How to Optimize Influence

A really fascinating write up on how multiple influences are 10x more effective in changing behavior patterns, than any one single source of influence, however efficient or powerful. The success rate is apparently a shift from 4% to 40% when four or more means of influence are used simultaneously.

                                  

This particular study talks of sources of influence, from the personal, social and structural perspectives. It talks of how our most serious problems are rooted in human behavior and how multiple sources of influence are required to create any kind of significant impact.

A short synopsis of the six sources of influence they talk about:

Personal  Motivation: Link to mission and values - They say you cannot motivate people to do what they are not motivated to do. So no level of external motivation can be as influencing as enabling a real motivation, by linking it to deeply held values. Carrots and sticks by themselves have limited reach; more powerful is to put meaning to the action.

Personal Ability: Over Invest in Skill Building - Its not all about motivation. It's also about taking the trouble to find out if there is the ability. That is somehow presumed. Elite performers aren't necessarily faster or smarter, they are though better trained. 

Social Motivation: Harness Peer Pressure - Apparently, whether people acknowledge it or not, there are few motivators as potent as the approval or disapproval of friends and coworkers.

Social Ability: Create Social Support - Identify not just the formal leaders but the opinion leaders and use these as intervention points. 

Structural Motivation:Align Rewards and Ensure Accountability - External rewards need to be real and valuable, and should be used as reinforcement to the personal and social sources of influence.

Structural Ability:Change the environment - A key to changing an organizations mental agenda was to change the data or information that flows down the hierarchy, make it more relevant and aligned to objectives.

Apparently, in organizations or at a personal level where behavioral changes are warranted, most think tanks come up with what they believe will be the best source of influence. Research has clearly shown that its not about which one, but about how many.

If this interests you and you want to read the whole article, which is really long, here it is How to 10x your Influence

Out of One Bowl

Who would think........ One bowl of food, and you'd have 5 different kinds eat out of it ? When I got here from Hyd, I missed my huge terrace...rather, I used to miss the different kinds of birds I used to feed. But now, I don't just have birds, but all of these. How sweet is that.

                                                      That's Cat 2 that adopted us

                                                         This is one gutsy mouse :)

                 That's a super smart crow. He comes and demands
                         and he even manages to drink the milk.

These red vented bulbuls were a nice surprise

                                              The latest entrants :)

And there's a squirrel, but he's been way too quick for me to get a picture.

The 5 Entrepreneurs From The First Six Months

It's so strange how this works. Just yesterday I'd mentioned how I'm so far from achieving the task of enabling 45 micro energy enterprises over the year, and how we'd done only 5 so far.

I was so focused on the numbers........ what went wrong, what are the learnings, let's re-strategize, and all of that, that until we prepared the first half year report for the project, I'd completely failed to see the 5 done, as 5 different people, with 5 different lives, 5 different impacts. Let me share the experience.

First a little on the project itself, as it's always possible that you can find me an entrepreneur too, Bihar, Orissa or Karnataka :)

The project is targeted at identifying, encouraging and enabling under-served micro energy entrepreneurs.

By micro, we're talking as small as Rs.10,000 to Rs.5,00,000. Energy because that's our area of expertise. Our role is not just financial support, (which goes as a soft loan: 0% to 5%, no security, repayments matched to cash flows), but also support on ideation, market survey, supply linkage, operational support and mentorship. We'd like to be with them for 2 to 3 years atleast. While we don't have the bandwidth to be directly involved, I'd want them to know that we're just a phone call away for anything they might need.

Remember, the goal is to encourage entrepreneurship in a segment which has minimal support.

A snapshot of 2 of the cases:

Solar Sewing Machine at Sirsi, Karnataka

                                                       Geeta Hedge at Sirsi

Geeta, lives in a village in Sirsi, Karnataka, and has one manually run sewing machine. She felt that if she had a motorized machine she could cater to the tailoring requirements of the nearby 5 to 6 villages which had a combined population of 1000, who currently travel a long distance to the nearest town to get their clothes stitched. But due to highly erratic power supply a motorized solution didn't work. 

And that's where the solar powered sewing machine came in. Solarizing her machine cost Rs.22,000. The loan from us was Rs.17,000 at 2% pa interest, monthly instalment of Rs.600 for a 3 year period. We want them to bring in some part of the cost....yes, skin in the game is very important. Enables not just commitment, but more importantly, ownership and pride of achievement. 

It's been a month and shes earned Rs. 8000/- in the month. 

Solar Refrigerator, Bailhongal, Karnataka

                                  Basavaraj Yammi with his Solar Powered Fridge

Basavaraj is a small tea stall owner in Bailhongal, selling coffee, tea and small confectionary items to around 75 customers a day and earning around Rs.4000 pm. While the area is connected to the grid, there is no electricity connection available for petty shops, and he uses solar for lighting in his shop. 

The fridge was a first for SELCO as well. The project cost Rs.1,10,000, and as it was a pilot the funding was done by way of half grant and half loan. Loan was Rs.40,000/- at 2% for 3 years. He now sells aerated drinks and curd as well, and in the three months since, his business has gone up by 40%.

That's the kind of opportunity we want to enable.

An Year in Bangalore

And, what an year it's been.

                               

This is an exercise I normally do when I'm at the end of a diary, like a recap into the diary period in terms of experiences, phases, perspectives, insights, lessons....... It's an interesting thing to do.

I'm doing it now for an year in Bangalore, and it's so flush with new experiences and learnings, that what comes to mind foremost is primarily that deep gratitude to everything and everyone that enabled that.

It's been a lot of firsts.....and firsts definitely bring in their wake a lot of tough and trying times....and then also new highs and joys 

Starting from driving down to Bangalore .... last year same day...just Diksha and me. My lesson started right there. I'm asking this friend to drive down with me, saying I wouldn't be allowed to do it alone, and what I get back in return is...."where did the word 'allowed' come from". And that was the beginning of a deep layer of de conditioning. I threw the word out that day, and have never since let it back in. Thanks there pal.

Finding the bestest house possible, and this was where it was again putting to practice a lesson learnt. Once the objective is clear, focus on the process. After two weeks of looking at more than fifteen houses, I was upset and depressed wondering how I was going to find the right place. And I woke up the next morning to put in place the right process. Sat on a borrowed laptop for an hour, listed out 16 brokers, hired a car for the day, and set out at 9 am with a list of almost 50 houses, and at about 4 pm I'd found it...the bestest possible house :)

SELCO has of course been one amazing experience, which I have been writing about fairly consistently. Even yesterday, I walked out of office after a wonderfully satisfying day, fully energized and ready to take on what today seems near impossible. (A target of 45 energy entrepreneurs by end of year, and six months down I've done only 5). Gratitude there to SELCO and all those I work with.

Travel has been crazy extensive,  what with trips to Mandya, Jaipur, Goa, not once but twice, Pune, Bijapur, Belgaum, Udipi, Coorg and finally Bihar.... between work and personal, it's been at one time unnerving and thrilling. 

At a little more abstract level, the biggest thing I guess, was learning to live alone, which started with questions, skepticism, fear and slowly grew to appreciation, joy, love and again deep gratitude. Diksha moving in with me was real bonus, because we've cracked space and acceptance and bonding at an altogether different level. Coorg on the road, or home at Bangalore....great ride Deech.

And cooking, I did my own cooking for the first ever time in life, never liked it enough to do it on daily basis.......but with music and a glass of wine, found it's not that bad (well mostly).

Music and Reading have re entered life in a big way, and am I glad. 

It's not to say, it's all been ups and joyous. I've had some crazy down moments, those moments of intense loneliness that hit you without warning, times when I've broken down at a traffic signal because I had so many things to do and this feeling of having to do it all alone overwhelming me....and I guess that's the space that posts like 'self-pity' 'handling stress' 'we are our own biggest obstacles'  came out of. Huge learnings there. 

And one right on top would be this blog itself. I'm so so so grateful to this friend for having pushed me to write about my first SELCO trip to Mandya, as thus started this wonderful journey of blogging,......of expression, articulation and growth.  It's almost like my Hobbes :)

Also to all my friends who've just been there for me. Girija, who is always just that call away and so encouraging of all that I do. Vishakha with who I have at least two calls a day......a sync that's so perfect that we wonder why other equations can't be like that. Sujatha, who I've gotten to meet so many times since moving here. Luckily, the list is kind of longer, but I'll suffice a heartfelt thanks to all the others on my what's app mode. You guys know, right!

Oh yeah, and my blog readers...especially Mountain Dweller who's been there since the beginning but remained this brilliant mystery. I love how you think....and one day I'd like to know who you are...the mystery is nice and all, but still :)

And Vineyard Grapes and Mars for not just reading, but keeping those comments coming. And of course the others too...Eunice, Kusuma, Kiran, Annapurna, Sagari, Pavithra,Nakul, and all those I don't know. 

And Family ....... Parents, Praveen, Others....Ravi, Dhruva...Diksha. Especially, my Parents...... leaving Hyderabad, with them there, was one of the most heart wrenching things I've done, I think for them and for me

I know this sounds like a vote of thanks....but guess it's in a way what it is...an expression of deep gratitude.

Bottomline....... I wouldn't change a single facet of where I am today. Huge risks...Huge gains worked for me :)

Last one on Bihar

These are some random experiences and pics from the Bihar trip:

The first morning when I came awake, it looked dawn out the window, but my cell phone showed 4.30 am. I thought it must be tube lights and tried to go back to sleep, but was worried my cell phone was cracking up. I got up to check and sure enough it was dawn, and the phone was right. It gets dawn at 4.30 in Bihar. Until then I didn't realize how many longitudes east, Bihar was to Bangalore :)

The Ganges again

Remnants of a Thakur kind mansion

Very popular puffed rice laddus

Letti Chokha, a local tandoor baked chaat

Cute kids manning a little store

Pretty sight huh? To me it felt straight out of those
Asha Parekh, Saira Banu movies

A Government School, a building with no other infrastructure

Roadside tryst with an elephant

There's atleast 600 trucks getting sand off the
Ganges river bed on everyday basis.

On the way

Lai, Gaya's most popular sweet

Like a finale, I also experienced an earth quake when there. We'd just pulled over to get some letti chokha, at 8 in the evening, and all of a sudden the car shakes violently, and Ranjan's like ...bhookamp hora hai kya? bhoomkamp hai.....and I didn't realize he was serious. But next day the papers read 5.8 on the richter, and Ranjan's like...bhola tha na aapko? It's just 200 kms off Nepal, and the after shocks of the recent large quake were still happening. Earth shaking experience for sure :)

Vishnu Paada Temple - Gaya

It's called Vishnu Paada, as it has Vishnu's footprint imprinted, incised into a block of  basalt rock which is the sanctum sanctorium of this temple.

It's the story of how Gaya got its name. The demon Gayasura who lived there, through severe meditation, acquired divine powers such that anyone who saw or touched him went straight to heaven. This intruded on the power of Yamaraja, the lord of death, who appealed to Vishnu.  So Lord Vishnu killed the demon by putting his foot on his head, (which is the imprint) after granting him the boon that the area surrounding the ground covered by his body would become the holiest place on earth, and be known as Gaya Kshetra. 

The temple is well known for being a pinda daana vedi ( a site for making offerings to ones ancestors). There are fifty-five places in India to perform pinda daan and of these, Gaya is the most important, as mentioned in the puranas.

There's also a story of Sita making the pinda daana for Dhritharashtra; Rama gets suspicious about where she's been, and she looks to the river for evidence, but the river doesn't co-operate. Sita curses the river saying it will flow but never be seen. So Phalgun river always flows underground, just below the surface where it can be scooped out even by hand any time of the year. And it's only in the monsoons that it flows a few inches to feet above the surface, like it was now.

There is a story from the Ramayana at every town we go to in Bihar, what with a lot of the vanavas time of Rama,Laksmana and Seeta having been spent in the forests of Bihar.

The temple in the background. Couldn't get a better picture.

Actually standing in the middle of the river Phalgun. While I didn't want to, Bholanath insisted I walk right in due to the punyakshethra thing :)

Temple view from the river, though you can't see the Gopurams.

An overall interesting experience. 

What you Can't Take...You Can't Give

Exploring a thought:

In order to give, you need to be able to take
In order to take, you need to be able to give

Simple enough? Like the what goes around, comes around?

This is one place I think balance makes for beautiful. And any imbalance is that much cause for discord, dissonance, conflict and such

Let's delve a little deeper.

What is to give? Give, and give what the other wants, as that is to give
What is to take? Take, take what you want, long as its what the other wants to give 

A balance there is what would be rta.....beauty, harmony. 

To be able to give joy....you need to be able to take joy
To be able to give love....you need to be able to take love

A nice aspirational space to be....I'm surely going to try