Colored Brain, Organizational Culture, and Gamification - This is what I learn from Arthur Carmazzi

I recently interviewed Arthur Carmazzi to be the guest in my Perspektif Komunikasi Warna series. This is our 5th Episod and I invited the guru himself to talk about Colored Brain, how it started, the application and how an organization can create their working culture.

How it was started?

When Arthur venture into his business, the business does not took-off successfully and he ended up in debt. So he get a job in an organization in Singapore. After a few weeks working, he started to notice that people are blaming each other and very less cooperation among each team members. Worst than that, after several weeks he became one of them, blaming others and not giving cooperation.

Reflecting on it, that is not the way it supposed to be. He then did research on psychology and there are several findings. One of it leads to Colored Brain as a communication model. It provide instant results in the same orgsanization. Now the model has been use widely in various country.

He then created several other method on culture and how we can gamify our organization and create a high-performing culture.

Watch this video for our full interview and let me know what do you think.

Komunikasi Warna - Perjalanan Penuh Liku

Komunikasi Warna telah diterbitkan pada Januari 2019. Tetapi perjalanan buku ini sebenarnya bermula pada tahun 2013 lagi.

Selepas saya membuat keputusan untuk berhenti kerja, salah satu KPI yang saya tetapkan untuk diri saya adalah dengan menulis sebuah buku. Pagi petang siang malam saya bertungkus lumus menulis. Bahkan saya masih ingat, semasa menunggu kereta diservis, saya bersama laptop menulis buku pada ketika tersebut.

Selepas siap menulis, saya pun pergi mencuba nasib kepada penerbit buku. Ada beberapa yang saya cuba untuk berhubung. Kebanyakkan tidak memberikan maklum balas. Dan salah satu daripadanya apabila saya menelefon pejabat, mereka bertanyakan manuscript. Saya jawab saya boleh emailkan. Sebelum itu, beliau bertanya penulisan saya berkenaan apa? Jawab saya Colored Brain. Terus beliau merespond, tajuk kamu ni tak boleh dijual. Saya kata, tapi puan belum tengok manuscript saya lagi. Katanya, takpe lah. Sebab tajuk kamu tu memang tak boleh dijual.

Tahun 2014, atas undangan salah seorang sahabat, saya menghadiri Open House Raya beliau di Shah Alam. Dan salah seorang jemputan beliau adalah pengasas kepada syarikat penerbit tadi. Saya pun sangat ghairah kerana beliau duduk makan di sebelah saya yang kebetulan kosong pada ketika itu.

Music and It's Application in Learning

Last year, as I went to the new IOI City Mall, in one of the home furnishing store I just have this mood of buying. The environment was set in such a way that people will ignite their sense of buying things because they give the feeling of comfort and elegance. I look at the sofa, it was really tempting for me to bring home one. The blue blanket was like waving it's hand asking me to bring home the whole bedding set.

As I get myself into the conscious mode, I noticed the music that they use was actually playing the role of putting someone emotion to a certain state so that it will ignite the mood of those who shop in the store. Everything was planned well. Music can really give some impact in the mood of a person.

People using music for different purposes. If you watch movies, you will feel the emotion of panic, romance or fantasy by the background of the music. Try to look in a horror movie and shut down the volume. You won't have that kind of effect, and you might totally eliminate the whole emotion of fear and your mind might start to think logic. Even question, why the director did such and such.

Using the right music to accelerate learning
In training, most people use music as part of their tools. However, some trainers use a certain music which inappropriate in terms of timing and wrong type of music. It will give a different impact and in some cases, participants might get confused subsconciously. I was in this training programme, with this good trainer. At the very end of the training, he put on a song for an activity. I just can't feel myself suit because the music used was just not right for that particular activity.

Leading the Pyramid

In a study done at Stanford University among top achievers, they concluded that skills is not the main factor of their success. It is about 14% - 22% of success factor is based on skills. The main contributing factor is attitude, because if someone with good attitude, skills is no longer an issue because they will overcome it by themselves if it is necessary in getting the job done. 

Leading the Pyramid

What makes successful people have the drive in their life? What makes them persevere? What makes them doing things beyond what money can pay?

                                                           Diagram taken from: The Hero's Way Manual by Directive Communication

We can divide the pyramid into three categories. Skills, Attitude and Self-Actualization.

1. Skills
At the bottom of the pyramid is actually skills. At this level, people have skills but they trade their skills with money. Most of the time, either they provide single service such as plumber, barber or operator, or people who are working in a company as an operator, clerk or salesman, they trade their skills with money. Either they are paid by the job done, or they are paid per hour. What happened was if they were to do more than what has been agreed, they will claim more money. Such as over-time or some extra out-of-scope job. The key thing is, they trade skills for money and normally they are operating at an individual level.

What makes Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Different?

Jobs and Gates when they were young

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are the 2 tycoon that have revolutionize the computer industry and change the world. There were so many debates made by people saying that which one is better. And if you were the Mac hardcore user, you will think that Jobs is better. While on the other hand, if you were hardcore Windows especially programmer or a corporate IT guy, you might vote for Bill Gates. After all, what I learn in Directive Communication - there is no such thing as Fair because it is very subjective. (I am also biased because I think Steve is way supercool!)

But what I am going to discuss today is not about who is better (or cooler). Both of them were the best in a different way, but what makes them different? Both really did well in evolving computer industry, and both of them did it in a different way. What makes them different?

Visionary Leadership - the Red Brain

Recently I have a talk with one of my good friend. He is from Indonesia. We talk about the development of our country and how Jakarta is different with Kuala Lumpur in terms of the traffic, facilities etc.

Some of our key-point of discussion is about leadership. Malaysian leadership have a vision which I totally agreed upon. The biggest example of this is the Wawasan 2020 (or Vision 2020). Wawasan 2020 was actually announced by our fourth Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in 1991 - during the 6th Malaysian Plan. Wawasan 2020 is a 30 years plan, a plan that Tun introduce at the time he is not sure whether he will still be alive when it is achieved.

What makes a person a visionary?
Tun Dr. Mahathir is a red brain person. It is obvious in many ways.
- Red brain is very good at establishing long term planning. In other words, they are visionary.
- Tun is very blunt when addressing specific issue. This is because Tun focus on the objectivity of the issue. Not personal and not because he is insensitive.
- Tun is a very structured person. This is very obvious when you read his blog. Everything is very structured and he puts the clarity in every points he make.

Working With Different Colored Brain

In my life, as an employee I have some difficulties to work with people. Especially my superior. Once in a while, I have a good idea. For example, working in a company where training is part of our bread and butter, I do think that to upgrade the HRDF status of the company is important. We were at class C at that time. What stopping us to upgrade to class B was the TTT. Being a subsidiary of a University, we don't have trainer that parked under our payroll, which is one of the requirement of class B and of course to upgrade to class A we need to have 2 trainers.

Since we don't have any trainers inside the company (we outsource from our parent company most of the time), I proposed to my CEO to send me to the TTT course. I begin to explain why we need this to him. The result - he don't agreed. It is a five days course and there bound to be some problem if I leave the company for 5 days (and I realized how important I am to the company).

Frustrated, I just went back into my room and start talking to other colleagues. They were all agreed with me but somehow the boss just couldn't see.

Your focus will determine what you see

I remembered my first car was bought in 2002 by my dad. It was a Proton Saga Iswara. I remembered how excited i was then. As I drove the car and my dad sitting next to me, suddenly while we saw so many similar cars on the road. We were thinking, is this the most selling car on Malaysia? They were not there before but after purchasing the car only we noticed this phenomena.

What actually happened? It is the Reticular activating system in our brain. It functions like an antenna to detects whatever we focus on. In this case since we just bought this new car, the antenna is activated and suddenly we see it anywhere.

The Fundamental of Directive Communication

Today is the Eid Celebration. Hari Raya Aidiladha - or Hari Raya Qurban. Qurban means sacrifice. Today I have sacrifice my time with my family to celebrate the Eid, instead I signed-up for an interesting course: Train the Trainer - Colored Brain Communication Facilitator Certification

What did I learn today?

The Foundation of Directive Communication.

How Your Environment Affects You
In communication, how you act will determine how people re-act on you. Have you ever been in a situation where you talk nicely to a nice people. How will he/she reply the conversation?
Of course in a nice manner. On the other hand, have you ever talk to someone in a negative manner. What type of reply did you get? Negative, of course. This simple illustration explains how you act to your environment determine what are the response you get.
> If you don't like how people treat you - Change Strategy. Change The Way You Communicate!

The Concept of Hero and a Villain
If you love to watch movies, in any movie there will be a hero. So, what do hero basically do? The hero always is the one who saves the day. But if you go one step further, what makes him saves the day and being called as a hero?