A thinkers blog

Thick Face, Black Heart

One basic premise that runs through most of the self-help books is the Western philosophy of 'law of attraction'. I am not against this philosophy but it seems incomplete to me as I believe that certain principles need to be followed for law of attraction to work and there is a limit to the power of thought beyond which one has to surrender. I do not fully believe in the Eastern philosophy either, which places excessive importance on pre-determined destiny. I believe that one can find some answers in the Eastern philosophy and some in the Western philosophy. A blended philosophy might be a better idea and that is what the author Chin-Ning Chu has tried to achieve in her book Think Face, Black Heart. She has not over emphasized the role of destiny or power of thought, but placed an equal importance to both.

Beginning of the book is quite provocative as author suggest 'winning at all costs' and harboring of 'negative thoughts'. But once I was through first three or four chapters the bigger picture started to become clearer, and by the time I was finishing the book it was clear to me that this book warrants another reading within a week.  

The Science of Thought Control

I picked up a book titled Brainwashing,The Science of Thought Control from a local library without knowing what to expect. Majority of the book covers technical aspects of the brain functioning and brainwashing (and how to avoid being brainwashed), which I skimmed past. However, I did find some useful information in the neuroscience section where the author elucidates the reasons behind brain change, beliefs, emotions, how brains generate actions, self-control, and free will. Author poses some intriguing questions such as, 'does the feeling of an emotion comes first and trigger the bodily responses, or is it the other way round?'

In communication we know the importance of stories and metaphors due to its powerful impact and the ability to connect with the recipient of the message. The reason is mainly because the signals from strongly connected neurons travel faster than loosely connected neurons. And one of the reasons for the strong connection is the 'feeling of emotions' generated during the story-telling. Emotions create stronger bonding because during the 'feeling of emotions' interaction between body and brain takes place.

Why do we tend to remember simple messages more than the complex ones? Because simple ideas with a few components form simple connections, which are stronger than the complicated connections.

Overall, the book is an interesting read to understand the most important organ in our body, which still remains a mystery to the science, and the author rightly suggests it to be a traitor in our skull. 

The Ultimate Sales Machine

  I have just finished reading ‘The Ultimate Sales Machine ’ by Chet Holmes, which has several high-octane suggestions on sales. There is nothing new in the suggested sales steps, which may be put differently by different authors but it follows the same steps of rapport building to need creation to value offering to desire building to removing objections to closing the sales and then follow-up. The suggestions, which are different from the other books, are the importance of and how to hold internal workshops for setting up a sales strategy, implementing new sales policy, and providing training to sales staff. Suggestions on marketing and presentations are similar to many other books on the stands except that the pace of Chet is much faster and adrenalin driven. I found his method of recruiting sales people interesting but I am doubtful. There are a few valuable tips to take away from this book but the bottom line approach of an extremely aggressive selling approach may not be suitable for all types of products or services.

A sense of urgency

Probably, the most important ingredient of any 'change management' is a sense of urgency. Author John P. Kotter in his book A Sense of Urgency details experience of some managers and his solution to generate that urgency. In any book, applicability of author's suggestion depends on the reader's corresponding situation. I liked that Mr. Kotter very aptly distinguished between the 'urgency' (read fire fighting) and 'true urgency'. It is very similar to what Mr. Covey had propagated years ago. Out of the tactics suggested by Mr. Kotter, I liked linking internal and external focus, the example of use of video where customer's complain was communicated to production people through video recorded message, behaving with urgency but not with anxiety or sheer speed, looking for opportunities in crisis (nothing new about this), and getting rid of NoNos.

These tactics can be applied not only at the time of change, but I would suggest to apply it anticipating change as by the time change / crisis strikes it is already too late. Being externally focused and linking it with internal capabilities need not wait for any change - being proactive never hurts, which if combined with a sense of urgency can put brakes to several advancing crisis situation.