Sunday, August 16, 2015

Did you ever notice that . . .

Did you ever notice that . . . you can tell if a person is left handed or right handed by the way that they clap?  Try it out at dinner tonight.  Ask your dinner mates to start clapping and notice which hand is active and which hand is passive (your passive hand “receives” the clap).  Now encourage them to clap the other way, that is, try making your non-dominant hand the active one.  Feels strange, no?

Some folks, of course, are “neutral clappers” (both hands meeting in the middle), but they’re a rare breed. So the next time you’re at a concert, or a play, take a peek at how people clap – you’ll be able to immediately tell if they’re lefty or righty (my wife Roe, by the way, is ambilevous: “having the ability to perform manual skill tasks with both hands”).

Did you ever notice that . . . when families are walking, the man walks ahead of the pack, while the mother trails the field?  Why is that?

I suppose it’s linked to DNA. After all, back in the day, it made sense to have the hunter-gatherer out in front – protecting the family, finding the next meal. But today, what’s the thinking?  I remember a field trip some years ago that my wife organized – an overnighter with 150 fifth graders accompanied by 25 chaperones (three of whom were male). No big surprise that one of the men (walking out ahead) lost track of one of his kids. 

So I wonder: do we still need to be out in front?

Did you ever notice that . . . in conversation, some people perpetually use pronouns instead of first names? (e.g., or “My wife and I are heading to Florida” instead of “Roe and I are heading to Florida”).

Granted, if we are meeting each other for the first time, and I don’t know your sister’s name, a pronoun makes perfect sense. But over time, I’d think that people would make the switch. Yet many don’t.  Why is that? Why do people – long after they know us, and they know that we know all the players – continue to use pronouns? Perhaps it says something about our personality, or, more simply, is just a verbal habit that mimics our parent’s conversational style. Either way, I must admit, it’s a mystery to me (as it happens, early in a relationship, I’ll make a point of introducing family members with both pronoun and first name (“my sister Ilene”), and then, as the conversation evolves, I’ll switch to the name alone. But I may be the odd one here).

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Sunday, August 9, 2015

Brain-Training Exercises: Do They Work?

Brain-Training Exercises: Do They Work?

“Before investing time and money on brain games, consider what economists call opportunity costs: If an hour spent doing solo software drills is an hour not spent hiking, learning Italian, making a new recipe, or playing with your grandchildren, it may not be worth it. But if it replaces time spent in a sedentary state, like watching television, the choice may make more sense for you.” – Stanford Center on Longevity

They’re fun. They’re challenging. And they’re somewhat addicting.  But do they work? Do brain-training exercises – that is, sitting in front of a computer performing specific repetitive tasks – really improve cognitive function?

An active debate has emerged within the scientific community, with neuroscientists and behavioral psychologists analyzing first-generation data to assess whether brain-training exercises make a substantive difference in cognitive vigor.

This past fall the Stanford Center on Longevity, working with the Berlin Max Planck Institute for Human Development, issued a word of caution, urging consumers to be wary of exaggerated claims that brain-training exercises will significantly enhance brain function, and brain fitness.

And while the Center’s report, in this writer’s view, was quite balanced in assessing the new field, a group of 127 scientists, from 18 countries, took issue with several of the Center’s findings and crafted an Open Letter to share their concerns.  

What’s clear in all of this is that the “brain fitness” movement, in due time, may well resemble the thriving physical fitness movement.  Said Alvaro Fernandez, in a piece for the Huffington Post: “It took decades of conflicting research and confusing media coverage to finally spread the idea that daily life activities are far from sufficient to keep us physically fit . . . From those humble beginnings, health club memberships in 2014 amounted to $78+ billion dollars in annual revenues.” This same notion, many believe, will apply to brain fitness in the coming years. 

So what exactly did the Stanford Center report have to say?  And how did the 127 scientists, in their Open Letter respond? Some highlights:

Stanford Center on Longevity

·        “It would be appropriate to conclude . . . that the potential to learn new skills remains intact throughout the life span. However at this point it is not appropriate to conclude that training-induced changes go significantly beyond the learned skills, that they affect broad abilities with real-world relevance, or that they generally promote ‘brain health’.”

·        “These conclusions do not mean that the brain does not remain malleable, even in old age. Any mentally effortful new experience, such as learning a language, acquiring a motor skill, navigating in a new environment, and, yes, playing commercially available computer games, will produce changes in those neural systems that support acquisition of the new skill.”

·        “Some of the initial [research] results are promising and make further research highly desirable. However, at present, these findings do not provide a sound basis for the claims made by commercial companies selling brain games.”

·        “We also need to keep in mind opportunity costs. Time spent playing the games is time not spent reading, socializing, gardening, exercising, or engaging in many other activities that may benefit cognitive and physical health of older adults. Given that the effects of playing the games tend to be task-specific, it may be advisable to train an activity that by itself comes with benefits for everyday life. Another drawback of publicizing computer games as a fix to deteriorating cognitive performance is that it diverts attention and resources from prevention efforts. The promise of a magic bullet detracts from the message that cognitive vigor in old age, to the extent that it can be influenced by the lives we live, reflects the long-term effects of a healthy and active lifestyle.”

The 127 scientists respond:

·        “. . . [A] substantial and growing body of evidence shows that certain cognitive training regimens can significantly improve cognitive function, including in ways that generalize to everyday life.”

·        “Over three decades, researchers have built a huge body of evidence that brain plasticity is a lifelong phenomenon – as you acknowledge. However, the [Stanford Center] statement fails to acknowledge that this evidence was derived from training experiments directly documenting the improvement of sensory, cognitive, motor, and functional performance.”

Leading the Open Letter movement was Dr. Michael Merzenich, a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. Said Merzenich: “The authors of the Longevity Center statement properly concluded that a large body of work has shown there is plasticity throughout the brain and throughout life. . . . It was rather astounding, then, that this same group failed to notice that we proved that through hundreds of studies showing we can drive positive change in the brain through directed, intensive, computer-guided training. It’s silly that anyone would think that we can make cognitive training that works in labs, but not in people’s homes.”


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Sunday, August 2, 2015

Geniuses in the office: more pain than pleasure?

Geniuses in the office: more pain than pleasure?

Have you ever worked for a genius?  I have. 

The year was 1979, and though the subsequent six years were emotionally painful (he had this unique ability to make you feel inept at every turn), there were positive results, economically speaking.

Those six years remain fresh in my mind, leading me to wonder, from time to time: if you work for a genius, should you bolt or should you stick?

That was the dominant thought that ran through my mind when I read Walter Issacson’s grueling biography of Steve Jobs. Jobs, of course, was a genius by everyone’s account, changing the course of five (yes, five) industries. Yet nearly every page of Issacson’s text revealed Jobs’ cruel and demonic treatment of colleagues. So I wondered: why did these people stick? 

Last week, I found the answer. 

It appeared on page 332 of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s glorious book “The Bully Pulpit” (which traces the intertwining lives of Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft).  The dynamic passage – authored by Ida Tarbell, the nation’s leading journalist a century ago – was written about Sam McClure, the nation’s leading publisher. But it could just have easily been written about Jobs, a century later.  Wrote Tarbell, of McClure (in a letter to colleagues):

“Never forget that it was he and nobody else who has created that place. . . He is a very extraordinary creature, you can’t put him into a machine and make him run smoothly with the other wheels and things. . . . . Able methodical people grow on every bush but genius comes once in a generation and if you ever get in its vicinity thank the Lord & stick.  You probably will be laid up now and then in a sanitarium recovering from the effort to follow him but that’s a small matter if you really get into touch finally with that wonderful brain. . . . If there was nothing in all this but the annoyance and uncertainty & confusion – that is, if there were no results – then we might rebel, but there are always results – vital ones. . . . The great schemes, the daring moves in that business have always been [his]. They will continue to be. His one hundredth idea is a stroke of genius. Be on hand to grasp that one hundredth idea.”

Hire or Fire?
So when it comes to genius, do we bolt, or do we stick?  Do we hire or do we fire?

The verdict is unclear.  Enthusiasts maintain that businesses need to actively recruit geniuses, in order to advance the organization. Others, however, insist that geniuses do more harm than good and should be led out to pasture.  Below are two contrasting views.  Take your pick.

Hire ‘Em – Dave Logan, writing for CBS Money Watch
Logan urges companies to hire geniuses, then learn to manage them. Logan acknowledges that often, as bright as geniuses are, they can be incredibly difficult to work with (Logan jokes: “. . . the chance that [the genius] will offend someone in a conservative culture is 100% - in the first week.” Nonetheless, Logan recommends that you pull the trigger, saying: “If the hiring manager knows the tradeoffs, they’ll often do the right thing for everyone by hiring the genius, and then working to minimize the deficits, or clean up messes when they happen.” 

Fire ‘Em – Scott Lowe, independent consultant, in an article for www.techrepublic.com
Says Lowe: “Eventually, when a serious attitude problem exists, it’s more than likely that you’ll need to fire the person for the sake of the rest of the team. . . For my own organization, I hire attitude first, skill second. . . . Look for people who fit our culture and have appropriate skills to do the job. . . . You can teach skills, but teaching attitude is much harder.”

Stick or bolt?  Hire or fire?  It just might take a genius to decide what to do.


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