Ageing - the absolute truth !

Ageing and the body’s final demise is inevitable! It is nature’s very beautiful way of recycling and regeneration! Ageing cannot be reversed. It cannot be wished away. When you are young and bubbling with aspirations and boundless energy, the world is your oyster and ageing seems to be as improbable a possibility as your neighbourhood puppy growing a pair of delicate wings. It initially dawns on you in your early 40s with the first signs of a receding hairline and unrelenting puffiness under your eyes. It brightens up in the horizon in your mid-40s with an incorrigibly expanding waistline, with your facial vegetation showing its first signs of unmistakable greying. It stares tenaciously into your eyes as you start pushing your 50s, with you suddenly waking up, wide-eyed, to the idea of the inevitability, making spirituality a very real alternative to exuberance and flamboyance. As you painstakingly wade towards your 60s, you finally reconcile to the fact that you indeed have aged and that it was always a one-way street!

So what do you do with it – about something that is inevitable and that no human ever had any influence over, whatsoever? Well, the answer is simple – learn to enjoy the process! You are not the first one. Trust me, you will certainly not be the last one! So, why fret over whatever is left in you and what’s gone? So, go out and enjoy your moments under the sun. Make hay while it shines. Take care of your body, mind and soul. Start ageing gracefully!
I have tried to adopt a simple 7-pronged approach during this cycle of ageing and ultimate regeneration. Let me share the same with all of you, though I am convinced that everyone is incredibly unique and will have to design their own very personalised approach.
1. Exercise at least 3-4 days a week – walk, jog, run, swim, practice yoga, hit the gym, pump iron, enroll in marshal art classes, learn the latest dance form – pick up any activity of your choice.

2. Make right choices of food. Eat in moderation. Cheat occasionally. Share your food.
3. Inculcate a hobby – reading, writing, painting, music, gardening, traveling – any hobby.
4. Form new friendships. Go beyond the surface and connect with people and nature at a deeper level. Spread love.
5. Start contributing back to the society in whichever way you can. Help! Help! Help!
6. Pamper yourself – take an occasional facial treatment or a relaxing massage. Reward yourself for even the most inconspicuous achievements. Try not to be too harsh on yourself for all your goof-ups. Loosen up a bit.
7. LAUGH more often! It takes nothing, yet it’s incredibly rewarding for you and everyone around you. Initially it may need a bit of an effort, with time it will become an inseparable and lingering part of your persona.
Be kind, forgiving, respectful, graceful and of course, grateful. Protect nature. Let go your regrets. Live your life as it is offered to you, to its fullest!

Live | Love | Share !! ... ... Happy Ageing !!

5 Emerging Trends of Modern Retail

Emerging technologies and platforms will fundamentally transform the way buyers interact with their preferred merchants and brands. New battle lines are being drawn across various channels of retail and radical shift in buying pattern and preferences will exhibit pronounced shift from traditional standards.

5 trends that will contour retail in the immediate future:

1. Brands will increasingly represent a certain culture or ethos

Shopping, these days, are being increasingly driven by emotions than by sense of utility or the size of the buyer’s wallet. Millennials are gravitating towards brands that either demonstrate character or that seem to represent their personal attitude and preferences. Changing preferences and growing social consciousness has added newer dimensions and challenges to how brands represent and position themselves. More often than not brands are having to re-engineer their internal culture to align with and emanate a certain kind of external identity.

Funnily though brands and their ambassadors are increasingly becoming culture-coders-and-shapers, pushing consumers out of traditional strictures and shopping parameters. The consequences will only emerge with time, but businesses today proactively and decisively absorb and reflect the contemporary cultural buzz across the whole plethora of media – traditional and new age. Ostensibly more brands are influencing and shaping people’s choice, almost setting up wire-frames and stereotypes of a collective external cultural identity that ensures one’s integration with the modern world out there. Yet the brand themselves cannot be absolved of their views and responsibilities towards the emerging world views, values and cultural transformations.   

2. Quicker fulfillment & deliveries for online commerce

Most brands that have online presence, with similar product offerings and mixes, have started appearing largely homogeneous and are scampering to demonstrate differentiators. Recent studies indicate growing consumer impatience while waiting for product shipments. They are unwilling to wait more than 4 odd days now, down from nearly from a 6-day wait in 2012. Drones may only add the ‘Wow!’ element. In order to stay sharp and deliver distinct value to their customers, in the increasingly saturating e-commerce ecosystem, e-commerce platforms will have to comprehensively re-work their logistics and supply chain to ensure shorter wait for consumers. 

 3. Experiential merchandising on the rise

The millennials clearly are wary of the old model of retailing where businesses focused strictly on products getting sold! The millennials are increasingly demonstrating their affinity towards the experience rather than the product itself that they actually purchase, in-store or online. This trend of penchant for engaging and engrossing experiences while shopping is here to stay and grow, and it won’t just be served by re-modelling of stores or web pages. Technology will play a huge role in adding layers and astonishing experiences around tradition retail models. Advent and proliferation of social, mobile, analytics, cloud, virtual reality, IoT and AI will encourage brands to reinvent their merchandising strategies.

4. Subscription … subscription … subscription

Going by a McKinsey report, over 15% of internet shoppers signed up for subscriptions in 2017 and there are no signs of that going down anytime soon in the future. Curated products and assortments, in keeping with one’s past buying pattern and experiences only adds to the experiential retailing paradigm. If a consumer gets extended commercial benefits for signing up, along with assurance of deliveries of preferred merchandise on pre-defined frequencies, he would be more than happy to stay hooked as a loyal shopper, for long. This simmering pattern of curated personalized merchandised, delivered to the consumer’s door on a regular basis has started to look like a trend that has arrived to stay and will continue to gain momentum.   

5. Omni-Channel is here to stay

Proving detractors’ doom’s day predictions wrong, brick-and-mortar stores are not going anywhere, anytime soon. Their roles have transformed from just being the last mile point-of-sale counters to being an important cog in the much larger scheme of things as far as merchandising, interest generation, customer experience and branding is concerned. It is no more a dichotomy, rather an emerging truth that businesses will have to adopt, adapt to and grow across multiple channels.

Shoppers belonging to different decades have different shopping patterns, tastes, methods and choices. Whether they’re from the 70s, the 80s or the 90s, or whether they’re the Gen-X, Y, Z or the Millennials or the Baby Boomers – they all have their primary preferences of shopping methods and platforms. It has been observed that individual platforms and shopping experience have a direct and measurable impact on their buying pattern and decisions. The challenge for the retailers lie in being able to be seen and be actively present across platforms. At the same time, they need to create a framework of logistics, empowered by technology, to keep fulfillment streamlined for business across channels. For consumers, they seek a seamless shopping experience across various channels including but not limited to physical stores, kiosks, shop-in-shop, b2c websites, social media, marketplaces, etc. 

The evolving retail landscape entails preparedness for brands to be able to charm and capture the buyers’ imagination at one or multiple channels of sale, keeping them engaged throughout the cycle of their decision making and eventually monetising their preference at some point-of-sale, online or brick-and-mortar. Focus on post-sale service, across channels and quick resolution of consumer grievance, if any, are bound to hold retailers in good stead, in the long run. Embracing these emerging trends and the transforming pattern of preferences and leveraging rapidly evolving and fundamentally disruptive retail technology landscape, brands and businesses can keep their nose ahead in the blitzkrieg of upcoming brands and aspirational retail players.   

Conflicts are good !

Conflicts are good!

The world today is not as much worried about the next world war, that could potentially shove humanity towards extinction. It is far more distressed with the fall-outs of the hundreds of geographically dispersed, localised, smaller geo-political and military conflicts and skirmishes. These scuffles are far more complex, heterogeneous, multi-polar and unique where a ‘one-fits-all’ solution doesn’t work. No wonder minds go numb whenever we are informed about the next big conflict that’s brewing in our neighbourhood !

   

Now then, we are not here today to discuss about global conflict mitigation strategies. Let’s leave that bit for the elected governments, their well-oiled battalions and their astute national security advisors.

What about the conflicts in our daily lives? What about the conflicts that exist within the contour of our homes, our societies, our offices? How bad are they? Do they rob us of our efficiencies? Do the simmering struggles lead to burn-outs? Does the organisation’s productivity remain compromised? Is it a reality that they are inevitable and unavoidable? Is it like that throbbing pile in one’s rectal canal that never really goes away completely – there are just good and bad days? So much so that you eventually accept its presence and learn to live with it?

Although, the word ‘conflict’ itself is considered blasphemous, I always felt there’s more to it than what meets our eyes. When we think of the word ‘conflict’, we usually tend to picture shouting contests, uncontrolled rage, frosty stares or nerve-wracking and stressful hostilities at workplace. Have we not made conflict synonymous with disharmony, discord and hostility? Well, not necessarily. Outcome of conflicts are generally expected to be binary, resulting in a classic winner-looser scenario. But there actually are many more dimensions to this that we often conveniently ignore or simply fail to recognise. Conflicts can be both positive and productive.

No denying the fact that conflicts are never easy, but it can also provide well-deserved ammo to growth and change, which is good. Pain is rarely desirable, yet it is pain that can wake us up, can prepare us for eventualities and stimulate us to react to challenging circumstances. Conflict is almost like tea leaves – you never know how strong they are until they are subjected to boiling water !

I remember one of my much celebrated corporate bosses once insisted that some degree of organisational conflict is actually desirable and may not be completely dysfunctional. It sometimes could be indicative of commitment to organisational goals, as individuals get competitive in trying to come up with the best possible solution. That in turn can encourage challenge, heighten the individual stakeholders’ concern and responsiveness towards the issues, and lead to increase in productive effort. This sort of conflict is essential, in absence of which an organisation tends to lose its zing and eventually stagnates !

 

In case of an organisational conflict, results vary, largely depending upon how the individuals involved in it choose to approach it. If approached positively, conflicts can be stimulating and can improve quality of decisions. Conflicts and disagreements many a times lead to lateral thinking and contrarian solutions. They may test positions and personal beliefs but they almost always help foster fresh ideas, approaches and alternatives. Lending firmer push towards goals, conflicts can help sprout creativity and imaginativeness of groups and individuals in an organisation. The raw energy of conflicts, if channeled aptly, has the latent potential of amazing organisational metamorphosis.

While dealing with a conflict, competent and healthy individuals tend to seek more information to achieve resolution and not browbeat each other. Strong disagreements can trigger deeper deliberations and examinations. Pragmatic decisions are often made in presence of empirical data, that may not have been available in absence of a conflict. Though some of the emotions associated with conflicts may be negative in nature, yet it also speaks volumes about involvement and participation. A powerful and engaging argument within an organisation is more often than not better than bland apathy. Individuals may either argue to make up later or agree to disagree with each other ! The idea is to be able to disagree without being ‘disagreeable’.

Conflicts are not only about someone winning at the cost of another. It should rather be about how the organisation or a group or even a cause could benefit. Avoidance can rarely be good and at best serve a temporary purpose. Conscious effort to stay guarded in order to avoid conflict can restrain groups from active participation and may result in frustration. On the other hand, conflicts with the intent of undermining the interest of the other, or even aimed at a personal win at all cost is a template for disaster. A purely win-loss model of conflict raises complacency in ‘winners’ with little incentive to improve. While ‘losers’ tend become captives of their resentment. In such cases, instead of resolution, conflicts tend to gather mass and become stronger, often leading to anxiety and re-surfacing of unresolved conflicts. Conflicts however should be managed, before they degenerate into low grade verbal assaults, that can cause irreparable damage to individual egos and sensitivities.  

Conflict almost always gets a bad rap on the knuckles. We inevitably assume that conflict leads to collapse of a relationship. Many of us avoid conflict like plague, thinking that if we close our eyes to a potential encounter, it wouldn’t exist. But if managed effectively, organisational conflicts can serve as catalyst, rather than as a deterrent, towards organisational growth. The key is to develop a high level of individual and collective trust within the organisation and not take conflicts and assessments made during such exchanges personally. Then it becomes fairly easy to deal with inflated egos and personality clashes and work collectively towards resolution. It is always good to talk more and not less!  

8 Easy Ways To Become A Very Bad Leader

What happens, when as a leader you think you are the smartest of 'em all?

Well, you simply have managed to discover the brightest recipe for becoming a genuinely bad leader! Congratulations!

Let's unravel 8 well-guarded secrets of becoming an truly bad leader. Follow them and you would secure your place in posterity. 

1.      Criticise, criticise, criticise some more …

Use criticism as a tool of leadership, always doubt the abilities of the very team that you once handpicked – ensure that you lead a pack of demotivated, uninspired individuals, going through the paces, in an unproductive environment. If anything, it would certainly pump your ego, at the expense of making others feel small. Isn’t it a great incentive to start with?   

2.      Attention! At ease. Attention! At ease. Attention! At ease. Attention …  

To become a bad leader, you must assume that every single member of the unit will react in an identical way to your leadership style. It’s a cardinal mistake for individuals to believe that you’d recognize and adapt to the variety in strengths and expectations. They are all clones; flip-flop switches; you know them all so very well. They don’t need an awesome story to stay collectively committed towards a great vision. They are so wrong and you are so right!

     

3.      Spank them all to glory – their rear belongs to you …

You are a magician, trust me! Don’t believe in those naysayers who celebrate great leaders that swear by talent, competency and empowerment. You rightfully believe flogging can turn the floppiest of donkeys into powerful stallions! You are such a bad leader already and you can become worse by having them convinced over a period of time that they indeed are lucky to have their rear diligently assaulted as a price for their unquestioned faith and servitude. You are relentless in your pursuit of turning the mundane into the precious. You could soon become the first alchemist, that humanity would ever produce.

4.      Mistakes are criminal! Kill them with impunity …

A good leader encourages his team to commit mistakes and learn from them – that’s so utterly imprudent! To be a bad leader of substance, you must always ensure that no one ever dares to commit any mistake at all. None whatsoever. You may permit them to be flattered by allowing them fleeting moments of empowerment but decisively deceive them by meticulously shooting down every plan they make and every decision they take, using your rightful power of veto. You are the highness, only you are allowed to fail. For others it must be strictly forbidden.

5.      Everyone must believe there’s a plan, no one should question …

If you have to reach the echelons of bad leadership just demolish every alternative idea, annihilate every seeker of truth, decimate every query that you don’t have an answer to. No one should ever dare to question your grand vision. No one is quarter as good as you are, neither should they aspire to be so. You are the holy cow! Are they out of their mind to question the prudence of your prophetic vision? No one should ever dare to call your bluff, even if they know that you are spinning a web of lies, to satisfy your short-term goals. Every brain around you must believe in your infallibility.

6.      Never ever get rid of bad people …

Good leaders try and keep the plate clean – how reckless and foolhardy of them. Bias, bias and more bias. That’s how it should be. You need a coterie. You need a team that warms up to your weirdest of bull-crap. A bad leader must have enormous charisma – you must never have to deal with a ‘no’ from anyone around you. Good people will question you more often than not, seek recognition for competency, try to make decisions and base their actions on what they believe is good for the team in the long run. They are bad influence. Chuck them, good riddance! You must invest in bad people.

7.      Divide and rule … must make it your gospel truth!

Never ever allow a unit, to its truest philosophy or spirit! The more divided they are, more secure is your leadership. Trust me when I say that you can get away with murder, when you are an inspirational leader of a bunch of shady crabs! If they ever get to see merit in operating as a unit, a genuine team, your heist would come to an end. You must never allow that. Unity is disastrous for you. You have to become an iconic bad leader, the worse of ‘em all, you see. Of course, the secret is to be able to create a closed coterie of drooling suckers who would start salivating at the slightest scent of your irresistibly corrupt ideas. The rest should be taken to the cleaners!  

8.      Care to become an iconic bad leader? Be a bloody good student of bad leadership first …

Leadership streaks show way before you reach the helm. Never ever think your team achieving their individual goals will add up to your grand vision. Kill every personal dream. Shoot down every aspiration that raises its ugly head. Inspiring others is such a waste of time, just ask people to follow your infallible vision, assuming that you ever had one, other than making some quick personal gains. Never try to become better, you were already so damn good, what’s the point in wasting time? Never try to help people achieve greater competence, better relationships or even liberty of choices. Never give people their due credit, never – you don’t want anyone in your team to get too cocky for your comfort! Belittle their modesty as their weakness, trample their confidence, enslave them till their souls are completely robbed of any trace life or dream! You have then truly achieved what you set out to at the very start –a very bad leader!  

     

10 Steps to Happy Parenting !

Happy Parenting

When it comes to raising happy, balanced kids, behavioural science has a few proven guidelines to ensure they turn out just fine. From bringing in the fun element to leaving them alone, just at the right time – here are 10 research-backed advises from socio-psychological sciences.

Jokes do the trick …

Ease up! Let go all unwanted emotional baggage. Research papers have claimed over the years that when parents lighten up, pretend to be funny, be playful or crack a joke or two with their kids, it allows the children to think creatively, develop the art of communication and human networking, and above all manage stress better. Parents who do not mind being the clown, often have their children thanking them later in their lives!

Being positive is the way to go …

Well this certainly is a no-brainer! How often have we seen that parents who repeatedly rough up their kids or resort to physical admonishments and outright violence, while handling their children’s failures or mistakes, land up raising overtly aggressive kids and young adults. The bad news is that behavioural belligerence at an early age (sometimes as early as 5-7 years) is a sure sign of uncontrollable aggression later in life, even towards the loved ones. So, it’s like that vicious chain of a ‘violent parents – violent kid – violent teenager – violent parent’, that’s hard to break. So, reassess yourself, as a parent. Modify, if need be. You’ll thank yourself in the long run.

Cultivate a culture of self-compassion …

Self-pity and guilt has been well-recognized to play havoc among parents. Especially, with those who get to spend less time with their kids or those who are not equipped to extend certain social and material privileges to their children. It is very advisable to duck the undercurrents of remorse or self-pity. Self-kindness, empathy towards others, awareness and recognition of personal challenges, without being judgmental or apologetic is an extremely handy life-skill. Getting carried away or bottling up is certainly not the path to take. Children learn the art of self-compassion, humanity, resilience and the right ways to cope with difficulties from their parents. Are you listening?

Know when to let go …

There’s always this inflection point when kids tend to actively seek ‘freedom’, from the relentless scrutiny and control of their parents. However much we may dislike them, research findings clearly suggest, it’s probably the best for parents to know when to let go. Young adults with parents who are control freaks are known to be unusually self-conscious, apprehensive and often closed to new ideas. On the other hand children who are known to be brought up in a more relaxed environment are far likely to be self-assured, open-minded and independent. That’s doesn’t imply a parent needs to be completely hands-off. It simply means that parents do not need to act like drones, hovering perennially above their children’s heads – scanning and controlling their kids’ very existence.

Look after your marriage …

It is never enough to talk about the importance of a relatively happy and stable relationship between partners who intend to give birth to and raise emotionally stable kids. Obviously, it’s easy to preach. It is becoming increasingly challenging for couples to keep their home and relationship completely stress-free. Difficulties springing from modern life are galore and every new issue is weirder than the previous one. Yet, wherever and however partners can put in effort, they must do so. Who would want their child to suffer from sleeping disorders or see their kids grow up emotionally under-prepared to deal with the crests and troughs of life?   

Take care of your mental health …

Recognize early signs of depression and tend to your mental health. Glum, negative parents, who do not display enough concern about fixing the problem, do not do any good to their children. Pre-school children, being raised by depressed parents, have thrown up gloomy results of emotional health during researches. Brushing it under the carpet is certainly not what is being prescribed here. Seek help, if you suspect that you are depressed, for the good of yourself and your growing offspring.

Be good to your kids …

A secure, comforting attachment with the child is extremely critical in arresting chances of problematic behavioural patterns at a later stage in life. A warm bond, that allows space for occasional mistakes, is a stable base for emotionally healthy mental expansion of the child. No matter how much importance is assigned to bravado these days, kids still love to look back at their parents as an all-weather, safe and secure haven they can always come back to, if the need ever arises in the outside world. Children who have not been too close to their parents find it difficult to emulate the positive aspects of parent-child relationship during their own adult years. So, cozy up!   

Occasional arguments do little harm …

A little autonomy or an occasional debate or two at home is never too bad for your child! Interestingly, it has been found that however exasperating it might be, kids who are sometimes argumentative are somewhat better equipped to deal with peer pressure in the outside world. Hold on, I am not suggesting that kids should be encouraged to be confrontational at all times. But, it is also important that kids learn early to stand up for themselves, in spite of consistent parental support.

Nothing’s ever perfect …

There’s no need to torment your brain by setting ridiculously high standards and then struggling to cope with gaps and failures. Whoever told you that there’s a living animal called ‘the perfect parent’? New parents do not need to be serious enough to follow what the social order expects them to be like. No one’s been perfect, muss less any society. So, why bother? Be yourself; be confident in your intent and abilities. And, this is not a motorized task at hand, which can be ‘executed’ with mechanical precision, aided by a few formulae and global quality standards. Hey, this is the only unadulterated joy – parenting! Love it, enjoy it, succeed, falter, cry, laugh; above all, live the experience. Remember, not all are blessed to be a parent.

Above all, know your kids …

Parenting was never meant to be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ kind of an approach. It has been found that parents who were able to personalize their style, in keeping with the personality type of their child, have enjoyed a successful and pleasurable parenting experience. Depression, angst, nervousness, anxiety are often associated with kids who have had to deal with excesses of rigidity and compliance at home.  Even, well-meaning parents, inadvertently land up hurting their child, trying to be forceful and inflexible, at all times. It never hurts to be sensitive enough to look for cues from your child. There’s no harm in extending an extra yard of the rope of help and care, especially for kids who have difficulty in regulating their emotions.

Happy parenting!

How do the parents know that their child needs help?

Mental health of children has become the biggest conundrum in our modern society. Shrinking families, working parents, stressed family relationships, competition and peer pressure, reduced community activities and decreased focus on rigorous outdoor sports – all adding up, to take a serious toll on the mind of children and adolescents. It is never easy for a parent to decipher the precise moment when their child needs serious professional help.

The first challenge is to recognize the signs of the imminent problems. Going through little or no formal training in parenting psychology and child behaviour, young parents are found wanting when it comes to handling children and adolescent mental health issues. The next challenge lies in the timing of decisive parental intervention. At what point should one step in, and seek professional help? Millions of households around the world are grappling with deteriorating emotional health of children and young adults. Ignorance or failure to act in time can lead to far more serious consequences – deep clinical depression, irreversible trauma or even early end to precious lives.

So, is there a magic prescription for early identification of failing mental health in youngsters? Well, there clearly are many warning signs. Some of the following common warning signs amongst children and adolescents may suggest latent emotional, behavioural or mental health problems:

• Sudden but visible decline in academic performance
• Loss of interest in things that were previously enjoyable
• Increasing amount of restlessness, irritability or complete inability to concentrate
• Inexplicably altered sleeping or eating patterns
• Isolation – avoidance of friends and/or family members and preference for being alone all the time
• Continuous daydreaming, procrastination, inability to complete allotted tasks
• Behavioural issues such as being melodramatic, uncharacteristically loud or throwing tantrums
• Selective mutism, uncharacteristic shyness, anxiety of socializing and communication 

Apart from the above signs, parents should observe keenly and see if their growing child is experience one of more of the following:

• Persisting blues – feeling of deep sorrow and helplessness
• Worry, nervousness, unfounded concerns, edginess or even anxiety over frivolous issues
• Extreme bouts of radically varying emotions - inexplicable fears, anger and crying
• Feeling of unwarranted or extreme guilt or worthlessness
• Complete loss of concentration, attentiveness and focus, dwindling memory
• Inability to get over the pain of personal loss, including death of someone close
• Too much concern over physical appearance, cleanliness and personal hygiene  
• Constant fretting over health problems
• Constant fear over losing one’s mind
• Obsession, rumination, uncontrollable racing thoughts  
• Regular nightmare, flashback of unpleasant past events, fear of death and destruction
• Suicidal or self-harming thoughts
• Continuous worry about inflicting pain on others or on self

Finally, parents should seek professional help immediately if:

• they happen to suspect that their ward might be resorting to alcohol or drugs
• that their ward is increasingly alienating himself or herself
• that he or she is trying harm or inflict pain upon self or others, including animals
• uncontrollably gorging on food or purging / limiting food severely / being obsessive about diet and exercise
• engaging in risqué behaviors – physically, emotionally or sexually
• violating others’ rights / constantly breaking the law / damaging property
• threatening or even hurting others from the same age group or younger ones

Please do not postpone your decision to seek advice and assistance from professionally qualified experts whenever the need arises. Early detection of signs of acute emotional or behavioural problems goes a long way in redressal of the issues, saving lives of children and adolescents in need of specialized psychological support. Any delay can lead to a chronic state and many a times become fatal.

Early childhood depression seriously affects brain development in children

Preschoolers who have suffered clinical depression are more likely to have altered brain development pattern as compared to those unaffected by the disorder, according to new research. Brain tissues, gray matter as we normally know them, transport signals across brain cells and are involved in functions like vision, hearing, memory, intelligence, emotion and logic. Children that have been affected by depression, apparently develops lower volume of gray matter, especially in the cortex region – the part predominantly responsible for dealing with emotions. 

Brain images of different children have shown how the brain’s anatomy changes significantly with the onset of depression during early childhood. This is quite contrary to the earlier belief that the brain has a predestined method of development in an individual, which is not much affected by the negative disposition, deprivation, poverty, familial support or parental nurturing, etc. The research findings help in understand why some individuals face difficulty in regulating their moods and emotions, when they grow up.

Gray matter, that develops as the child grows, is essentially a composition of neurons, along with axons extending from brain cells. Interestingly, the decline of gray matter starts happening around puberty, as the neurons develop the requisite efficiency in communicating with each other, to have to have the redundant parts and processes eliminated.  The development-and-decline follows an upturned U-curve. The process wherein the gray matter development is arrested, i.e. the outmoded brain cells die off, is known as ‘pruning’. Unfortunately, the U-curve for a child with depressed early years has a steeper drop, with a smaller base. The sharpness of this drop-off, along with the size of the brain, can be correlated with the severity of the depression suffered by the child. 

It goes beyond saying that these children are in the high risk zone and are under the threat of having retarded emotional intelligence and overall development of their personality. More and more physiologists, social scientists, brain researchers and educationists are trying to develop methods of identifying early signs of impeded brain development due to early childhood depression. It has been proven, that early identification and timely intervention can alter the trajectory of the hindered grey matter development cycle in individuals. 

Parents need to have the kind of inter-personal relationship and create an environment at home, that would ensure positive and wholesome emotional orientation in children and young adults. The lasting positive effects would go a long way in reducing emotional vulnerabilities in individuals when they grow up, resulting in a confident, self-assured personality that is necessary for sustainable and pleasurable long-term success and happiness.

Adoption of a new solution, product or service – the ‘psychology’ behind !

What led to the purchase of my second smart phone? Funnily, the question reared its ugly head only after I received the bank’s text reminder on my older phone that the expense has been credited to my already dwindling credit card. What was the rationale behind the buy? Should I blame it on my unenviable track-record of binge buying or was there a genuine (unidentified) need?

It’s never been easy to unearth the reason why a logical being would stray from rational economic behaviour. It’s been even more difficult to fathom how an individual’s values influence his choices in the in a given marketplace or under what circumstances an individual or an organization would like to be introduced to a new paradigm, product or service.

Typically, social scientists have drawn our attention to four distinct behavioural aspects that influence such adoptions or even considerations:

• Worth: Buyers tend to attach ‘perceived’ value to the alternatives available, rather than the subjective ones, fundamentally associated with the products or services.

• Frame of reference: Most buyers invariably resort to benchmarking a new offering against the existing alternatives (no wonder the buying decision becomes such a critical one when a new product is genuinely an ‘original’ concept with little or no comparable offerings. Uniqueness may not always be a ‘virtue’, after all!).

• Valuation: More often than not these referential evaluations boil down to a discrete ‘gain-loss’ comparison.

• The clincher: It has been found more often than not that the perceived notion of ‘potential losses’ leave far greater impact on consumers’ buying decisions than ‘probable gains’ out of adopting a new alternative.

The above-mentioned aspects merely cement the hypothesis well-established in behavioural economics known as the ‘Endowment Effect’ which says that people essentially assign greater value to things they own vis-à-vis the ones they don’t. Endowment effect in its very definition states that it becomes functional whenever the quantum of consumer’s ‘minimum acceptable benefits’ exceeds the ‘cost of acquisition’ that the consumer is willing to part with.  Such decisions are almost always influenced by, in addition to other cognitive considerations, a bias for status quo in a tight coupling with risk aversion.

Some economists assign a value three times greater to people’s regard for what they already have as compared to their perceived value of a new product they intend to invest in. So it’s a no-brainer that to get a prospective customer to buy into a fresh idea, the new product has to establish ‘perceptual’ benefits, many-a-times, over existing alternatives.

In some cases the ‘perceived’ improvements, it has been found, is just one of the many factors influencing the decision. Precise messaging, appropriate conveyance of the ‘value’ of the new product and veracious and credible ‘influencers’ are some of the strongest levers. Early identification of fans of the new concept go a long way in creating and leveraging convinced champions of the cause, in adoption of a new technology, product or service. Understanding and appreciation of the ‘need’ and the ‘behavioural pattern’ of the prospective users is no less important than ‘innovation’ itself, when it comes to predicting or even strategizing the success of the new product. 

Well, I am still trying to solve my own case of identifying the psychology behind burning some well-preserved cash in acquiring a fresh piece of the glitzy gadget. Till the time I manage to figure it out, I have decided to refrain from investing in another new smart device or even another ‘trending’ piece of OS or pricey app, at the least.