Unlearning 101

Mix Up Your Mind

 “The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above the water. --Sigmund Freud                       

 

Question: According to the latest research, IQ accounts for what portion of career success?

 

a.    50 to 60 percent

b.   25 to 49 percent

c.    23 to 34 percent

d.   11 to 22 percent

 

The answer is between 4 and 10 percent. In other words, it is “none of the above.” This question comes compliments of Dan Pink who used it in his best-selling book, A Whole New Mind, to suggest that confining oneself to the answers presented is “a symptom of excessive left-directed thinking.”

 

In order to unlearn, though, it is not enough to train yourself to use right-directed thinking – although this is helpful. A person or an organization must also intentionally mix-up his or her thinking in order to get a clearer picture of reality.

 

For example, did you know that if a person scores low on an IQ test they are likely to spend more time reading articles which refute the validity of the test. The reason is because once an outcome has been determined and the experienced can no longer be changed, people look for ways to change their view of the experience.

 

The same is true with the stocks we buy; the cars we purchase; and the schools we send our children to. In each case, after the fact, people are more interested in finding information that confirms – rather than refutes – their decision. This process might make them feel better but it isn’t likely to lead to better decisions in the future.

 

What then is a person to do? One strategy is to mix-up your thinking. Specifically, look for information that contradicts your interpretation of the situation; consider the situation from multiple viewpoints; or actively solicit input from people with a different perspective.

 

Google and Proctor & Gamble are a good example. In 2008, the companies swapped two dozen key employees. For its part, Google was interested in winning over a larger portion of P&G’s $9 billion annual advertising budget; while P&G was concerned only a small fraction of its advertisement budget was being spent online.

 

The intentional mixing of the two cultures allowed each company the opportunity to see their business -- as well as future opportunities -- in a clearer light by having key assumptions challenged.

 

P&G, for example, wasn’t inviting influential bloggers to attend press conferences for the roll-out of new products; and Google didn’t fully appreciate how important colors were to building brand image.

 

Mixing up your mind need not always involve others. Sometimes it can be as simple as changing your mind-set. In an influential study, Ellen Langer studied 84 women who cleaned hotel rooms. One group of women heard a brief presentation which explained how their work qualified as good exercise. The other group did not. The two groups then continued on with their regular work routine but the group that heard the presentation displayed more weight loss and experienced larger blood pressure declines. In short, they became healthier by virtue of nothing more than a change of perspective. A related study using retired male executives yielded similar results.

 

Langer’s studies and the Google-P&G employee swaps are tangible reminders that if you are really serious about seeking new insights and achieving better results you don’t need a high IQ, all you need to do is “mix up your mind.”

Grow From Your Inexperience

 

 “Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experiences of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” Douglas Adams      

 

Question: Which is the more likely scenario?

 

A)    Roger seemed happily married. He killed his wife.

B) Roger seemed happily married. He killed his wife because he wanted her inheritance.

 

Many people select “B” because it sounds more plausible. But that is the wrong answer. The correct answer is “A” for the simple reason that, logically, the more broadly worded description depicted in Scenario A not only includes Scenario B but also every other possible reason why Roger might have killed his wife, including reasons of anger, jealousy, mental illness, or accident.

 

The relevance of this common mistake on focusing on the specific to the exclusion of the general can be found in how many people think about insurance. After 9-11, many people were more likely to buy insurance to protect against acts of terrorism even though injury or death due to terrorism is already covered under the general terms of plain insurance plans. Rental car companies also play off peoples’ inexperience when they encourage them to buy “extra” insurance. They know it is easier for people to imagine the specific experience of getting into an automobile accident in a new city with a rental car and they use this knowledge to get the customer to purchase additional – and unnecessary -- insurance.

 

It is not sufficient, however, to merely get others to stop profiting from our inexperience; there are additional ways to profit from your own inexperience – provided you’re willing to unlearn.

 

In many cases, we can learn from those who have experienced something we have not. This, unfortunately, is harder to do than it might sound because people don’t like to believe they are “average” and are, therefore, likely to experience the same thing that those who have actually had experience.

 

In his book, Stumbling Upon Happiness, Dan Gilbert demonstrates how people who win the lottery are not happier a year after winning the lottery. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of lottery players are convinced that they are unique (or “not average”) and, unlike those other poor saps who won the lottery, winning will make them happy. This illusion keeps them playing (and, for the most part, losing) even though it could be avoided by applying other peoples’ real-world experiences to their hypothetical future experience.

 

The second way to unlearn from our experiences is to become cognizant of the fact that often our most vivid memories come from the most unlikely experiences. This causes us to believe that these unlikely experiences are more common than they actually are. For example, do you “always” get in the slowest lane at the grocery store or on the highway? The reality is that you don’t. You just don’t recall the many times your lanes moves at a normal clip.

 

The same effect is at work when people refuse to fly in an airplane after a bad plane crash. Airline accidents are exceedingly rare and, statistically speaking; it is far more dangerous to drive than fly. But because people can more easily and vividly recall these unlikely plane crashes, they are more likely to select a different – and far more dangerous – mode of transportation.

 

By reminding yourself of the totality of your – and others -- experiences, however, not only can you gain a clearer picture of reality, you might even grow enough from your inexperience to extend your life.

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5 Ways to Make the Strange Familiar

 Yesterday, I suggested that one way to unlearn is to make the "familiar strange."  Because I love paradoxes and believe that people must become comfortable with ambiguity if they truly want to unlearn, I'd now like to share with you five methods for doing the opposite -- and making the strange familiar:

1. Study at the Anti-Library: Remember ... "what you don't know is more important than what you do know."

2. Grew a "Knew" perspective and have some intellectual humility.

3. Let go of your ego and engage in some situational unawareness training.

4. Put on a new lenses and stop seeing patterns.

5. Question the wisdom of experts.

P.S. In the spirit of making the familiar strange and vice versa, today's optical illusion is the same picture just turned upside down. Strange or familiar?

5 Ways to Make the Familiar Strange

One method of unlearning is to make the familiar strange. It's not as paradoxical as it may seem. Here are simple five ways to do it:

1. Turn a familiar object upside down. Remember the opposite may also be true.

2. View an object from a different perspective. (Look at picture to the right. Now step back 20 feet. Do you see someone else? Is it strange or familiar?)

3. Use a different sense to explore an object. For example, try listening to a colleague instead of just "seeing" them.)

4. Ask a stranger what he or she finds strange about the object.

5. Try becoming uncomfortable in your own skin.

Don't Follow the Money

 

 “Education is one of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get.”

--William Lowe Bryant

 

 

Question: This is a two part question: a) does $50 always equal $50; and b) which amount of money would you prefer to earn over a three year period $110,000 or $150,000?

 

While it is true that $50 will always equal $50 and $150,000 is, of course, more than $110,000; it is also true that many people work contrary to their financial interests.

 

If you see a little of yourself in either of the below examples, you may need to unlearn some behaviors.

 

Let’s consider the case of the $50 first. If you were about to purchase a $100 mobile phone and suddenly learned the same model was being sold for $50 on the opposite side of town would you drive across town to save the extra $50? When surveyed an overwhelming number of people stated that they would. So far so good. Yet, when the scenario was switched and the product in question was a $40,000 automobile and they were informed the same model was available at on the other side of town for the price of $39,950 – the exact same $50 savings – a majority of people indicated they wouldn’t make the trip.

 

The reason is that a $50 savings off a $40,000 product is miniscule compared to its overall price. Whereas, from the perspective of a $100 product, a $50 savings is quite significant. The reality is that a $50 savings is a $50 savings and your wallet or bank account doesn’t know – nor care – how you accumulated the extra savings. In a perfectly rational world people would work to save the money regardless of the situation.

 

One real world manifestation of this behavior can be found in retail shops. It is a well known tactic that if you go into a high-end retailer and tell the sales clerk you are interested in buying some socks, shoes and a suit they will first attempt to get you to buy the suit. Why? Because if they are successful at selling you a $1500 suit, a $300 pair of shoes and $25 for a pair of socks suddenly seem less consequential. If, however, you were to begin shopping for socks first, not only are you less likely to spend less on socks, you are also likely to think longer and harder before dropping money on expensive shoes and suits.

 

The second question stems from another fascinating study is which people were provided a choice between two different scenarios. In the first, they earned $30,000 in Year One; $40,000 in Year Two; and $50,000 in Year Three. In the other scenario, they earned $60,000 in the first year; $50,000 in the second; and $40,000 in the third.

 

When asked to select which scenario they would prefer, a surprising number chose Option 1. This is in spite of the fact that they would earn only a total of $30,000 less. It is a well documented that many people experience the pain of losing money more (as is experienced in Scenario #2) and will go to great lengths – including missing out on an extra $30,000 – to avoid that pain.

 

For a real world implication of this behavior in action, consider the case of a bargain flight from San Francisco to New York. Imagine the price is $300 one day but suddenly jumps to $400 the next. Many people will skip the deal. If, however, the same flight was originally $800 and then dropped to $600, more people would rush to book the flight because it was a “deal” – even though it is $200 more expensive than the first scenario.

 

Often, the reality is that people prefer the illusion of a good deal (a $600 flight that was $800) to the reality of a much better deal (a $400 flight that was $300). My advice: Don’t always follow the money because sometimes it can lead you astray.

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Do the Math Until It Doesn't Add Up

 

“Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is – oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate.” Alice in Wonderland

 

 

Question: Which is greater: 1 or 2? What about 100 or 10,000?

 

The answer is that it depends upon context. As Shel Silverstein reminded his readers in his famous poem “Smart,” context is everything. The poem recounts the story of a young boy who trades one dollar for two quarters because “2 is more than one.” Next, he swaps the two quarters for three dimes because “three is more than two” and then the three dimes for four nickels because “four is more than three.” The poem concludes with the boy trading four nickels for five pennies because, you guessed it, “five is more than four.”

 

It would nice to believe that Silverstein’s poem is just a cute little ditty about a misguided youth. Unfortunately, many otherwise intelligent adults continue to make comparable mistakes every day and it is a habit worth unlearning.

 

Consider the recent push among many people and marketers to get Twitter followers. On its face, it would appear to be better to have 10,000 followers than 100 followers. What matters, though, is not really the number of followers one has but rather their willingness to spread your ideas, thoughts, and opinions.

 

 As Seth Godin reminds us, if you begin with 10,000 followers and have a “tweet” that nets .8 new people per generation – which implies your 10,000 followers will forward it to 8,000 new people who will then pass it along to 6,400 -- the “tweet” has a relatively short shelf-life and the idea will soon die out. If, however, you have 100 loyal followers and create a noteworthy “tweet” which is passed along to a net 1.5 new people, your idea will first reach 150 new people and eventually it will overtake the “tweet” of the person with 10,000 followers after the thirteen generation. (See graph) If your idea is only slightly better – say it has a 1.7 net pass along rate – the effect is even more dramatic. (See the purple line).

 

The point is that it is the idea which matters most and not the raw number of followers. Still many people and organizers obsess over the raw number and miss the much more important point of providing excellent and meaningful content. Why? Because, like the boy in the Silverstein poem, everyone knows “10,000 is more than 100.”

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Bet Against Yourself

 

 “Don’t wanna learn from nobody what I gotta unlearn.” Bob Dylan

 

 

Question: Which of the following characteristics has a higher correlation to the success of a Hollywood movie: the involvement of a famous movie star or the location(s) where the movie is shot?

 

The answer, to the surprise and chagrin of many Hollywood producers is the latter. The fact that Mel Gibson, Meryl Streep or any other Hollywood “A” list star performs in the movie only has a small correlation. As Ian Ayres recounts in his book, Super Crunchers, a company, Epagogix, now uses a proprietary neural network equation that relies on little more than the information found in a movie’s screenplay to predict -- with a higher level of accuracy than Hollywood’s most experienced directors and producers -- how financially successful the movie will be.

 

Not surprisingly this news has not been received well among many Hollywood elites because it highlights how little they know about which characteristics truly matter most to a movie’s bottom-line.

 

This habit highlights another behavior individuals will need to unlearn as they move into the future, and this is the idea of assigning too much weight to one’s own opinions or intuition. Extraordinary new capabilities in data mining and computer processing power, when paired with equally powerful advances in algorithms, neural networks and predictive analysis software, are proving that machines are frequently far better judges than humans at many important tasks.

 

For example, researchers have found that for patients with uncommon medical conditions Google is now more reliable at assessing those conditions than your own doctor. Considering that the average doctor has access to only two million pieces of medical information and Google a thousand times more this isn’t that surprising. What is worth considering is the idea that as computer hardware and software improves exponentially so will Google’s ability to diagnose a growing number of diseases with a higher rate of accuracy.

 

In the rarified field of oenology (the study of wine), Orley Ashenfelter has produced a sophisticated regression equation that can predict more accurately than the wine industry’s top judges which vintages of red wine from France’s Bordeaux’s region will be the most valuable in the future. Ashenfelter cares nothing for swishing wine around in his mouth in search of subtle hints of oak, cherry, tobacco or blueberry and instead relies on weather-related data.

 

For wine collectors who invest in wine futures, Ashenfelter’s information is giving them a distinct competitive advantage over those who can’t or won’t unlearn their reliance on wine “experts.”

 

And only recently have many Las Vegas hotels and casinos unlearned the idea that its most valuable customers are limited to the ranks of wealthy, high-rollers. Thanks to complex algorithms hundreds of middle-aged, middle-income individuals are now being aggressively courted. If you’ve ever wondered why your ne’er-do-well Uncle Ned is being “comped” to stay at a nice hotel in Las Vegas twice a year, it’s because a computer program has figured that it is likely to make money off him.

 

Therefore, if you ever happen to receive a free weekend in Las Vegas courtesy of a hotel-casino, my advice is to bet against yourself and stay home. It will save you money.

Homework assignment: Recalling that it took Galileo years to convince people that light objects fell as quickly as heavy objects even though they could see the results with their own eyes, how long – if ever -- do you think it will take before all doctors will be required to confirm their diagnosis of patients with a machine? Defend your answer.

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Question the Wisdom of Experts

 

 “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” John Cage

 

 

Question: Write the letter “E” on your forehead. (Go ahead, I’ll wait. You may also just trace the letter on your forehead if that’s more comfortable for you). Did you write the letter in a self-oriented fashion such that it would appear backwards to those viewing it or did you write it backwards so that it would appear legible to others?

 

In a fascinating study conducted by Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Galinsky and his colleagues found that the more power an individual possessed, the more likely the person was to draw the letter from their perspective -- making it appear backwards to others. In fact, individuals assigned to a high power group were three times more likely to draw a self-oriented “E.”

 

The study concluded that power caused individuals to assign too much weight to their own viewpoint and made them less able to adjust to, or even consider, another person’s perspective.

 

It is worth keeping this study in mind when listening to any expert discuss a new idea. For instance, in 1899, Lord Kelvin, then recognized as one of the brightest individuals in the world dismissed the work of the aviation enthusiasts by saying “Heavier than air machines are impossible.” A mere four years later, Kelvin was forced to eat his words when two bicycle repairmen from Dayton, Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, struck out on the sandy dunes of Kitty Hawk and achieved flight.

 

In the mid-1980’s, a conference full of ulcer experts ridiculed the work of Barry Marshall when he  proposed that ulcers were not caused by acid or spicy food – as ulcer experts assumed at the time – but rather were caused by bacteria. It took 10 years but eventually the American Medical Association (AMA) agreed and, in 2005, a full two decades after he first proposed his theory, Marshall and his colleague, Robin Warren, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

 

That experts should be threatened by new ideas is to be expected. After all, it is incredibly difficult to accept the notion that years of well-intentioned study, research and effort were misdirected. It is equally problematic to accept that the foundation of one’s power – one’s status and standing in the eyes of society -- was based on a flawed premise.

 

What is even more troublesome is that rather than keep an open mind and entertain new ideas which may challenge one’s expertise, many experts perform the equivalent of writing a backwards “E” on their forehead and refuse to consider new alternatives. Often, they’ll even go a step further and use their status as experts to ridicule and belittle the new idea.

 

The problem is then further compounded because experts are often extremely intelligent and are able to lay out in articulate and plausible sounding – but, ultimately, wrong -- arguments as to why the new ideas should be dismissed.

 

New ideas, by their very nature, challenge old ideas. It is dangerous, therefore, to cede sole control of the assessment of new ideas to the very group which would be most threatened by the adoption of these ideas.

 

It is, of course, entirely reasonable that experts be allowed a role in assessing new ideas but before anyone does they should insist that the experts take a moment and turn the first letter of “expert” backwards as a reminder that expertise doesn’t necessarily equal correctness and that they must entertain new perspectives.

Question #15: In 1933, what brilliant scientist uttered this famous quote: “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable”? Hint: His name began with “E” and he later publicly reversed his position in a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Extra credit: After the near meltdown of the global financial market in 2008-2009, what other group(s) of experts might have benefited from entertaining a new perspective?

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Stop Seeing Patterns

“We are so good at seeing patterns that, often, we see them where they don’t exist.”

Michael Mauboussin

Question: If you flip a coin 14 times which is more likely to occur: a) The coin will land on "heads" 14 straight times (H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H); or b) this random outcome: T-T-H-T-H-H-H-T-T-H-T-H-T-T?

The answer is that the odds of each occurring is exactly same -- 1 in 16,384. And yet to most people the first outcome is viewed far differently and is seen not as a random outcome but instead part of a clear and established pattern.

To demonstrate the point, consider one of the more statistically improbable outcomes from the world of sports: In the past 14 Super Bowl’s (from 1997 to 2010) the team from the National Football Conference (NFC) has won the coin toss.

Now, the NFC team has not always called "heads." In fact, the NFC team has been just as likely to call "tails." Moreover, the NFC team only calls the coin toss every other year. Still, the NFC has defied the odds by being on the winning side of the coin toss 14 consecutive times with this random outcome: H-T-H-H-T-T-T-H-H-T-H-H-T-T.

This outcome is no more likely than 14 straight "heads," 14 straight "tails;" or 16,381 other permutations. The NFC's streak is, to be sure, a matter of extraordinary good fortune but it is not part of an established pattern from which you can discern anything about the future other than the fact that the odds of the NFC team winning the coin toss for a fifteenth straight time is only 50%.

This won’t stop countless individuals from believing there is a clear pattern. To better understand why this behavior is worth unlearning consider this map of London showing where German V-2 rockets hit the city during World War II.

From the map, it appears as though the area in and around the River Thames (in the lower right-hand corner) was being targeted. This pattern might cause a person to take the seemingly logical action of moving to the neighborhood in the upper right-hand corner on the assumption that it is safer.

Watch what happens when the boundaries of London are reconfigured into a diagonal pattern, however. The distribution of the bombs now appears much more evenly distributed even though where those bombs fell hasn’t changed. It is a visual reminder that our perception of reality can be framed by arbitrary randomness around which we place boundaries – or patterns -- after the fact.

In the world of business, the situation is far worse because frequently people “see” established “patterns” after only one or two examples. For instance, how often has a board of directors hired a CEO who was successful in his past job only to see him fail miserably in his new position? He may have looked like a safe choice – much like the one London neighborhood – but “bombs” have a way of catching up with people if they lull themselves into believing they have discerned a pattern which does not, in reality, exist.

Question #14: If a stockbroker or mutual fund advertises that it has beaten the market for three consecutive years, how much credence should you assign to the claim?

Extra credit: If LeBron James, a career 53% shooter, has hit his last eight shots in Game 7 of the NBA finals, how likely is he to hit to next shot?

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Leader or Outcast?

Take a look at the picture to the right. Do you think of the lone fish as a leader or an outcast? If you are an American you are likely to consider it as a bold, independent leader. If, however, you are from Asia -- where more emphasis is placed on group unity -- you are more likely to consider the fish as an outcast.

Obviously, there is no right or wrong answer but it does serve as a reminder that whatever view you hold the opposite may also be true.