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In the book Pragmatic thinking and learning, the author while explaining about Dreyfus model introduces the martial arts term Shu Ha Ri to help learn something new and become an expert.

Shu – Copy and imitate exactly like how it is taught. Follow a recipe and practice by just copying. This helps to get introduced to new terms & concepts; imitating something means we are doing it the right way. In this phase it is more important to be right than be original, just like an artist learning brush strokes with various brush tips or a musician trying to play every note in her instrument. The advantage of imitating something is that brain subconsciously develops motor memory for the given task, it will soon proceed to a state where the instincts take over the conscience for the same task.

Ha – As a result of learning by imitation the motor memory could have become strong enough such that the new tasks are performed with less mental energy. This gives rooms to experiment with newer settings, like a new cook trying to tweak the recipe to her needs. Changes from the recipes in smaller increments greatly enhances the visibility of the subject and promotes more deeper understanding. Deliberate practice to understand the shortcomings and great areas will widen the scope of experiments.

Ri – This is the stage where one becomes the master or the practitioner of the art. If the skill involved is non verbal then almost no thinking would be involved in performing a task. Top sportspersons, artists, musicians fall into this place; as mentioned by Malcolm Gladwell in the book Outliers people would have spent considerable time practicing the task to become a master or an outlier.

Keep in mind these simple steps Shu-Ha-Ri when beginning to learn new things. It will help us bring focus to our learning and cut out the fear of failure.

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Most of the times when it comes to a mid-week party I observe that some of my peers follow work hard and party harder style and end up skipping the first session of work the next day or not turn up at all. Indulgence is a key part in everyone’s life, it gives a sense fulfillment and at that moment of gratification the feeling is indescribable. The flip side of indulgence is that after the sense of fulfillment it creates an even more bigger void such the next time we need more of it. I dont know why but our brain and mind always likes to have a negative balance. The moment something is achieved then the bar is raised higher; this is what drives the economies and civilizations, it is deep within us.

Hara Hachi Bu – I came across this term when I was in school reading about why many people in Okinawa, Japan live very long (more than 100 years). I forgot what the term was but the message stayed on my mind. The message was that stop eating if you think you can take one more serving to feel full. The beauty of that message is that it is not true just for eating, it is true for anything we do. If we stop indulging in something before we feel satisfied then the negative balance already exists and there is no compensation done by the body and the mind.

Thanks to the book Presentation Zen, I was able to recall the term again. In the book it is mentioned that the same applies for presentations, finish the presentation at a place where it will leave the audience wanting for more. If done that way, the curiosity will drive people to dive deeper into the subject or to reach back to the presenter. Sports stars also have an unwritten rule that they retire at the peak of their career.

Deferred gratification is the key to help us have a self control. The cause and effect are not immediately related but there are long term case studies like the Standford Marshmallow Experiment which shows that deferred gratification is a good trait for a happy life and career. Hara Hachi Bu.

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Malcolm Gladwell mentions an example in his book “The Tipping Point” that when the number of people who can act in the scene increases then the number of people who will act will decrease considerably. My observation on this has been very similar when working with project teams, I guess that is almost everyone’s observation as the big ball of mud is often noted in the codebase of large teams. Gladwell says that people are lot more sensitive to their environment than they seem. It is no surprise that the retrospective prime directive says

Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand

It is so surprising that how an individual would never do something alone will do that when doing it as a group or vice versa. Brain (mind) also keeps growing beyond the physical growth and can reach very high levels of maturity over the course of years. An writeup on Constructive developmental theory by Peter Pruyn predicts that around 58% of the population is stuck at the maturity level “Socialized mind”. At this level of maturity an individual’s alignment would be to conform to the local group leading to the perception of belonging to a clan. The fear of exclusion will drive most of the individual’s action. It is sort of a phobia which will prevent people from moving to higher levels of maturity as mentioned in Constructive developmental theory.

What can we do to remove this fear?

One inspiration I drew was from this ted talk. In this talk, David Kelley mentions about Guided Mastery, a technique derived from the works of Albert Bandura. Using this technique people with a specific fear get away from that fear by slowly building up the confidence; stepping up the challenge in small increments where people get used to the fearful activity but not at the level which is overwhelming. Some more info about that technique is here. In a team setup mostly people find it hard to take up a task of fixing something or letting their peers know that something is wrong and we need to correct. The reason people find it hard is because of the fear of being wrong and getting rejected. By making sure and enforcing the fact in the team that no one will be penalized just because s/he was wrong or blew a whistle; also getting the new comers feel very comfortable with this style of communication in a phased manner.

I enjoyed the transformation I went through as a team member in such a team, it definitely turned out to be a high performing team.