[A 5 minute talk given at LA Hackers on April 23, 2011 at Coloft]
My name is Atma
I am an industrial psychologist
That’s kind of like a project manager on academic steroids
I specialize in the psychology of organizations and am currently working on my PhD in this topic
Part of the power of organizational psychology is that it leverages emotional energy.
Emotional energy comes from human desire, those things you want deeply or strongly, and it is a pervasive phenomenon.
Put another way I traffic in disruptive ideas that can make people better, higher functioning, and happier
I do this by focusing on changes in the work environment rather than singling out the individual
Better environments create better humans; better humans create a better society
I believe we can create a better world by changing the way we interact in daily life.
My goal is to teach whoever is ready to re-engineer their business, startup, or organization.
The suite of solutions I work with can be used to make any business or team more effective (consequently more profitable)
Some of the tools in this suite include:
- Screening partners, and hires with face reading and other cutting edge profiling techniques including clique psychology
- Wiring in innovation as a cultural behavior
- Game theory applications – tapping into mutualistic dynamics
- Training for charisma, confidence, and presentation skills
- Human centric design based on my model of generative grammar in organizations
- Hacking your management system
- The role of discipline in forging leaders
- Training to be comfortable and confident in any social situation
- Repurposing stress – training to thrive amidst chaos
- Super Group Networks
- XY cluster companies – a new type of agglomeration
- Changing the communication model,
Here is a simple example of one way to hack a management system…
To make a meaningful change in the way an organization functions you need to figure out what is the generative grammar of that business or group. It’s like understanding the nature of code at the deepest structural level in a massive program written 30 or 40 years ago. You can similarly assume that your work environment is like an antiquated system riddled with legacy code. Only instead of the byzantine application of a formal language you are dealing with emotional needs, cultural expectations, societal mores, all operating in an invisible and impossibly complex array.
But if you can change the underlying grammar or code you change the way humans behave. This is partly because humans have enormous plasticity or capacity to adapt.
For example say we all worked together and somebody came in and said I will pay each of you a significant bonus for every month you show a demonstrable positive change in your health stats. Now I know from previous studies about how many of you would take advantage of that offer. Often it would be those of you who need it the least.
But let’s say I came in and said I will pay each of you the same bonus for the improvements shown by a randomly assigned coworker, as opposed to your own improvements (which would be tied to someone else’s bonus.)
What kind of shift do you imagine would occur in the way we all interact? Suddenly I have a vested interest in your well being. I will be paying attention to what you eat, encouraging you to be more active, maybe invite you to my gym 3 times a week. And you might be inclined to respond because you are equally concerned with getting your assignee on the right track.
So you see in making one simple adjustment I have altered the generative grammar of our environment and consequently we are all behaving differently.
I am currently involved in a private research project, where I come into small businesses and observe and collect data on the organizational dynamics. It’s free to the company and I always share my findings with them, which is always eye-opening and instructive. If you know any companies that would like to apply for participation please let me know.
My contact information is on the handout I have provided.
Thank you
Ask Atma 