Conditioned mind

In our last meeting Professor Mankad suggested to try some Chinese, we went to a Chinese restaurant at Dadar bang opposite Shiv Sena Bhavan. I agreed, as for me this restaurant was new, earlier when I lived in Dadar the restaurant was named Chandragupt, not specialty Chinese restaurant. A very good service and good food as well. During the lunch we spoke on different topics and my earlier posts have some as the blogs on the same discussions.

While discussing and before leaving the restaurant, Prof Mankad did a simple experiment on me. He took a piece of paper and wrote “All in the the family”. He asked me just read it. I read it “All in the family”, he asked me read it again. I read it again and again for good about 5-6 times for next 30 seconds – “All in the family”. All the time when I read that I was asking if the words I am reading are right, in terms of legibility! Reference check image

In the image if you notice the first THE is not clear. So, I had various reasons to ask questions about words and spellings. So, I was digging the hole at the wrong place. Prof Mankad was enjoying it. So after a while I said there are two THE in this sentence, one on line 2 and other on line 3, “I noticed it but thought it was by mistake”. He smiled little more. I also made little more observations. This all went on interestingly, the waiter kept on watching us.

So, Prof Mankad concluded, Pravin, you saw what you wanted to see, not what exactly is there. This is the problem with many of us, we are conditioned according to our choices and opinions. We need to be open to possibilities. Last week when I wrote on served by biases the idea was same, to highlight this problem of conditionality. Just to conclude with example (reference Times Now debate – that I overheard) – yesterday night heard Indian Rail fares will be increased. Until last year when UPA Govt raised fare 1st time in 10 years, BJP questioned and called names to UPA. Now, when BJP is increasing fare, BJP was supporting it with various reasons & even Twiple (on twitter they are called Bhakts by some people) supporting BJP started supporting the act! Isn’t it surprising! I know there would be instances when people will say – ok! this Govt is not as corrupt as the UPA was, we can live with it! The only reason for that will be – because it is the Party which I support, has done the scams. This is the way we think and act based on conditioned mind.

The same happens with innovation efforts in the company, people are so biased and conditioned that they ignore simple things (as repeated THE). For such cases organizations need external consultants for advisory.