The three Laws of Performance

1- As people see the world so they behave.

I was amazed by this phrase when I first was introduced to it. It seems to me as a mini version of Theory of Relativity applied to people and it is slowly becoming the ultimate convergence point of my psychological, sociological and philosophical disputes and meditations these recent times.

In a nutshell: we behave/perform the way we do because we have seen the world the way we do. If we want to behave/perform differently we must change the way we see/have seen the world.

As it turns out the change of how you see the world may not provide beneficial and effective in some cases. That’s why some other scholars have added the ‘have seen’ part in the phrase. That is the reconstruction of the past I was talking about in the class.

Also I believe this is the core aim of this course, to prepare our minds to see the world in a different and a more entrepreneurial perspective.

2- How situations occur to people, arises in language.

Wittgenstein’s quote “You learned the concept of pain when you learned the language” is a perfect illustration of the second law.

It is a known fact that thoughts and behavior affect our language. The language in itself turns out to shape the future behaviors of ours. A person who knows 1000 words has different views about phenomena than a person who knows 20000 words. By seeing these phenomena differently the exhibited behavior towards them will be different too.

3- Future-based language transforms how situations occur to people.

This law rests on the distinction of the language into two fundamental groups descriptive and generative (future based).

Descriptive language as the name implies, describes how the situation occurs, whereas future based language has the power to craft vision and to eliminate obstacles that prevent people from seeing paths and possibilities. It doesn’t describe how situations occur, it merely transforms how they occur by rewriting the future.

S.K.