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DiamindsPostedonSeptember25,2015byChetanParikh

HerearesomepartsthatIhavemarkedinmycopyofthebookDiaminds:DecodingtheMentalHabitsofSuccessfulThinkersbyMihneaMoldoveanuandRogerMartin.

1.The ordinary way of thinking about thinking is to ask: What do you think? (Theanswer isusuallysomebeliefabout theworld.)Theunordinarywayof thinking thatwewillattempttosketchrestswithasking,rather,Howdoyouthink?(Theanswerisnot going to be a belief anymore, but rather a description of someway of formingbeliefs).

2.Imagineamindsoconfident,nimble,andadaptive that itcan tackleanypracticalproblem you throw its way and come up with several ways of approaching it. Sopowerful that it can cause the body within which it resides to take action that isconsistentwith thebest possible solution, regardlessof immediate temptations andentrenchedhabits.Sobroadthatitcanjustifythatcourseofactiontolargenumbersofpeople, each of whom has a different set of wishes, wants, desires, interests,principles,andwaysoflookingattheworldandunderstandingitsworkings.Sotoughthat itcanturnonadimeif theworldsuppliesitwithevidencethat ithaserred.Soresilientandcourageousthatitcanpersistinthinkingthroughconflict,ambiguity,anduncertaintyeveninthefaceof impendingdisaster.Wouldyounotwantthismindonyourteam?Inyourorganization?Indeed,wouldyounotwanttobethatmind?

3.Imagineamindwiththelogicaldepthofastarcomputerengineerandthebreadthand flexibility of a great saleswoman with the rigour of a financial auditor and theimprovisational skills of a master negotiator with the capacity of a great privateinvestigatortodiscernothersmotivesandstrategiesontheflywiththedisciplineofasenior clinician at developing a comprehensive diagnosis of any ailment with thenimbleness and emotional mobility of a seasoned actor and the vision of a masterplaywright.Wouldyounotbesettingouttocultivateandtrainsuchamindifyouwere

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designingaprogramofstudyforaleaderofthefuture?

C.S.Peirce

4.Imagine if you are philosophically inclined a mind that combines the depth,subtlety, and expansiveness of a Socrateswith the pragmatism of a C. S. Peirce aKantian commitment to responsiveness and autonomy hallmarks of reason withthetechnicalproficiencyofaRusselloraReichenbachaHumeancapacitytodoubt,radicallyandtruthfully,withaCartesiancapacitytoprobeknowledgetoitsverylimitsthesensitivitytothetenuousnesswithwhichwordsglomontoobjectsandeventsofaWittgensteinwithaHeideggerianawarenessthatreasoningandrepresentationdependonmoodandattunementtheallencompassingambitionofaHegelwiththetechnicalprecisionofaWillardQuinethelogicaldepthofaHintikkawiththecognitivebreadthof a Rorty the sensitivity to meaning and feeling of a MerleauPonty with theawareness of the consequences and pragmatics of assertion of a Searle and thatturnsallofthesequalitiesintoprecise,imaginative,constructiveactionpredicatedonanAristoteliancommitmenttofeelingtherightsentimentattherighttime,towardstherightperson,fortherightreasons,throughaproperlysequencedchainofcausesandeffects.Would you not be attempting to train such amind, if youwere building theuniversityfordevelopingthethinkersofthefuture?

5.Unlikemanyofour normal social science counterparts,wehave little interest inachieving for now, at least a statistically reliable description of the twentyninemental habits of outliers.We aremore interested in describing vividly those twoorthreemechanismsormentalhabitsthat,whenassembled,explainmuchofthetailofthe distribution of successful intelligence in the Age of Knowledge. And thatdistributionisnotGaussian,asmanytextbookswouldhaveyouandusbelieveoftensothattheirauthorscanshifttheirfocustotamefeaturessuchasmeanandstandarddeviation.Thetailisinfactunknownandmayevenbeunknowablebutintheworldswewillbeexamining,itismoreimportantthanthemean.Thetail,afterall,istherealmofextremes,ofexceptionality,oftheBolt.



DouglasHofstadter

6.Thestudyofextremesisastrangenewworldinconventionalscience.Thisshouldbenosurpriseafterall,thepointofnormalscienceistodescribemeansandsmalldepartures from them not extremes. Conventional science is built on premises ofnormality, in both the normal and the Gaussian sense of normal. A normal (orGaussian) distribution is one inwhich remote extremes are so improbable as to bereasonably considered impossible. Which legitimates, of course, our not having toworry about them. In light of recent world events, this is clearly one of thosenecessary illusions thatNietzschewroteaboutoneof those illusionsthat, thoughfalse, is life enhancing (career enhancing, if one is feeling malicious) for thosecountlesssocialscientistswhoareattemptingtoachievethesecuritythatcomeswithtenure. As Douglas Hofstadter has pointed out, the way forward in the normalcognitivescientific approach to the study of the mind has long been to develop aprogramoralgorithmthatexplainswhatmostpeoplewoulddoinagivensituation.

Plato

7.Mostpeople!Whichistosay,notRichardFeynman,orAndrewViterbi,orCharlieMunger,orJohnDoerr,orSteveJobs.Mostpeople.Thisparticularalgorithmforthestudy ofminds has long been employed as a reliable heuristic for pushing normalscienceforward.Question:Forwardtowardswhat?Atthecurrentrate,giventhestateof the art in the field, it could take us 10,000 years to reach the level of insightcomparabletothatofPlato2,400yearsago.Hofstadterhassuggestedthatwefocusinstead,andinpainstakingdetail,onbuildingmodelsofremarkablemindsthatis,onoutoftheway mental habits and on the turns of thought they exemplify. That weisolatethesemodelscharacteristicsandtestthemagainsttoughnewproblems.

8.Wewant to focusonaparticular featureof remarkableminds, the dia feature, inreferencetobothdialectical(alaHegel)anddialogical(alaBakhtin).Simplyput,the



diamindisawayofbeingintheworldthatmarshalsdifferencesandcomplexitiestothetaskofbuildingbettersolutionstoproblems.Thediamindisnotcomfortablewithdifference, ambiguity, conflict, and tension comfortable, here, is an insipideuphemism that betrays just how uncomfortable these demons make us feel. Thediamind,rather,embracesdifference,ambiguity,conflict,andtensionindeed,ittreatsthose things as signposts to better solutions and better problems. Which in turnsuggeststhatthediamindismoreawake,moreconscious,andmoreawareofitsownstates, andmore able, as a result, to reject old habits and proclivities that consignmostmindstotheclutchesoffamiliarity,simplicity,andtheonerightwayofseeingandfeeling.

9.Wewillbeaskingyoutoshiftfromthenormalperspectivewhereinyouaretryingtofigure out what someone is saying, what he is trying to get across, to themetaperspectiveoftryingtofigureouthowsomeonethinksinordertobeabletosaywhatheorsheissaying.

10.Which brings to the fore the perspectival shift we are trying to bring: from thewhatwho?spacetothehow?space,and, inparticular,tothehowdotheythink?space.

11.You will find that in that space you will be far less worried about what ourcharactersdoabouttheparentstowhomtheywerebornaboutthepeopletheyknowandabout thenetworks, clubs, and cliques theybelong to and farmore concernedwith how they use language and about how they categorize people, things, events,theories,whathaveyou.Withthewaystheysearchratherthanwiththeendresultsoftheirsearcheswiththetypeoflogictheyusetoreachcertainconclusionsratherthanwiththeconclusionsthemselveswiththewaystheyframeproblemsratherthanwiththepreciseproblemstheyhavesolved.

12.First,mostthinkersevenhighlysuccessfulonesdonotknowhowtheythink.Itissimplynotpartofonestrainingor lifepreparation inourage,at leasttothinkcarefully about how one thinks. Thinking about thinking is not something one doesnaturally.Second,even if thepersonyouaskdoesgiveyouananswerbetter than Idontknow,youstillhaveto factor in thatmostpeoplehaveaperverse incentive toattributetheirsuccesstotheirpersonalcharacteristicsratherthantochanceeventsorthepositive influencesofothers.Andsinceourcultureprizes intelligenceandotherthinking capacities as personal characteristics, the perverse incentive that resultsmakesit likelythattheanswerwegetbackwillbeaselfenhancingrationalization,astorythatfeelsgoodtoitsteller.Forthepersonbeingasked,thisamountstoaformofselftherapy and, sometimes, a means of validating success. So you will have tosomehowfigureoutawaytoseethroughthewebsofdeceptionandselfdeceptionwebs that can lead a successful business person to perceive a series of random



eventsasdirectlyattributabletohisorherwayofthinking.

13.It is worth the bother because thinking is too important an activity to be leftunscrutinizedandunexplored.Theopportunitycostofforgoingopportunitiestolearntoproducemoresuccessfulpatternsofthoughtistoohigh,becausethinkingshapesaction,andactionshapesoutcomes,andtheresultingoutcomesarewhatmakeupourlivesanddestinies.Also,thinkingissomethingthathowevercovertwedoallthetime:trytonotthinkatallforamomentandyoullseewhatwemean.Becausewedoithabituallyanditisofgreatconsequencetoouractions,thinkinglikelivingisworthtryingtodobetter.

14.How do you become less automatic in your patterns of reasoning lessconstrainedbymindless,kneejerk(orbrainjerk)ticsofthemind?

HerbertSimon

15.They are the risks that any new attempt to capture a human phenomenon orcharacteristicwill face. They facedSpearman in 1904whenhedeclared that hehadobjectivelymeasuredgeneralintelligence,andBinetinthe1910swhenhearticulatedhis first intelligence tests. They faced the architects of the cognitive revolution inpsychology(suchasHerbertSimon),whostudiedmentalentitiessuchasconcepts,categories,metaphorsandreasoningprotocolsthatweresuspecttotherestofthepsychologicalprofessionbecausetheywere,well,mentalandthereforenotasrealasmore tangible entities, such as human behaviour and sense perception. They willcontinuetofaceeverynewarticulatorofanewphenomenonbuttheyarewellworthfacingwhentheresultmightbeadescriptionofabetterwaytothink.

16.Theresultofthisdetailedmindmappingwillbeanewlogicofsuccessfulthinkingthat is friendly to psychological insight and at the same time open to the new andremarkable patterns of practical thought that have long gone unnoticed preciselybecausetheyaresodifficulttoexpressverbally.Alogic,then,andnotnecessarilyascience in the same way that game theory, the craft of optimization, and thediscipline of design are logics: things that enable the intelligent design of newbehaviour. And what behaviour is more worth learning to design intelligently thanthinking?This,then,isourproject.



17.Webeginwith a first cut at this question: What kindof thinking leads to betteroutcomes inbusiness for the thinker?Thisseems innocuous.Theworld iscomplexandindeterminate,andtherearemanywaysofseeing,experiencing,andrepresentingit,whichwewillcallmodels.Successfulthinkingintegratesseveralradicallydifferentmodelswhilepreservingthethinkersabilitytoactdecisively.Thesuccessfulthinkerisan integratorwho can quickly and effectively abstract the best qualities of radicallydifferentwaysofseeingandrepresentingindoingso,thatpersondevelopsabetterlensonthebewilderingphenomenonwecalltheworld.

18.Whatdoestheintegratordo?Hewhowilloftenturnouttobeasheseeshisway clear to successful action in situationswhere others see only a choice amongpoorormediocreoutcomes.His isadialecticalmind:adiamind, that is,amind thatbeholdsat least twooftencontradictorywaysofseeingtheworld,giveseach its fulldue,andinsteadoffearingandfleeingtheresultingtension,livesit,embracesit,andcomesupwithabetterwayonethatdoesviolencetoneitherbutimprovesonboth.

KarlJaspers

19.The experience of radical tension can be conceived of as a limit faint in thethinkersexistence.KarlJaspersdefinedlimitpointsassituationsthatareinescapableandunresolvable.DeathJasperssexampleisalimitpointofhumanlife.Noneofuscanescapeoravoidit.Mostofustrytoresolveitasaproblemofexistence,onethatsometimesshapeslifeitself.

20.The diamind makes new meanings: she reengineers unattractive problemstatements and strategic options into attractive ones. She turns tradeoffs intosynergies, local peaks into global optima, paradoxes into mere difficulties, andobstaclesintoopportunities,andshedoessoaswewillshowbyengaginginanidentifiableandlearnablepatternofthinking.

21.Like much of behaviour, thinking is habitual. It is made up of habits, orautomatismsthatis,repetitiveandrecurrentunitsofmentalbehaviorthatoccuron



veryshorttimescales.

22.Mostmentalhabitscloseoffopportunitiesforfurtherthoughtandperception.Thismayormaynotbeuseful,dependingon thecontext. If youseea lion, run towardswater isauseful closureorientedmental routinewhenyourealone in thewildsofthesavannah,butnotatthelocalzoo.Ofcourse,thetrickhereistofigureoutquicklywhetheryouareinthewildoratthelocalzoo,andactaccordingly.Butintherealmoforganizations,savannahsandzoosdonotcomeprelabelled.Itiseasytomistakeonefor the other, with disastrous consequences, so you have to figure out quickly andeffectivelytheecologicalvalueofyourownthinkingroutines.

23.Understandingmentalhabitsasproceduresthathavebeenengineeredforspecificapplicationsisonekeytomentalhabitdetection,creation,andprocreation.

24.Unlikebehaviouralhabits,mentalhabitsaredifficulttospot,name,anddescribe.Partlybecausetheyrecovert,andpartlybecausetheysneakuponusinmomentsofunawareness,theyrealsodifficulttoeliminateorchange.Thisiswhyweneedanewkind of language for describing patterns of mental behaviour: we need to learn tospeakmentalese,alanguagethatwillallowustofigureoutquicklyandeffectivelyhowweandothersthink.

25.That is the first and best use we will make of the formal, academic languagesinherited from twentyfive centuries of theorizing about themind.Weprize them fortheirprecision.AsTomStewartoncepointedouttous,allacademictheoriesarebestthoughtofaslanguages,inthesamewaythatEnglish,French,German,C++,andLISPare languages.Allof themhavespecificsignsthat represent theobjects thatyouasthespeakerwanttoreferto,alongwithspecificrulesforputtingthesesignstogethercorrectly. Our natural languages are great at referring to the world of objects andevents we experience firsthand, but not so great at referring to the inner world ofthoughtsandmentalhabits.That iswhywewill focusondevelopinga language forrepresenting patterns of thought a language that will allow us to think moretransparentlyaboutthinking.

AboutChetanParikh

ChetanParikhisaFounderofJeetayInvestmentsPrivateLimited,aportfolio



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managementfirmregisteredwithSEBI.HeholdsanMBAinFinancefromtheWhartonSchoolofBusiness(wherehegraduatedwithdistinctioninthetop2%oftheclass)andaBScinStatistics&EconomicsfromUniversityofBombay(EconomicsrecordholderinBombayUniversity).HehasbeeninvestingintheIndiancapitalmarketsthroughproprietaryinvestmentcompaniesandfamilytrusts.ChetanwasratedamongstIndiasbestinvestorsbyBusinessIndiamagazine.Heisalsothecopromoterofcapitalideasonline.com,awellregardedinvestmentwebsite.HiswritingshavebeenpublishedinBusinessStandard,BusinessWorld,TheEconomicTimesandBusinessIndia.HeisavisitingfacultymemberatJamnalalBajajInstituteofManagementStudies(UniversityofBombay)fortheMBAcourse.

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