences with the students and their queries further establishes the link between theory and practice and reiterates his conviction on seeing through his students fulfilling their life goals.  Though the book is authored by three of them, but as the first author, Clayton writes the book and narrates many incidents in the first person. Hence I too took this liberty of mentioning ‘him’ and not ‘they’.

The strategies adopted by Honda while making an entry into American market (big bike segment) to compete with HarleyDavidson through Triumph and then shifting to introduce SuperCub (small bike) is elaborated through the landscape of emergent and deliberate strategy which is often applicable and used in personal lives.  That’s where his philosophy of giving more importance to JOURNEY than DESTINATION becomes relevant and important.  In fact, I have always been sharing this with my students and friends.  Personally I too strongly feel that it is the journey which is more important than the destination.  At times during the course of walking on a path we tend to change or shift our destination and that keep happening all through life.  It is true for organizations as well.  I wish there is some hard core research in this direction to further validate this thinking.

The organizational examples of Walmart's location selection, Disney's failure in Paris (because of wrong assumptions and calculations), Sonosite's introduction of ultrasound machine (its excellent features, usability, marketing, selling and wrong provision of incentives), Motorola's sponsoring Iridium Satellite Network for inventing mobile phones, Sweden's IKEA furniture store and its unique approach, Dell’s outsourcing to ASUS (price of overdependence), ENRON’s debacle, Marginal Thinking at Netflix as against Blockbuster, are some of the real organizational stories which could be helpful in problem solving in personal lives as well. 

The emphasis on Resources, Processes and Priorities is well explained in the book and their interrelationship as practiced in the organizations is illustrated through examples.  The authors have quite successfully linked their applicability in the personal lives as to learning, knowledge, actions, choices, decision making etc.  I really liked him quoting an old saying 'find a job that you love and you will never work a day in your life'. So philosophical yet so practical.  The book emphasises on leading a good family life through inculcating good values in children so that they learn to respect work and develop a sense of compassion for others.  It also helps in building strong culture in the family which helps one to make choices and take decisions at work places.    

Just This Once is something which really got my attention as many times we get carried away with compromising on some of our personal principles just for some minor gains or under environmental pressures.  As mentioned, it really becomes the beginning point for a series of compromises.  Clayton warns the readers and tells that 100% of the time is easier than 98% of the time as he mentions one of his own example of getting pressure on playing on Sunday, the day he keeps aside for Sunday service (committed to God). Ultimately he takes a decision otherwise and does not compromise on taking just this once as told to him by his fellow players. Towards the end of the book in the epilogue, the authors discuss the importance of Purpose and its three important components – the person I want to become (likeness), becoming committed, and finding the right metric. The examples of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Dalai Lama are well cited here. I wished that the book had a reference section at the end and some suggested readings with it which could have guided the reader further.

As the hypothesis on the primacy of life satisfaction over job satisfaction and the other way is getting tested and retested, questioned and re-questioned, there seems to be no two opinions about one simple thinking and practice that job satisfaction and life satisfaction are interrelated.  At this time this book certainly makes a mark, though it does not directly talk of positive psychology, subjective well being, hedonic treadmill, etc, however the book leaves a strong imprint in the practical literature relating life satisfaction with job satisfaction.  Clayton successfully sails through the journey from disruptive innovation, to the innovator's dilemma, to prescribing how to measure life, especially when he cannot cogently verbalise his concerns and contributions due to his health.  I wish him great health ahead and expect another bestseller from him or/and his team on the modern ways of measuring life.  Isn't it important?