The comfort zone of the future or dehabituation | Prof. Dr. Gunter Dueck | TEDxRheinMain

In his talk, Prof. Dr. Gunter Dueck tries to explain the psychology of change. Is it possible that a lot of people were drilled in a way that they cannot change anymore? And others suf-fered so much of this drill attempts that they always have to do something new? All these fears are an outflow of too strict habit-forming in the upbringing. Prof. Dr. Gunter Dueck makes the case for a good level of "Ungewöhnung" so that neither fears nor rage form the character. Thus, changing is easy as you don’t rebel against reason. Consequently, change is not only evaluated positively from mind, but can also be experienced in a positive way.

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Yeah, I have read the title,
"Subject to Change".

"Change" now is always being capitalised.
If you work in a big company,

they say, "Everything
has to change,

not a stone must
be left standing.

We will reorganise
everything completely.

But don't worry, nothing is
going to change at your workplace."

(Laughter)

But also nothing
is getting done.

You only have to work a little bit faster.
Your salary is sinking a little bit but ...

"Minor changes."

And there are certain people who
somehow want to keep it the same way,

and other people, managers
actually, rant and rave and say,

"You are simply too stubborn. You
must have a change of heart."

Everyone is saying that.
Well ... it's not that easy.

Managers want us to
have a change of heart,

teachers want that, our
parents, Mrs Merkel, everybody.

And always when politicians say that people
should have a change of heart,

then you realise that they already have written
off themselves that they are going to do it.

Because there will be
no change of heart

and that is a little bit
due to ourwelves.

And now, I want to
comment it theoretically.

It's simply the
"theory of change".

I have just opened up a
normal psychology book

containing a few horrible terms

which are on the first slide.

I will simply tell you the bare facts.

But I can also do it in a softer
way that you don’t get too much scared.

Well, there is a tug of war going on between
different forces inside the human being.

There is a famous book "Grundformen
der Angst" (The Basic Forms of Fears)

from the 70s which
you must have read.

Psychologists don’t like it
as it is a literary master piece

and describes everything very well
however doesn’t prove anything.

But you can talk about it very well.

The message of the whole thing is
that there are two tugs of war

of which I will only discuss one

as it only should be 18 minutes.

From the left to the right: Well, there
are a kind of obsessive people

and a kind of hysterical people.

The obsessive ones want to
keep everything the same way,

and the hysterical ones want
that everything always changes.

There are these two sorts of people.

And they argue.

Both are nearly more
or less unchanging

and stay that way,

and that is the normal argument.

At the moment, the hysterical
ones are in the majority,

or let’s say, "in a higher priority."

They are in higher
salary classes,

all those change managers
and consultants

who attack us and say

that we had to change radically.

In principle, they celebrate
the hysterical principle.

I simply took out the characteristics

of hysteria and obsession of a company

and said that, at present, the entire theory of
management is to diss the obsessive ones.

Otherwise, there is
nothing behind it.

There is no intellectual
content behind it. (Laughter)

I will leave this out. There’s
another tug of war, from bottom up,

these are the depressed ones who
always want to do everything in company.

Happens.

And then the schizoid ones
who have very much self-confidence

but a very sensitive self-consciousness,

type "geek" or type "nerd." Right?

Very isolated but can work very well
alone, especially at the computer

and from time to time they have to
make a proud contribution to Google+.

(Laughter)

But that’s another talk.

Today, I am to talk about "change."

The depressed ones are mostly on Facebook.

(Laughter)

But that’s true.

(Applause) (Laughter)

Because they have friends there.

(Laughter)

On Google+ you have opponents.

There are the rulers
and they gather there.

This is also an extra talk.
I will leave that out.

Once I posted the same thing
on Facebook and on Google+.

The depressed ones on Facebook
said, "You must have read my thoughts."

"We love you all", or so.

And on Google+, "You didn’t read the link anyway!"

"Look it up, that’s not new!"

Right? On Google+ you get
completely different answers.

These are the different …

Therefore, there is that hate going on between the
members of Google+ and Facebook and vice versa

but as I said earlier, that’s
another talk, I will leave that out.

On "Subject to change" only the ones who want to
keep it the same way fight against each other.

I looked it up in a psychology
book what it means

in order to make these hard
vocabularies a little bit softer.

That is the short version for now.

[Slide, "obsessive"]:
Tradition, rules, order, unity,

and the others say, advance
and panta rhei. That’s not fair.

[Slide, "hysterical": Advance, flow, open up, variety]

The hysterical ones arm
themselves with Greek … stuff,

"You now chose foreign
words that I didn’t even know."

(Laughter)

But you understand, right?
I don’t have to explain it any further.

That you can really understand it. Well,
that is now official psychology. It’s not my fault.

Here, you can see the characteristics: careful,
ambitious, constant, persistent, clean, rational,
and so on.

And on the other side: no risk, no fun, impulsive,
adventurous, loves the show, likes to be in the
center of attention – or up here

(Laughter)

Have you read it all?

"Is shallow, sometimes restless and so on."

Can you feel that they
are arguing with each other?

Here the ones say, "You stupid duty monkey do you
always have to do the same things?" – from
right to left.

"Blockhead, always going home
and to your garden plot and keeping dates.

Is it not just once possible for you to come on the
weekend and work, thus, you can finish it?"

"No, I’m working at VW. I’m
not available on weekends."

And from left to right, they
always talk about shallowness.

"And you just talk
and don’t do anything."

"You only want the adventure,
but I should make it happen."

"And additionally, I should give you the money, too."

Yeah, the others are economical and don’t
have any money left at the end of the month.

They raise credits, right? You can also notice it
now from the behavior of the companies.

And thus, they argue
with each other.

What should talk about next,
only 11 minutes to go?

The official German
notion of a human is –

left, obsessive, right?

And I just want to make
a comment about that.

Virtually, all the people
make officially efforts

to teach us these characteristics,

not those over there.

I mean, when all the people make efforts to
raise their children to become obsessive,

then how should they change?

And where?

And I just want to make
a comment about that.

To describe it, I invented the
term "Ungewöhnung" (un-habit-forming)

meaning they shouldn’t drill
so much into the children,

how they should limit themselves
every day, then it’s easier to change.

But I also don’t want to say that you should
bring up your children in the hysterical way.

That would be a bit too much.

The golden mean wouldn’t be that bad.

But what we are doing now is,
actually, to get the people used to

all these characteristics over here.

Approximately until the master’s degree.

Then, they come into a company
and they are told, "Now, do something."

"Like what?"

"Change!"

"Yeah, but where? Can I
have a look at the roadmap?

Can you tell me what the milestones are
and what I should do tomorrow?

In the smallest quanta?

Then they are told, "Don’t stand here like stupid
and ask what you have to do: Simply change!"

And again, "Where?" And then,
we are standing there.

Do you understand?

In that way we don’t look
contently into the comfort zone future

we only notice the change
when it already happened.

But the obsessive ones already notice
the change when they are scared.

There is something in the air that
something is going to happen

and they know when it will happen,

in fact, when they are getting scared.

And the hysterical ones really
feel like doing something.

That is really something different. Right?

I have written down some opposites.

Like I said, this is what a
normal boss is going to say at work.

Virtually the left side:
"Avoid mistakes!", "Unity!",

"The slides have to have the real logo, and all slides
have to have the same color in the company."

"The A-level exams must be the
same in every Land", and so on.

I only say unity, unity, unity.

Everything in unicolor.

Well, that’s it what we
are forced into in daily life.

And at management meetings
or at a "strategy meeting"

where you can set
your thoughts free,

think about a durable
future and so on;

or at those psychological seminars where
you talk about emotional intelligence

and what you have to
do in normal life

there is always being said
what’s here on the right,

"Now do something." or "One
must be allowed to make mistakes."

Right? Or "Set yourself some goals." "Do something
different." "Don’t always ask for permission."

Unfortunately, we still
don’t have a science for this,

business administration
is strictly left.

For the right side, there are only appeals. You
don’t exactly know how to teach that to someone.

The problem is that the people on the left feel
more like adults, and the people on the right

represent rather the ones
who remained children.

The child is still spoiled and
wants permanently something different,

wants to go on adventures.
That’s a bit dangerous

and that’s why it’s really
difficult to stay a child.

At my home, it is sometimes
said that I’m still a child.

(Laughter) But that's okay.

Thus, I’m not so
much on the left side.

Okay.

I’ve googled that. Once again,
I looked at my report card,

which I found.

I looked at what I was good. At "Ordnung"
(organisation) and at "Fleiß" (studiousness).

Yes, that’s what is standing there.
Yeah, I found that from my years in school.

There is "Ordnung", "Fleiß", "Betragen"
(conduct) and "Mitarbeit" (collaberation).

We got grades for that.

Are they still doing this?

Very similar.

Well, when I googled it right they
substituted it with more sophisticated

vocabulary like "social behavior" and
"purposeful professional success stuff."

That’s what I’ve written there.

Did you notice that the school is
teaching us to become obsessive?

That stands there implicitly.

For people to recognize that, I
simply proposed new grades.

I simply made them up.

You just can have a look if you like them.

I just take some other ones.

"Creativity, innovativeness, sense of humor."

[Slide: Constructive will. Initiative & community spirit.
Balanced self-confidence.]

Have you ever seen a job description with "a sense of humor?"

(Laughter)

Not even in marketing. (Laughter)

They should be able to make
dumb jokes, be funny on demand;

these are the people
from marketing. (Laughter)

When they are funny on
demand – that’s again left, right?

By now you’ve read everything.

A "winning appearence."

What do you think, when I
publicize that, not only at TEDx,

but when I tell it to teachers,

I get crucified. That
is strange, isn’t it?

But that is what is actually
needed in this profession.

You find that neither in job descriptions
nor in general conduct grades. Right?

Of course, every year
I’ve written a book about it

and this time it is
about professional intelligence.

Here, I’ve randomly written
down some kinds of intelligence.

I just made them up. Those
are the ones we should have.

People possess intelligence anyway;
you know that because you possess it.

Emotional intelligence,
you probably don’t have yet.

It only exists 30 years and
there is still not done enough research.

When they do projects
and they go wrong,

then they always sit together

and start wining and ask, "What went wrong?"

That is called "Lesson learned."

(Laughter)

And then it turns out
that we had conflicts

and communication problems. We
didn’t talk to each other in the right way.

Blahblahblahblah. "You
don’t have an EQ", they say.

Somehow it’s not allowed
anymore to be creative.

There are TEDx videos about paper clips.

"Are you able to do 100 …", there
is this thing made of brass.

"Are you able to tell 100 things that
can be done with a paper clip?"

If you were on the executive level,
a manager as I was, then you would say,

"Clipping traveling expenses."

Are you able to name 100?
You’re not able to.

When I ask you, "Are you able to name 100?",
then your brain goes, "Oh, shit."

Do you understand?

This part of your brain with which you
could do that is switched off for a long time.

(Laughter)

I found statistics – you can
look it up under this test –

saying that 98 % of all children, around five,
are able to tell you very fast 100 possibilities.

Try to do this.

Small children. Boys, girls.

Spotlight on! Like their eyes are shining.

The boy says,
"I can prick the girls,

pick my ears, pick my nose,
pick everything;

and behind…"

The girl says, "Here jewelry, there
jewelry, piercings and everything…"

Together, these are 100!

And then you see the
shining eyes in front of you

while they’re doing so,
and you, in contrary…

(Laughter)

And the statistics are saying that 98 % of the
people sitting here aren’t able to get 100 together.

As five-year-olds you
could do it; 98 % could do it

and now it’s exactly reversed
so the statistics say…

Thus, the truth comes out and there also is…
I believe it was Kurt Tucholsky who said,

"Look at the children, how cute they are! What
a pity that they become adults later in life."

(Laughter)

Look, that’s what you are. In the
context of CQ, you are nothing.

"Talent for attraction", that’s what average Germans
hate. You are not allowed to do that, you know,
to stand out.

There are some rare exceptions
like Paris Hilton and all the consultants.

Nobody has vitality left. They have to announce
nearly everyone a manager who still has a will.

And step by step,
that’s why we’re here.

This is still the responsibility
of the bloggers. (Laughter)

Well, what I want to do
now is to put people up to

test these six kinds of
intelligence with themselves.

IQ and EQ is already there. At the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* (German daily newspaper).

Just enter "SZ IQ" or

"SZ EQ" in the Internet. We also
should do this with the others.

Then we will realize that we are not at all

prepared for change or for a new world.

Because the obsessive ones only use
their intelligence and nothing else.

Now I want tell you some rules
that I got to drilled into as a child…

Me, at least.
[Slide: "Habit-forming"]

You’ve heard something like
"Love must be earned" and so on,

"Pocket money must stay the same."

And, "There should be uniformity in the village,

otherwise one is at disadvantage. An
afternoon coffee party has to be held up

over how much it should be, how
long should be TV time", and so on.

I want to use the last minutes to
give you a short demonstration

on brainwaves…

That it is already set up in our brain.

[Slide: "Blocking of alpha-activity"]

This slide shows a normal EEG test.

You lay on the couch and think
about holiday in Egypt.

That’s nice.

Eyes shut, Egypt.

Then, the doctor comes in
and asks the usual question,

"Now, think of the number 1000.

Subtract it always with 31 until you reach 0.

Really fast."

Well, 1 000, 969, nine hundred… Do you notice
something? Your brain says, "I don’t do it now."

(Laughter) That is what I
had in mind with this talk.

You laughed a few times.

I got you into the alpha wave mode

because beta you don’t want.

Beta is a normal manager meeting.

(Laughter)

Take a woman, a beautiful
one. Any woman here.

Take a picture of her when
she thinks about Egypt.

That’s gonna be a great picture.

And then you say, "Pay attention,
I take a picture now."

Then she’s gonna look
ugly on the picture.

These are beta waves. Like in a meeting.

(Laughter)

And that’s it what
it actually looks like.

Now, this is a scheme. When
you take a picture for real,

then it looks like that…
But you can see it, right?

The three phases…

There are different waves,
long, short, and so on.

Already learned?

Delta waves you only get
when you’re close to death

or maybe an Indian Guru for a second.

Theta waves come
when you’re meditating.

Alpha waves are that Think-about-Egypt-thing

and beta waves are the meeting.

You can’t read it that well, what a pity.

On top: the new born. Until 18 months
you have delta waves.

Right?

Baby, approximately from 18 months
to 5.5 years have theta waves,

which an adult will
never get back in his life…

Until 18 months it has that,
then three years theta waves,

then from age six alpha waves,

then unfortunately it becomes an adult,

approximately between
15 and 20 years of age.

Then, in my age, you get alpha waves again.

Great, right?

(Laughter)

Well, beta waves are, "Don’t do that!" "Stop it!"

"Hold the spoon straight!"

The usual bringing up.

When grandchildren are with
grandpa who has alpha waves

and behaves the normal way.

Then the child says eventually,
"With grandpa is better."

Then the parents say, "You’re not allowed to do
that, Grandpa, you have given them chips!"

And Grandpa says, "I didn’t do anything."

Look, these are simply different waves.

Such an old man like me and a
child have the same waves, alpha,

and the evil adults are in between.

That’s what I’m worried about…

They try to make a child, which has delta
waves, a kind of apocalypse in its brain…

they try to teach them cleanliness
and to sleep in the same rhythm.

Are you aware of that?

The question is: Is the child able to do that at all?

That’s a serious question.

Is it able to do that at all?

Then what are you doing with such a child?

Why do you make a child
which has theta waves,

from 18 months until 6 years of age,
learning English vocabulary in kindergarten?

It is able to do that at all?

Does it already have a hard disc at all?

You don’t have to say "species-appropriate keeping"

when someone… Do you understand?
Isn’t it that nearly all the obsessive things

like organization, behavior,
conduct, collaboration, studiousness,

all the obsessions

are drilled into a child until
it is 18 months of age

when it had theta waves,
was really vulnerable

and couldn’t say anything against it?

Don’t you have muddled the Bios of the child

what Windows 7 later cannot rescue anymore,

because the Bios was already broken?

That is then called character.

He was "deeply characterized" by it.

German.

And then you want to have comfort zone future

and a hysterical one?

I would warn you.

Take the slides with you and ask yourselves

if we’re terribly destroying all the people.

My clock shows zero.

I have to stop.

I have a lot more stuff.

I am not that old, but 60.

Approximately.

Like I already said, what I would wish for would be

first of all: an upbringing of children
in accordance with the brain waves.

That the people don’t drill
all the values into the children,

in times of EEG. We cannot
turn back time,

that’s we should gradually speak
about, a differential upbringing.

That every child is brought up individually,

simply as it comes.

I talked about it a lot, also last year,

and it is always the same claim

that I virtually tell you at the
end of every talk of mine,

so long until something is done about it.

and until finally this uniformity stops.

This uniformity in general, in the upbringing

and also in treatment of co-workers has to stop.

That is all obsessive and that has to change.

Thank you.

(Applause)