Keeping Score ...

?

KEEPING SCORE — I am still very much in the process of discovering Daniel Kahneman.

And still, I felt something profound when I learned of his passing while scrolling through my feeds while taking a bus ride Wednesday evening.?

Because I'd actually thought of him the day before.?Mentioned him by name, if memory serves.

Been thinking about him the past few months, actually.?Years, if I'm being honest.

And while I’m being honest, Daniel Kahneman is pretty much responsible for the moment captured in the photo above. Possibly even responsible for my even being in the room.?

This is a gathering of some of the wisest, most talented and generous humans responsible for some of the most relevant and resonant high-touch, business multiplying customer experiences for companies like Microsoft, Google, and Verizon.

A moment before the photo was taken, this august group may or may not have been throwing horns as if they were at a Metallica concert in the fields of Kentucky.

?Because that’s exactly where we went together. In a crammed, standing-room only sterile ballroom in Santa Clara, California.

And I would submit my mental image of that memory as Figure 1A in the dictionary definition of the Peak End Rule, an elaboration on the snapshot model of remembered utility which Kahneman and Barbara Frederickson first proposed.?

I stumbled upon treasure when I first discovered Kahneman’s 2010 Ted Talk, “The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory,” a few years ago.

In his incandescent share, Kahneman states that our memories are not merely the sum total of the moments we experience.?

In his research, he discovered that the part of our brain that is active in our moment to moment movement through our day (in our conversations, etc.) is different from the part of our brain responsible for ‘keeping score,’ — from the part of our brain responsible for our memories.?

Turns out, the part of our brain in charge of remembering our experiences places a disproportionate weight on a couple moments in particular: how we feel at the peak of any experience, and how we feel at the very end. The phenomena holds true whether the feelings are positive or negative.?

From the moment I first heard Kahneman speak, I’ve been curious, convinced and convicted of the potential ramifications of the Peak End Rule in experience design. In my observations as a consumer, few experiences are designed with this in mind.

Which is why I make a point to test Kahneman’s theory.?

Every. Chance. I. Get.?

Especially when I find myself presenting at conferences or hosting workshops.?

Motivated by a reverence for how best to serve any audience’s time and attention — the two most precious gifts in this or any universe IMHO — I always aim to leave audiences with something meaningful to them. Something they can walk out the door still thinking about. Something that I hope travels home with them. Something they might even feel compelled to share with colleagues or kindred spirits.?

To accomplish this I always aspire to send them out on the highest note possible. Admittedly, with varying degrees of success.?

This past week I began a workshop by sharing a story of heavy metal excess from the fields of Kentucky that, on the surface, I knew had absolutely nothing to do with the professional worlds of the wise, talented and generous humans in the room.?

I did so on a hunch that, under the surface, the story may, in fact, have profound implications for their professional and personal worlds.?My world and life has been changed by such stories.

And when we were done with our session, we wrapped up everything we’d shared over our 60 minutes with a tidy bow.? Exquisitely, if I might say so myself.

This is how workshops are supposed to end. The decent ones, anyway.?

But I had Kahneman in my back pocket.?

So the presentation did not end there.?

It ended the way a heavy metal concert in the fields of Kentucky might.?

With an encore.?

Where we invited the audience to choose the closer. Gave ‘em three options.?

I will not reveal the particulars only because our pledge going in was to deliver an Only Here Experience. One that could not be found or replicated elsewhere. One that we hoped was not only worth their time and attention in the room, but maybe was worth traveling for in and of itself. ?

All I will say is that the third choice we gave them was, um, a banger.?

Whereupon this standing-room-only ballroom full of wise, talented and generous humans proceeded to lose their sh*t.

Iin a sterile hotel ballroom in Santa Clara, California.

All thanks to Dr. Daniel Kahneman.?

At the end of our workshop, I had an opportunity to raise a toast to the Only Here experience that we had just shared, which is the moment captured in the above photo.?

If I could go back and re-raise my cup, I would choose the one line from Kahneman’s TED talk that stuck with me from the moment that I first heard it.?

The one line that was in the back of my mind as I watched a roomful of kindred spirits share so generously with each other.?

The one line still ringing in my ears as my fingers type this sentence.?

The line that, to me, has been the earth my feet have dug in and held fast to …whenever I’ve been brave enough to claim the ground beneath me.?

“The remembering self … is a storyteller.”?

I will be teasing takeaways from this week’s experience for some time to come.?

But years from now, I know what I’ll remember most.?

I’ll remember exactly how it felt at the end.?

I am still very much in the process of discovering Daniel Kahneman.?