We’ve all been there - the crucial few minutes of our life when we’re trying to get what’s right for us while discussing the possible options with a counterpart. We go back and forth, re-calculate, reconsider, re-evaluate - all to get the best possible deal. Be it at a grocery store or a job interview or a high stake merger/acquisition deal, all we want is to extract the best value proposition. What we are doing in all these situations is ‘negotiation’. Now, everytime we hear the word negotiation, we natually conjure up the images of a top cop trying to talk to a terrorist or captor in a high adrenaline backdrop. What we often miss is the omnipresence of this communication pattern in our daily life and eventually fail to achieve the best outcome of a deal. In a way, it makes sense - how do we get better at something we don’t even realize is happening with us all the time?
‘Never Split The Difference’ by Chris Voss is a book that tries to fill the exact communication skill gap which is very important yet is often not taught at school. True to the scene that I mentioned earlier, this book contains real life stories of hostage situations - all high voltage and extremely gripping - to drive a key lesson in negotiation. Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator, takes us through the intricacies of a hostage situation in every chapter and from that situation he makes a strong lesson on the art of negotiation. Over the course of the book, Chris Voss demonstrates that it’s empathy and treating the counterpart with respect that goes a long way to make a successful deal - the one in which both the parties are satisfied.
Although this book falls into the genre of communication, it does not delve into the theory of general communication. Instead, what it does - through nerve gripping real life stories - is teach invaluable lessons necessary to successfully get our message through to the counterpart and receive the desired favor in return. In just 10 chapters, Chris Voss takes us through every possible scenario in our lives which require some subtle skill of negotation - be it salary negotiation, or getting a marketing deal from a high profile company, bargaining the rent of a house, getting a seat on an already booked flight, or sending an email that never gets ignored and many more. And it’s not just one or two broad principles that he applies, it’s a whole ammunition.
While many of us usually think of negotiation as a means of getting things our way at the cost of others, I’m sure that opinion will definitely change once you read this book. In the end, negotiation is all about overcoming the situation, not the adversary.It’s about uncovering the value, an empathic search for the best possible deal and not to strong-arm or humiliate.
Some of the very interesting lines from the book:
People want to be understood and accepted.
You get what you ask for; you just have to ask correctly.
We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar.
‘No’ is the start of the negotiation, not the end of it.
Creative solutions are almost always preceded by some degree of risk, annoyance, confusion and conflict.
Your reputation precedes you. Let it precede you in a way that paves success.
The chance for loss incites more risk than the possiblity of equal gain.
Hope is not a strategy.
All negotiation is an information-gathering process.
‘Yes’ is nothing without ‘how’.
Never be needy for a deal.
The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue.
When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occassion; you fall to your highest level of preparation.
Lets’s start with a quick observation task: the next time you visit a big hospital, take a close look at the name plates of the doctors offering their services at the hospital. In particular, pay close attention to the areas of medicine they specialize. It’s not surprising at all if you can’t really make sense of some of the specializations - don’t blame yourself. However, you can partly pass on the blame to ‘specialization’. We live in a hyper-specialized world today, whether it’s medicine, engineering, music or sport. We celebrate experts and expertise more than ever today and we often quote them as inspirational model to the younger generation. What makes them special?
One of the crucial factors to achieve expertise is the concept of head start - which is basically starting very early in one chosen area of skill. Perhaps sport and music provide the most commonly encountered examples for this head start. The stories of Tiger Woods and Serena Williams are the best examples of this phenomenon. Another famous rule contributing to expertise that has been doing rounds in the pop culture is the 10,000 hour rule - deliberate practice for atleast 10,000 hours in a given skill to gain mastery. But, does it have to be this way to be successful in life? ‘Range’ attempts to take a different route which at first seems quite contrary - ‘generalism’.
In this day and age of specialization, David Epstein takes an unconventional topic that’s the exact opposite of it. In ‘Range’, David Epstein takes us through the lives and worlds of wildly successful masters who were actually generalists - either in the early part of their life or through out - and presents a very refreshing perspective of success. You will come across achievers such as Roger Federer, Vincent Van Gogh, Kepler who have been generalists more than specialists of a particular area. Besides the people, David Epstein also takes us through history in Italy, crucial decision making scenes in NASA, amazingly innovative labs of 3M company, evolution of Nintendo as a gaming company and much more!
A fundamental concept that ‘Range’ lays is ‘kind world’ vs ‘wicked world’. Now, the terms have got nothing to do with the human behavioral aspects. Rather, they’re the conceptualization of the way world presents itself to us in our daily life. David Epstein makes a very clever distinction between these worlds and he very interestingly differentiates the skillsets that thrive in each of the worlds. True to the theme of the book, he brings home the point of understanding the current world that we are operating and provides essential advice to becoming sucessful in the long run.
Here’re some interesting words from the book:
The more a task shifts to an open world of big-picture strategy, the more humans have to add.
Everyone needs habits of mind that allow them to dance across disciplines.
Creativity may be difficult to nurture, but it is easy to thwart.
Struggling to generate an answer on your own, even a wrong one, enhances subsequent learning.
Learning deeply means learning slowly.
Exploration is not just a whimsical luxury of education; it is a central benefit.
A mind kept wide open will take something from every new experience.
We learn who we are in practice, not in theory.
Be careful not to be too careful, or you will unconsciously limit your exploration.
Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you.
There is a famous quote by Thomas Edison when he invented the electric bulb that goes something like this - “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” 10000 attempts is surely a big number and it certainly seems like a very rare feat. The first line that you read in ‘Invention: A life’ - an autobiography by Sir James Dyson - proves that the huge number of attempts to invent something is not all that rare. To be precise, Sir Dyson made 5,217 prototypes of vacuum cleaners over a period of 4 years in his equivalent of a ‘garage’ before he could build the final version. Do you really need to build 5,217 prototypes for a vacuum cleaner? May be not, but that’s something you will discover as you read the pages further about his life.
Why pick up a book on James Dyson? Well, I was first introduced to Dyson when I came across their bladeless fans and that kind of overturned my understanding of air flow until then. Later, I used a Dyson hand dryer and was once again surprised at the efficiency of the machine(it dries up the hand completely in 10 seconds without any heat). And then I came across the cordless vacuum cleaner that was the most aesthetically designed vacuum cleaner ever(who thought vacuum cleaners can be sexy!) That’s it! I was hooked on to this company and naturally it’s founder.
Dyson is a British family owned company that has revolutionized certain home appliances such as vacuum cleaners, air purifiers(bladeless, if you remember), hand dryers, hair dryers, hair stylers, and much more. Their most recent innovation is a noise canceling headphones that has built in air-purifier that doubles as a face mask. In many ways, as you will discover, Dyson is very similar to Apple - whether it’s the standards of quality, drive for perfection, beautiful and elegant design, simplicity of use and relentless innovation. In fact, Sir Dyson has an interesting event in life similar to Steve Jobs!
From early on in his life, Sir Dyson realizes the importance of design in the area of manufacturing and how it cannot be seen separately. He stresses the need for engineers to include design thinking in every invention and every product they make. He believes that design is something that cannot be done as a decorative aspect of any product. In fact, he actually like to expose the underlying pieces of his invention boldly(his vacuum cleaners have transparent body). This kind of thinking comes from his experience at Royal College of Art(RCA) and from his mentors Jeremy Fry, Tony, etc. This is an invaluable lesson for any engineer because most of the time we are focused on solving the problem alone rather than design.
Over the course of the book, you will read about his various inventions - starting from re-imagining a wheel barrow to building a cyclone vacuum cleaner, a sea truck, a washing machine, a garden water feature(the water appears to flow in reverse in this structure), a board room table with no legs, a contraption for a fashion show, an early precursor to Google Glass, air multipliers, air purifiers, hair dryers, hair stylers, robotic vacuum cleaners and even an electric car! Not all of these inventions have been commercially successful but they give an insight into the genius he is.
Life, as it should be, was not always pleasant for Sir James Dyson. In fact, he was in debt for most of his adult life - even with a family of 3 small kids. It’s just impossible to imagine the kind of perseverance and grit this man has during the tough times. And it’s not just one time, but multiple times - sometimes it was the politics and government, sometimes it was companies stealing his inventions, other times the patent law. I can’t think of a better example for the quote - “If it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger” and stronger he became through his life.
Apart from his inventions, you will also read about his contributions to the areas of farming, education, philanthropy etc. It is his quest to build better engineering talent in UK and the world that led him to establish his own university and provide grants to multiple universities across the world.
Some quotes from the book:
Visceral experience is a powerful teacher.
Experience tells you what you ought to do and what you’d do best to avoid. It tells you how things should be done when we are much more interested in how things should’t be done.
It is easier and safer to take a big risk with a product if it is one that you would use yourself.
Follow your own star.
Permanently dissatisfied is how an engineer should feel.
Scale comes with both increasing possibilities and responsibilities.
Education should be about problem solving rather than retaining knowledge simply to pass exams.
Design is about expressing the engineering or technology inside the product, not styling or about trying to be contemporary for the sake of it.
There is no greater danger than satisfaction.
By its very nature, pioneering will not always be successful, otherwise it would be all too easy.
Let me start with a quick introspection: How many times have you thought of picking up a new skill? or perhaps achieving a goal? or maybe lose/gain weight? I bet we all have such desires and we do put in a lot of effort to achieve them. We start with resolutions on every new year eve and start working towards them with a lot of zeal. But then, slowly, something unexpected happens. We start deviating from our new commitments and we often end up quitting sometime mid-journey. Why does this happen? How can we stick to our goals? Through motivation? hardwork? perseverance? focus? Although all of the above factors are necessary, there’s still some missing magic that can help us become successful in our endeavors. Atomic Habits is a book that explores that magic - habits.
Atomic Habits is not just another book on the subject of habit formation or the psychology behind that. This is more of a handbook, or a work-guide on how to become better at sticking to habits in a simple and easy way. This book starts off with a quick introduction to habits themselves and specifically what is an ‘Atomic Habit’. The author then moves on to lay the foundations of habit formation - the ‘cue, craving, respose, reward’ cycle. These phases of the habit formation and retention should be familiar to you if you’ve read ‘The Power of Habit’ by Charles Duhigg. But, instead of reiterating the same concepts, James Clear takes on a journey of putting these phases into a very practical framework to master any habit.
The beauty of this book is that it not only talks about forming a new habit, but also provides effective approaches to get rid of old habits. If reducing the TV time is your priority, this book has you covered. And it does so by not giving lengthy lectures on self-control, but by practical tips which will definitely work for you. For each of the above habit phase mentioned earlier, there’s a chapter on habit formation and there’s one on habit reduction. At the end of each section, you will find a handy one-liner summaries of each of the chapters covered so far.
Atomic Habits builds upon the foundations laid by some of the most famour books on human behaviour - ‘The Power of Habit’, ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’, ‘Outliers’, ‘Blink’, ‘Flow’ and others. If you’ve read the above books, some of the contents of Atomic Habits will remind the deeper concepts in each of these books; which I believe provides a good segue into picking up your next book to read.
Some of my favorite lines from the book:
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
Success is the product of daily habits - not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
The biggest barrier to positive change at any level - individual, team, society - is identity conflict.
The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
Identity change is the North star of habit change.
Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior.
The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least.
You can break a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it.
Desire is the engine that drives behavior.
Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe.
Running against the grain of your culture requires extra effort.
Once we fit in, we start looking for ways to stand out.
Desire is the difference between where you are now and where you want to be in the future.
Habits are easier to build if they fit into the flow of your life.
What is rewarded is repeated, what is punished is avoided.
Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.
Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.
Pain is an effective teacher.
Professionals stick to the schedule, amateurs let life get in the way.
Hello again! This is my first post in the newly created blog of my personal website. Going forward, this will be the home to all my blog posts hereafter.