E28 – The Pygmalion Effect
Today’s story in a small way involves one of my favourite movies the Audrey Hepburn & Rex Harrison Classic – ‘My Fair Lady’. Based on George Bernard Shaw’s classic ‘Pygmalion’, the movie mesmerizes us about possibilities as Professor Higgins demonstrates…
E27 – The Street Corner Experiment
This is a story about an experiment conducted around the time I was born. The winter of 1968. The place New York. Three researchers – Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman and Lawrence Berkowitz picked a 50 ft stretch of a sidewalk in New York for this experiment……
E26 – Watermelons Of Parra
This story was one that was told by late Manohar Parrikar erstwhile Chief Minister of Goa. This story was shared by him during an event in Baroda on the 11th of September 2016. It talks about the days when he grew up in a small village in north Goa called Parra. Parra is…
E24 – Power Of Checklist
It was 30th October, 1935. The place was the Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio. A small crowd consisting of officers of the US Army Air Corps and marketing executives of two of the largest airplane manufacturers had gathered to witness a flight competition. The Air Corps were…
E23 – Curse of Knowledge
In 1990, at Stanford University there was a student called Elizabeth Newton and she was doing a postgraduate degree. Her thesis for her dissertation is an experiment that she published under the title, ‘The curse of knowledge’…….
E21 – Three Feet Away From Gold
This story takes place during the Colorado Gold Rush. The story is about a guy called Darcy who lived in Williamsburg in Maryland. And Darcy’s uncle went off to the Colorado gold rush and staked his claim……..
E22 – The Power OF BECAUSE
Professor Ellen Langer the godmother of mindfulness conducted an experiment in 1970s. She was trying to do an experiment to understand how mindful or mindless people are. She wanted to check how difficult it…
E20 – The Importance of Clarifying Objectives
This story is proof that in almost all languages the six most powerful words are, “Let me tell you a story,” and stories are not only memorable but they travel and this one travelled a lot. I read this story for the first time in Paul…
E19 – Fighting Yellow Fever
In the late 1900s a French-Scottish physician called Carlos Juan Finlay had been practicing medicine in Cuba. One of the diseases that plagued the region was yellow fever. The popular belief in the medical profession was that yellow fever was caused…
E18 – Breaking The 4 Minute Barrier
With the conclusion of the Mumbai Marathon my Facebook feed is awash with proud achievements of many friends and ex-colleagues. The big news is “Sub-4”, running the marathon in under 4 hours. This reminded me of another Sub-4 triumph many decades ago……