What is state of your mental Health? A self-check toolkit.

 While we go for regular physical health check-ups, even if otherwise ok, we seldom do mental health checkup! Authors cum practitioners  like Alain De Botton, Dan Arley, Adam Grant, Jordan B Petterson and Browen Berne, do share some insights which can often be collated as barometer for self-checking the state of ones’ mental health. I wander what would a self-check mental health barometer looks like!  

Shy of asking Chatgpt or google, here is my list:

1 Are you able to consciously edit various thoughts emerging in your mind, to select the empowering ones and discard the debilitating ones?  It does not entertain thoughts that reminds us of our unworthiness or fuel the feelings of regret, remorse, resent or conceit.               

2 Are you able to retain the general trust in goodness of humanity and reconcile with selfish acts at the individual level?

3 Can you resist the temptation of comparisons to others, either to feel good or bad?

4  Recognize the unreasonableness of cheerfulness as the only desirable end-state state, and any other as sub-optimal?  “Worldy” people are likely to be less happy than they seem. 

Albrecht Durer (1493)

5 Realise that every explanation that looks plausible may not be real, and that randomness could as well be the real reason?  Not every unsuccessful man is so, because of laziness or stupidity.

6 Able to compartmentalize thoughts and emotions and maintain sense of proportionality of response to the situation.

7 Able to recognize fear as state of being and mange it through recognition and additional dose of curiosity. 

8 In quest of seeking more, not to undermine what is already there.  Recognize that Every situation has the possibility of being worst! Can you express gratitude to crashed pillow that ensures good night sleep.   

9  Once in a while you remind oneself of transience nature of being, and its insignificant presence at cosmic level.

10  Are you comfortable with laying boundaries in relationships and can utter warm sounding but definitiveno, without affecting prevailing level of affection 

11 Appreciate the role of genes, parenting, and early childhood experiences in shaping us, but not hold to these convenient factors to defend your learnt helplessness or laziness.

How much you score and what is the ranking criteria- I cant say- but may be there is some realization where to focus to strengthen our mind!

AI: Powerful Strategic Lever- Define its purpose, plan and deploy it RIGHT

Book is general purpose read on how AI is being used by variety of organization, and understandably these are at different levels of maturity in their leverage of AI for business benefits.

Authors rightly argued three major strategic objectives in using AI: Creating new offerings, Transforming Operations and Influencing Consumer Behavior. Calling out influencing behavior capabilities as distinct objective makes it easy to measure the effectiveness of AI intervention, while the second order benefit may reflect in revenue gains, brand loyalty or reduced cost of serving customers.

AI domain itself comprises multiple type of technologies, classified under Statistical Machine learning, Logic based systems and semantics- based AI, making choice of right technology or combination of two technologies to develop solution becomes critical decision point in AI journey. Different technologies have different uses, and fully evolved AI-fueled organizations may have different combination of AI technologies being applied to address different use-cases.

Authors rightly argues that the effective use of AI need not be full replacement of human effort say by automating the insurance claims for car accidents or designing driverless automobile, but equally by solutions that augment human effort, by providing suggestions and timely assistance. The stories of Morgan Stanley Next BEST Action System and Guardian driver assistance System by Toyota illustrate this strategy quite powerfully.

Business value comes from AI in production and that also when embedded in workflows. Pilots, prototypes and proof of concepts are good for learning but deployment demand much more- planning, data and system integration approach, capacity creation, disruption management and resource commitment.

Interestingly successful cases referred in the book, have CXO level sponsors who had good hands on personal experience in the technology and deep appreciation of need for patience and sustained effort on road to AI-fueled transformation.

People readiness approach towards AI presents challenges, especially coming out of lack of sufficient clarity on the impact on current roles on account of AI infusion, including future in-house capability and capacity requirements. Unprepared communication around AI programs are likely concerns around employment continuity for the existing staff. At the same time, efforts required to upskill and redeploy staff in AI-fueled set-up demand early start.

If you are serious about AI, you need to be serious about Data. Most companies have major data management projects underway along or prior to taking AI program, The more proprietary data you can leverage and multiple data sets you can uniquely combine, more differentiated AI outcomes and potential value creation opportunities shall emerge.

Authors have listed use cases of AI across various industries in a very concise bird view manner – covering both the established and emerging use-cases. Given the interest in this subject, there is too much material available across channels on AI- be it published books, free articles, websites and you-tube videos. Where this book scores is providing the holistic view and supporting with real use cases and some experiential insights.

It is good read for early learners in this area, to be followed us with deeper study (elsewhere) in any particular aspect that one finds interesting and relevant.