Survival Responses
As I was doing a little work this weekend, I was listening to a talk show in NPR radio. The host was Diane Rehm and the subject was a book called The Survivors Club, authored by Ben Sherwood a researcher. (For those international colleagues that are not familiar with NPR, it stands for National Public Radio, a free service that is funded largely by individual contributors).
The author set out to research why and how humans respond to survival situations and as it inevitably happens with new research, some very interesting information and ideas emerged from the book.
One of them is the development of a test available at http://www.thesurvivorsclub.org that aims to predict our individual responses to survival situations. It turns out that there are specific patterned behavioral responses that all of us fall into. The majority of us (about 80% according to the author) fall into the freezing response, which, it turns out it’s not the most favorable to dealing with survival/emergency situations. (Caveat: I have not read the book as of yet, but intend to).
The author broadly defines survival situations to include loss of job, health problems, financial problems, combat, as well as extreme emergency situations like airplane accidents. And rightly so in my opinion; we tend to be dismissive of some of these events and the impacts of the same in our abilities to go on. As one that has been through some of what he defines as survival situations (loss of job, health problems with loved ones, financial loss – I work in telecom/hi-tech after all) I can attest to the fact that our responses to the same unequivocally speak to how we will emerge from them.
While this was intriguing, the more fascinating idea was the reason why the author created this “test.” The author believes that by all of us knowing our response-type we will be better prepared to respond to survival situations. Further, he does so in the hope that some of us will pursue strategies aimed at improving our responses. His hypothesis is rooted in evolutionary theories, in that by performing these actions we are in effect guiding our genes to learn to the benefit of all in subsequent generations.
So, in the pursuit of ideas on how to drive more efficient Innovation, it occurred to me that we need to borrow some of these survival theories and apply them to Innovation management theories and in effect aiding us and our corporations to adopt better survival response practices.
The first step is therefore to read this book and encapsulate practices that can help us be better prepared. The fist and foremost practice, it turns out, not surprisingly, is acknowledgment and acceptance that what one is facing is in fact a survival situation.
The author set out to research why and how humans respond to survival situations and as it inevitably happens with new research, some very interesting information and ideas emerged from the book.
One of them is the development of a test available at http://www.thesurvivorsclub.org that aims to predict our individual responses to survival situations. It turns out that there are specific patterned behavioral responses that all of us fall into. The majority of us (about 80% according to the author) fall into the freezing response, which, it turns out it’s not the most favorable to dealing with survival/emergency situations. (Caveat: I have not read the book as of yet, but intend to).
The author broadly defines survival situations to include loss of job, health problems, financial problems, combat, as well as extreme emergency situations like airplane accidents. And rightly so in my opinion; we tend to be dismissive of some of these events and the impacts of the same in our abilities to go on. As one that has been through some of what he defines as survival situations (loss of job, health problems with loved ones, financial loss – I work in telecom/hi-tech after all) I can attest to the fact that our responses to the same unequivocally speak to how we will emerge from them.
While this was intriguing, the more fascinating idea was the reason why the author created this “test.” The author believes that by all of us knowing our response-type we will be better prepared to respond to survival situations. Further, he does so in the hope that some of us will pursue strategies aimed at improving our responses. His hypothesis is rooted in evolutionary theories, in that by performing these actions we are in effect guiding our genes to learn to the benefit of all in subsequent generations.
So, in the pursuit of ideas on how to drive more efficient Innovation, it occurred to me that we need to borrow some of these survival theories and apply them to Innovation management theories and in effect aiding us and our corporations to adopt better survival response practices.
The first step is therefore to read this book and encapsulate practices that can help us be better prepared. The fist and foremost practice, it turns out, not surprisingly, is acknowledgment and acceptance that what one is facing is in fact a survival situation.
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