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Amazon My Love
This week I talked with my sister about gifts and birthdays. My mom is celebrating a significant birthday this year and we wanted to mark it with a special celebration.
The thing is, while we’re imagining a big celebration, she’s not really interested in “noise and ringing” and immediately vetoed the issue again.
My sister and I tried to understand – why my mother isn’t willing to change?
After we hung up I thought about why people refuse to change? In fact, to be precise, I thought about why children’s and husbands do not agree to change perceptions ? (because of changes and why its so difficult we have already talked here).
Changing Perceptions - What's so difficult ?
So … I reminded myself that “whoever lives in a glass house will not throw stones at the neighbor’s house” and thought about why I have such an interest in changing perception. The truth is that it’s hard for me, and very much so. Paradoxically, it is difficult for me to change perceptions precisely in the smaller and everyday things in which ostensibly the change is not supposed to be so great.
The example that came to mind is Amazon My Love. Suppose a certain person thinks that Amazon is the seventh wonder, the most good thing on earth that ever happened to her! The soul-mate who is always there to listen to her with personalized commercials. The same person knows that shopping late at night is not a healthy habit. But the perception … oh the perception, stands between it and the coveted garbage bags.
It turns out that contrary to popular opinion, perceptions can not be broken by a confrontation with facts or reality. On the contrary, often a confrontation with reality will actually confirm the perception and will lead to the opposite result than we hoped to achieve. This is exactly why there is no point in rationally explaining or calculating the amount of ziplock bags per person (because like the universe and stupidity – Online shopping is also endless).
Changing perception actually requires two elements: Challenging a perception on the one hand (which I think most of us do naturally, because most of the time we challenge different perceptions of our own) and providing an alternative perception on the other.
Providing alternative concepts is the difficult part because in order to allow transition to an alternative concept one must allow a “safety net”. Only after I have such a network can I actually let go (let’s say not completely part with my beloved @ Amazon but dilute doses) and move on to a newer concept (shopping is done consciously and not at 4:00 in the morning).
Progress to the new perception must be slow, gradual and sensitive because even in things that seem very small to us there is a “grip” and we instinctively want to avoid it.
So how does this relate to Agile?
To me this is exactly the essence of Agile … revolution and breaking paradigms. The beauty is that if done right – with lots of sensitivity, understanding and by presenting an alternative – after a while, you no longer understand how you once did something else.
“A quick look at myself and enough
Just do not look.
What’s inside is already inside too
It’s called a habit “
Amir Dadon, choose right
