TL;DR:1 point for right answer. 0 point for wrong answer. 0 point for no answer.
-Norwegian system for allotting scores in exams1 point for right answer. -1 point for wrong answer. 0 point or no answer.
-Transactional systems for allotting scores in exams
This essay is an exploration on various happy and happier places I have had the luck of associating myself with. There have been some common elements I have seen that makes some more happier than others. Together, we will explore some whys and a possible how.
But first, let’s establish some terms.
Collective
A collective could be any group of people working towards a goal. A family adopting an immigrant child. A group of brain surgeons operating a patient. Five software engineers making the next Airbnb. Or a group of neighbors cleaning the common playground.
Objectivity and Subjectivity
Objective things are things which are true today and tomorrow. They don’t change when context is applied. 1 + 1 will always be 2. The sun rises from the east and sets in the west. A well-written piece of software will execute the same way if we ask it the same way.
We can trust objective things as a collective and as individuals.
Subjective things often change with context. “On the next turn, there’s a shop in about 100 meters.” For me, the next turn is left because I’m Indian and we drive on the left side of the road. For you it may be right. The next turn is subjective.
We can trust subjective things as individuals. Not as a collective. No matter how obvious they seem.
Signals and Noise
A signal is objectivity in action.
It could be a reading on the thermometer when your child is sick. The symptoms of a disease that a patient is suffering from. The blueprint of the foundations for a building. The amount of revenue generated in the 1st year after launching the next Airbnb.
It’s what you see is what you get.
Noise used to be a signal which is now unpredictable.
It’s the doorbell which only works when you press hard enough. It’s when the symptoms given by a patient changes with the doctor being visited. It’s inside the decision of the next turn.
It’s what you see is what you get — but sometimes.
Let’s begin.
Amplification
Signals get amplified when more signals are added. When a handful of iron fillings are dropped around a magnet, they align on the magnetic field. From a bird’s eye view, there is a predictability and pattern.
It makes it mentally easy to find patterns which is natural to us.
Noise also gets amplified when more noise is added. When we shine light in the middle of a dusty room in a warm summer day, the dust particles often are bouncing off of each other. Each particle adding inertia to the other. From a bird’s eye view, there is no predictability.
It makes it mentally harder to find patterns.
Signals and noise are also present in decision-making. They manifest in our actions via our thoughts which come in the form of cognitive biases. Cognitive biases come from one of these two versions of you:
When these two Yous do not match, anxiety happens.
And in an anxious system, productivity plummets down at a rapid speed and the system collapses on itself. The causes which led to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster is perhaps a prime example.
Gradient Descent
Let’s say you’ve been a lead on a team for a while, and you pride yourself on being efficient, and results-driven. You don’t see the need for excessive emotional engagement. Then, a new lead, Pete, joins the team. Pete is always checking in on teammates, offering support, and making sure everyone feels heard.
During your first project meeting together, Pete suggests starting with a team check-in to see how everyone is feeling about the workload. You immediately feel annoyed because their approach seems unnecessary and time-wasting to you. You assume Pete’s approach will slow you down and make the team too soft. However, you ignore the fact that Pete’s focus on morale might actually improve collaboration and reduce burnout in the long run. Representative bias.
As you start working with Pete, you notice that some team members seem more motivated and engaged because of Pete’s supportive approach. However, you find yourself focusing on the moments when Pete’s behavior leads to longer meetings or delays in decision-making. You give those moments more weight because they confirm your initial desire to see Pete as an ineffective leader. Confirmation bias.
Pete’s initial suggestion of a team check-in becomes the "anchor" for your expectations of how they operate. Even as you observe moments where Pete’s decision leads to better teamwork or creative problem-solving, you continue to judge them based on that first impression of being overly emotional and inefficient. You dismiss any evidence that their style might have value in certain situations. Anchoring bias.
As the project progresses, you notice that some team members are thriving under Pete’s leadership and delivering high-quality work. However, you recall stories of other teams that focused too much on feelings and collaboration but failed to meet deadlines. You focus on those stories and convince yourself that this team will follow the same path. Survivorship bias.
It is very, very important to note that cognitive biases should not be judged as good or bad. Pete probably had an altruistic bias, who knows?
Mindfulness
Biases shape us in our own way, everyone has it on some levels or other, they are very important for creativity, craftsmanship, and growth of us as individuals. They are the force behind our opinions. But it is more important to note that they are not us — they are a function where the input is our interaction with others resulting in an output which is our individual decision making - they are the result of our interaction with others.
Noisy collectives often happen when collective biases start flying around like the dust particles - more conflicting. There is brownian motion.
For noise reduction to happen, signals must be added. It’s inertia. It’s the superposition principle.
For signals to exist, objectives must be added. If there are conflicting objectives at the same time, are they objective?
To help the child feel comfortable as he adjusts to his new family's lifestyle, to have zero safety incidents while constructing the building, to get 5000 paying customers in the first 6 months of the next Airbnb, or to make sure to the whole place is cleaned within 4 hours. In businesses, the leadership often setup objectives like these.
Then, the collective strives to complete these objectives in Kaizen cycles and measures their progress by frequently checking signals. In most SaaS teams, they’re mostly either Scrum or Kanban which come actionably from staying agile.
These signals could be to see how many times is the child playing with the step-siblings vs alone. The number and demographics of the users who convert from free trials to paying over some time. Or the number of clean sections of a playground.
“The child is playing alone because he doesn’t like the step-siblings”, someone in the collective observes looking at the signals. “80% of our power users are not converting because we don’t have PMF yet”. Or, “The dirty pile is bigger than the clean pile because people are tired and they need a break.”
These are not impossible conclusions. They could have had a fundamental attribution error.
Turns out, that the child does play with the step siblings when they play indoors. Does the child enjoy indoors more? Most customers who are churning are all using the app on Samsung TVs. Do we support Samsung? The signs on the dirty and clean sections used symbols of clean and dirty. Were people confused?
More signals mean better decisions.
In the early 20th century, the rise of automobiles led to numerous accidents due to the lack of organized traffic systems. 31 people were killed and so many were injured that it went unrecorded. “Cars must be banned because people do not know how to drive them” said one member of a collective.
This was not a completely ineffective conclusion.
A police officer in Detroit then came up with a brilliant idea of inventing the first three lens traffic signal. Detroit went on to be the first city to use stop signs, lane markings, one-way streets and traffic signals. Soon, electric signals followed. The invention of the traffic signals enabled us to have more seamless transportation - increasing road safety, urban development and effective economic impact.
Optimistic Detachment
For happier collectives, the end result and the collective are not the same. There is a sense optimistic detachment which helps them fail forward towards the objective instead of pivoting for the subjective.
When the collective and the end result are optimistically detached, the end result just shines better.
Authors who work on a manuscript also understand this because in the process of crafting something, the crafter often has an immersive experience - they enjoy crafting - its riveting. They often goto beta readers which act like signals. They help them keep the storyline pushing towards the objective - what is moving things forward and what is not , is this dialogue/scene really moving the protagonist’s arc? Is it moving the plot forwards? or is it the result of an immersive experience?
Then, there is removal — which may be painful but necessary for the objective - the audience’s experience.
There’s nothing wrong in having too much output of immersive experience. But if the fiction is for readers/audience first (and not for the crafter first), it usually follows the time and tested frameworks like Aristotle’s Three Act Structure or Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey (which is but a more actionable three-act structure).
The Three Act Structure resonates with an audience because most of us experience life in three stages - childhood, adulthood, retirement. It’s present in most commercially successful work of fiction. It is present in standup comedy, in bar-jokes, It is also present in the tiniest knock-knock joke - beginning, middle, conclusion.
Great software happens when the code is written for other engineers first (to read and maintain). Great UX happens when the design is for the users first (so context switching is less). Great products happen when the consumers’ ease are put first (so they can have maximum outcome with minimum work). Great societies happen when people are put first. Which in turn makes the whole system shine - including the maker of the society.
At the heart of cold war negotiations, President Ronald Raegan used a Russian proverb - Trust, but verify. I think it’s a beautiful proverb because it emphasizes on trusting first. It is innocent until proven guilty. It’s “let’s try and see if it works for them”. It’s a tad bit optimistic.
It’s not verify (from our biases which don’t put others first) and then trust. It is not guilty until proven innocent. It’s not “I don’t think its gonna work”. When we unintentionally go down that road, we end up gatekeeping innovation and new ideas.
Perhaps, the best example is - when Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone in 1876, it had absolutely no value for anyone - not even to himself - whom would he call?
But since the idea was about putting others first, it resulted in more telephones. The value of each telephone grew with each new telephone being added into the network. It resulted in a series of network effects with a wonderful viral coefficient. Without telephones, there would be no internet. It is also the same network effects which powers great marketplaces.
Great things happen when the objectives speak in favor of others’ happiness first.
Empathy
When we are not mindful to put others first, we unintentionally tend to put leashes on everyone so they walk for the objective. When we are mindful to put others first, we end up childproofing so that the objective is satisfied even if some of us don’t walk on some days.
When we put others first, it encourages everyone to be truly cross-functional and easily modular. It is much much faster to make mistakes for everyone and the time to recover is fast. The faster we recover from mistakes, the faster we learn. Productivity shines. Product shines.
When we don’t, everyone is assigned individual roles. It is slower to make mistakes and slower to learn. Productivity doesn’t shine. Product doesn’t shine.
When we put others first, everyone becomes jack of all trades and masters of none. It results in friendships, trust, and vulnerability. It results in true relationships which extend beyond the collectives. There is love for each other. There is sadness when people leave the collective. It results in what you see is what you get. You start getting happy when others become happy.
The smiles are non-transactional. We laugh at ourselves when we stumble.
When we don’t, everyone becomes masters of something but jack of nothing. It results in more transactional relationships, trust becomes transactional, we don’t put much thought when people leave the collective, the you which you think you are starts to not match the you which you want others to see. It results in what you see is what you get — but transactionally.
The smiles become transactional. We get upset at ourselves when we stumble.
When we put others first, optimism shines. We discuss ideas and solutions. Empathy towards each other flourishes because making mistakes is safer and forgiveness flourishes. There are gifts, there are donations, there is rehabilitation. We raise problems by making solutions. The product shines. Signals starts converting noise into signals.
When we don’t, pessimism shines more. We focus more on people than ideas. Empathy towards each other diminishes, mistakes are forwarded onto others, along with forgiveness. When the noise elevates more, gifts tend to become bribes, rehabilitation tends to become punishments. Learning ability drops because it is no longer safe to make mistakes which results in raising less solutions. The product delivers less. Noise nudges signals into noise.
When there is less empathy in the system, we still contribute but from a distance, in worst case scenarios, we choose to join another collective, the UX is sub-optimum, DX is sub-optimum, HX is sub-optimum, the collective is sub-optimum — the end result delivers lesser than promised.
Gradient Ascent
Is there a correlation between a collective’s empathy and its goal’s effectiveness?
I think they’re directly proportional.
The more tolerance, empathy, and forgiveness a system has, the friendlier and more tolerant the end result becomes. The end-result starts going the extra mile without trying a lot — it delivers much more than promised. The less empathy a system has, the more transactional the end result becomes. It meets requirements by trying a lot.
It starts showing in the way the collective operates, in the experience. Be it developer experience, user experience, collective experience, or individual experience. It starts showing in the way the collective interacts with each other.
Most businesses are more transactional in nature. There is absolutely nothing wrong in that because without them being transactional, there can’t be strong objectives. And without objectives, there cannot be an end-result since there are no signals.
But for businesses to truly shine, the end result must really shine. And the end-result is the result of a collective’s experience as a whole.
But the end result truly shines when the collective is less transactional. Then how do we keep scaling happiness?
Non-transactional empathy. :)
Reinforcement Learning
This essay is also heavily based on confirmation bias. Because there are similar elements I have seen in all kinds of happy collectives where the whole collective feels happier, including me — and there is pattern matching. It confirms my desire to find what makes both you and me happy equally. Maybe you a little bit more than me :)
Finding patterns is how we all operate - it is our innate setting which happens unconsciously. When more and more people find the same patterns, schools of thoughts happens. It is also how philosophy happens. It is how science happens but also how pseudoscience happens.
There is nothing wrong in finding patterns. It is the chain of biases which puts others’ happiness first or not. It never means ignoring our happiness.
I like to think everyone can come up with their own happiness systems when they keep returning to objectives which are for others first. When we are too engrossed in heavily transactional systems, our chain of biases tend to become more transactional — even when we never intend them to be — analysis seldom happens when we have a very high velocity.
Maybe including more non-transactional elements in a system is the key. Maybe that’s when we get true happiness which keeps scaling non-transactionally.
It is never about a hundred percent signaling system — because that does not exist. It is the presence of noise when signals guide the way; in our hearts, in our heads, in the people we interact with and the goals we strive for — individually as well as for the collective.
It is reading more for the objectives which put others first non-transactionally. It is ask and ye shall receive — for others first. It is in wishing well — and calibrating for equilibrium using non-transactional empathy.
Trust (while putting others first), but verify.