How To Turn Executives Into Wizards

  “Imitation is degradation of self,” says King James. How very true! In the Oxford dictionary, the synonyms of ‘imitation’ are sham, fake, counterfeit, bogus, spurious, phoney. It is, in fact, an offence and a lot of court cases deal with violations of copyrights, trademarks and plagiarism as well as stealing of secret data. There is no wonder then that almost all agree with King James in their hearts. But still, there is all-round conscious or subconscious imitation going on, though no one will admit it.  Against this background, one wonders how the imitation of others’ behaviours and qualities, that goes under the 'exalted' idea of ‘Role Modeling’, is highly commended and widely practised.  The term ‘Role Modeling’ was introduced by sociologist Robert Merton and further developed by Albert Bandura. Bandura found that "individuals tend to be active observers of their environments. During these observations, people make note of the behaviours exhibited by others and imit...

Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” was first published in 1936 and over 30 million copies have been sold worldwide to date. Since then, thousands of self-help books have been published and there are hundreds of coaching classes on that subject and other related topics. Priests, monks, and other wise persons have also been giving sermons on ‘love thy neighbour’ and ‘know thyself.  And yet, various surveys by reputable organizations reveal that millions of people find themselves to be strangers not only to people that they know but even to themselves. What could be the reason for such a colossal failure in such an important aspect of life, career and happiness? The key reason appears to be ‘psychological distance’. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines psychological distance as “the degree of a person’s detachment or disengagement from emotional involvement with one or more other people”. One more definition of psychological distance is “a cognitive sep...