Never Throw Away a Weapon!

The most famous duel fought by 16th century Japanese master swordsman Miromoto Musashi was held on Ganryu Island against Sasaki Kojiro. I will only focus on one particular aspect of this here, more detailed accounts are available for those who may be interested [1] . The duel was arranged for dawn and Kojiro arrived early on the island ready to fight at the appointed time. Musashi however was patently late, arriving on a small boat to find his opponent attending him on the beach. Kojiro, impatient to teach Musashi a lesson, drew his sword as the boat approached, angrily tossed the scabbard away and stormed forward to attack. At this point Musashi is quoted as saying  “If you have no more use for your sheath, you are already dead."  Evidently, this turns out to be an accurate prediction, and Kojiro is dispatched with two strong blows. The popular interpretation of Musashi’s words is that a man who has no scabbard does not expect to re-sheath his sword, i.e. they will die in the upcoming combat. The wider point though is that you should never throw away any potential weapon; even a scabbard has its combat applications [2] and could have served Kojiro to parry or strike Musashi. It was violating this fundamental principle that sealed Kojiro's fate, a fact that Musashi recognized instantly.

This concept applies on many levels. On an archway in the Chinese Lan Su Garden in Portland there is an inscription that reads “listen to the fragrance”. The intent is to remind the visitor to use all of their senses to experience the garden fully; to feel the texture of the sculpted granite flooring underfoot, to smell the fragrances of the flowers, to see the beautiful vistas framed through the architecture and to listen to the the birdsong mingling with the exterior noise of the city. Our senses are weapons we commonly discard on a daily basis; one secret of flow and impact is to employ all of our them as much of the time as possible, gaining the most from each instant, grounding us in the moment and fueling intuition to sense a hazard or seize an opportunity.

On a more contemporary note, the most commonly seen accoutrement these days is the smartphone. Walk down any city street and you will see us all wired-in to our device, occupied with some i-task, neglecting the lessons of the Lan Su garden. Our phones are powerful allies in life's combat, however we commonly miss the opportunity to deploy the weapons they offer; worse, we implement the features that distract us, adding "noise" and suppressing "signal" [3].  The smartphone is such a wonderful weapon to mitigate the mundane and stimulate the creative, yet we don't explore its potential, often preferring to stay with our habitual patterns of use. I have heard people repeatedly express "oh, I don't use my phone for that", meaning that they prefer to use it for messages, games and selfies. Not that there is anything wrong with entertainment—it's important—but the wealth of other possibilities for communicating, learning, listening and creating begs exploration.

In two of life’s most important areas—decision-making and negotiation—we routinely throw away our available weapons. As Chip and Dan Heath's book “Decisive” illustrates [4], we all-too-often make decisions on the basis of poorly founded predictions or options that are too narrow. Weapons here include our ready access to information via the internet--for example trends in historical data that can be used to more reliably predict the future--or, the simple realization that two-choice, either/or, options should be avoided, there are always other possible solutions to be considered. In the case of negotiation, our BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Outcome [5]) is a routinely overlooked device. Neglecting to recognize and build our BATNA is throwing away the most potent weapon in any negotiation situation, yet it is not intuitive for us to spend time strengthening this.

On the most immediate, physical and brutal level this principle means that in a violent confrontation all weapons should be sought and used. Even the most adept martial arts master should not rely solely on trained limbs but seek every potential weapon to-hand. For example in bar fights, tables, chairs or glasses can all be used; anything on the ground—rocks, sticks, cables, bricks—is also a potential weapon; unarmed combat should only be attempted if there’s no other resort. Remaining on the physical level, the whole body should be used to accelerate and drive any strike. Most people punch using their arms and kick using their legs, however these are just the agents of delivery. The real weapons are the body’s core, the large muscles in the legs and back, and the ligaments that can be stretched to fire a blow. Aligning all these to hit harder is really using all your weapons; ignoring their utility is tantamount to discarding the scabbard.

References
1. Musashi versus Kojiro
2. YouTube - Using a scabbard offensively
3. Signal-to-Noise
4. Decisive
5. BATNA

Signal-to-Noise

It's all about signal-to-noise! One foundational principle in the art of impact is that of constantly boosting signal (the important, the significant; those activities that add value, that are consistent with our aims and principles, that we care about) while relentlessly reducing noise (the trivial, the non-important, distractions and time-wasters). This is an analytical concept at heart; in all sorts of scientific situations we are trying to detect an effect or a thing in the midst of a sea of noise. The pentaquark [1], the icy plains on Pluto [2], or even primordial B-mode polarizations :) [3].  It's the crux of clinical research, demonstrating that medicines show a real effect in the face of massive human variability. This is the reason for the mathematical discipline of statistics, allowing us to give degrees of confidence related to whether our result is real or just an artifact of the background noise.

Thinking in terms of signal-to-noise is a simple and powerful mental model. Questioning whether we are boosting signal or boosting noise in every moment helps keep focus on the important, and develops habits that reduce the amount of energy we expend on tasks that are not adding value to our lives. Every day noise mounts its sensory assault: email, smartphones, apps, junk mail, stray thoughts and worries, radio, TV, the boss, our colleagues and friends; sifting through this morass to find the signal is a redoubtable challenge. To do this we must be clear on what constitutes "signal"; it's anything that matters, anything that contributes to our goals or aligns with our values, provides us material with which we can create and innovate, or gives us and our community pleasure or meaning. This implies that we must be clear on our values and our goals, establishing even fuzzy goals has a huge benefit in separating the worthwhile from the worthless.

For example, for the tech nerds among us, the amplification of signal requires us to think hard about how we organize our smartphone and tablet screen real estate. This layout should make it easy to access those apps and programs that contribute to moving us towards our goals, maybe a note-taking app, the camera, a music or radio service, or Waze to actually guide us to our destination. More importantly it pays to be ruthless in reducing technology-noise, removing all distractions by disabling badges for any apps that do not signal something important, and reducing the number of apps and screen pages to a minimum. This way we are not alarmed by pages of red badges signaling meaningless information, the badges actually represent signal rather than noise. If you think I'm being over-sensitive here, note that even the gurus at the Harvard Business Review concur, as a recent article on the reduction in productivity caused by the simple buzzing of a cellphone attests [4].

A signal-to-noise mindset helps in strategic decisions too. Coming back to the physical, in boxing or martial arts we are always looking for a signal--literally a telegraph--that lets us anticipate the opponent's next move and counter effectively. Conversely we work to dissimilate any signals we are emitting, not giving our adversary any advance notice of what's coming next, or using feints and decoys as noise in which we can hide real intent. In war, the use of smokescreens and chaff [5] amplify noise that impairs visual and radar ability to see the signal, the incoming soldier, plane or missile until their mission is accomplished.

So add this one to your mental model library; make sure you are hitting with impact, generating a strong signal with minimum effort, and not simply contributing to the background noise, impeding impact and wasting energy.

References
1. Pentaquarks: A New State of Matter: pentaquarks
2. New Horizons team baffled by discovery of Icy Plains on Pluto
3. How the Biggest Scientific Discovery of the Year Was Kept a Secret: primordial B-modes
4. Just Hearing Your Phone Buzz Hurts Your Productivity: Phone buzz productivity
5. Wikipedia, Chaff (countermeasure): chaff

Framed!

Here's a joke for you to lighten up the blog. There's two fish in a tank....
[punchline to come]

The point will be that the impact of the punch(line) is always proportional to the quality of the set-up. the process of creating a context which can then be changed rapidly. Maximum shock and surprise--both pleasurable and painful--results from something unanticipated, being hit from an unexpected angle, the sudden appearance of something previously hidden. Set-up relies on our tendency is to see everything within "frames"--mental models, norms formed through previous experience--which we can use to our advantage by:

• Improving our awareness of frames -- developing situational awareness, heightening sensitivity to others' state of mind and intentions, gaining emotional control to facilitate this and avoiding racing up the ladder of inference (Ladder of Inference) too quickly.
• Projecting a certain frame which we control; this could be a real frame or an intentionally false frame, concealing true intentions, sending your opponent up that ladder.
• Developing the ability to accelerate rapidly, holding the tension that comes from setting-up and using this to hit; impact is the realization that something has happened after it has occurred.

As a sporting example, the classic boxing match "The Rumble in the Jungle" saw Mohammed Ali in his sunset years confront the 25-year-old George Foreman, who was 220 pounds of mean muscle in peak form. Ali set the fight up from the start, goading his opponent in the media, then continued in the ring, using an initial strategy that stirred up the hornets nest that was Foreman, taunting him during clinches. Ali then let his enraged opponent completely punch himself out while he lay back on the ropes, letting Foreman do his worst. In the heat of the moment Foreman succumbed to the frame that Ali created, believing Ali was tired and incapable of defending himself. Ali then seized opportunity in the 8th round, rapidly changing frame by exploding out of the ropes, surprising Foreman and hitting him squarely on the jaw with an impact that sent him spiraling to the floor. As Eddie Daniels, an eminent British Shukokai karate fighter, states "open the door, tempt them in and then slam it in their faces....".

This illustrates the power of frames; how we can be oblivious to the fact we have been framed, especially when emotionally engaged, as our mental models--those pre-defined pathways of thought--are narrowed further by our emotions.

One simple means of framing is to push hard initially in a different direction to our intentions. If we want to tell someone what to do, we have to set-up by first listening intently; the more we want to learn, the more we need to teach; in the workplace, the more we want to retain our employees, the more we have to let them know that they have other choices, that they have freedom. Each action has an opposite and equal reaction, allowing those who understand the concept of set-up to take advantage of a situation.  To push a bigger guy out of the door, it is much easier to push him hard in the opposite direction until he resists forcefully, and then switch direction rapidly and let him fly out of the exit using his own momentum.

Getting back to the joke, there's two fish in a tank. One says to the other "you drive, I'll man the guns..."

As a bonus, here's an interesting clip of Alex Harvey performing the title to this blog: