Albert Einstein

  • Think great thoughts by bucking convention and being open to opportunities.

Background

Albert Einstein’s name and visage are synonymous with genius. He was named the Person of the Century, not Scientist, by Time magazine and is often cited as the most important physicist ever. His work was the basis for both modern physics of the small scale – quantum mechanics – and physics of the large scale – astrophysics. He won the Nobel Prize for one of his minor works. He was also a social and political activist and was even asked to be President of Israel, a role he turned down.
Goals: Understand how the world works; be free to think; exchange knowledge with peers; find the simplest answer
Governing Principle: Improve the human condition through knowledge and understanding.

Values

Everything has an underlying logic; it just has to be found. Asking the right questions is better than having the answers. Thinking trumps doing. Collaboration is more fruitful than competition. The truth is always simple. Beliefs should be examined and abandoned periodically. Be flexible. Understand your role in the grand scheme of things.

Learning Objectives

Challenging conventional wisdom and assumptions
Uncovering root causes and finding the reasons behind events and actions
Being an iconoclast by not caring about others’ opinions
Pursuing worthy causes
Taking time alone to reflect and think
Embracing opportunities that come your way

Traits

Curious, absent-minded, aloof, intellectual, absorbed in thought, philosophical, rational, confident, humble, unconventional, easy-going, flexible

Biography

As a child, Einstein was a voracious reader of learned texts and excelled in math and science. Growing up in Germany, he chafed against the rigid German patriotism and the rote-learning emphasized by his school. He distrusted authority and was highly skeptical of conventional wisdom. As a result, Einstein was considered impudent by his elders and teachers. He often challenged and even insulted his teachers at the Zurich Polytechnic, so much so that no one would recommend him for a job when he graduated even though his immense intellect was obvious. For several years, Einstein tried unsuccessfully to find a job in academia but continued his intellectual pursuits on his own and with like-minded friends. Through friends, he eventually found a position in the Swiss patent office where he had time to work on his scientific theories.

In 1905, Einstein published four groundbreaking physics papers – the photoelectric effect, special relativity, Brownian motion, and the equivalence of mass and energy – each one worthy of a Nobel. His most important work was the General Theory of Relativity, published in 1916, which changed physics and our conception of the world. After these publications, Einstein became known world-wide and used his fame to promote the causes of Zionism and pacifism. With the rise of Nazism, Einstein left Germany and sought refuge in the US and settled in Princeton where he lived for the remainder of his life. He was the classic absent-minded professor who would forget to bring his suitcase on a trip and exhibited the unkempt appearance that is now equated with genius. He loved classical music, especially Mozart, and was quite a good violinist. He preferred solitary hobbies like the violin, sailing, and hiking and, though introverted, did have a close circle of comrades with whom he stayed friends for life. He never shied from standing up for his beliefs and always did what he pleased, oblivious to the opinions of others.

Questions:

  • What assumptions are we operating under? Are they correct?
  • Are there underlying rules or causes that need to be investigated?
  • How does this really work? How well do we understand it?
  • Is the theory behind this based in fact or is it a matter of convention?
  • How can this be simplified?
  • What picture or analogy can we use to represent this and understand it better?
  • What is the worth of this task or action? How will it make the world better?
  • How does this fit with my philosophy of life?
  • What thought experiments will help me understand this better?
  • How can I improve my imagination and apply it to my problem?

Behaviors

Be extremely humble – Listen carefully to others before offering your own opinion. Use analogies or other thought experiments to explain yourself simply. Understate your own contribution.

Thoroughly examine problems – Use data, analogies, pictures, and thought experiments to analyze problems. Make sure each topic is thoroughly considered and resolved to your satisfaction. Don’t accept contradictions. Everything should have an underlying logic.

Insist on understanding why and how everything works – Get at root assumptions and uncover belief systems by asking many questions, especially asking “Why?” five times in a row. Some example questions are:

  • Is the world benevolent or hostile?
  • Is this a competitive or collaborative approach?
  • What really motivates people?
  • Are you an optimist or a pessimist? How does that affect your decisions?

Persist – Don’t leave issues unresolved.

Simplify whenever possible – Always look for the simplest, most streamlined solution or method.

Trust your own opinions – Be extremely internally guided with a strong sense of moral conviction. Stick to your convictions until the evidence tells you otherwise.

Challenge conventional wisdom – Look for unusual methods to accomplish goals and be a non-conformist whenever possible. Challenge everyone else to do the same.

Be incapable of saying no – Einstein had a very hard time refusing anyone who needed his help. He originally became involved in Zionism in this way. His name often appeared to endorse causes he knew little about because someone wanted his help. He helped other scientists who wrote to him and often this turned out to be fruitful for him, leading to discoveries he wouldn’t have made on his own, like atomic energy and black holes. While you are Einstein, be open to every opportunity that comes your way and help everyone who asks.

Role Play Situations

Your role is to challenge the conventional wisdom. Ask a lot of questions, especially why and how, in order to thoroughly understand the issue. Be aloof and push yourself away from the table to maintain objectivity, but listen to everyone carefully and observe. Offer your opinion after others are finished talking. Bring something to work on during lulls or breaks. Einstein scribbled on his equations almost everywhere he went. Make sure each item on the agenda is resolved to your satisfaction before moving on to the next topic. It is more important to get it right than to cover a lot of ground.
Your purpose in delivering a presentation is to bring people through your thought process. Einstein’s lectures were not very impressive or fancy, but were fascinating to people who really wanted to learn about and understand his theories. He was very low key and preferred to answer questions from the audience than to give a formal presentation. Keep slides to a minimum, don’t use many audio-visual aids in general, and use the Socratic Method (questioning) as much as possible. This means that you should know your topic very well and prepare questions in advance to ask your audience.

To method-act the persona
and circumvent the ego

To Get into Character

Dress – Einstein was known for his crazy hair and disheveled appearance. Pay less attention to your grooming and clothing. Let your hair grow out more than you normally would and wear only comfortable clothing. Just put on what is the most convenient. Do not bother with matching.

Attention – Be absorbed in thought most of the time and inattentive to your surroundings. Find a thought experiment to occupy your mind while you doing mundane tasks like walking, eating, or using the bathroom so that you are constantly immersed in thought and oblivious to your surroundings. Avoid direct eye contact, but listen intently to others and nod often.

Activities to Conduct Alone

Einstein’s claim to fame is thinking, so much of your time will be spent on improving your thinking skills.

Determine the assumptions and beliefs that guide your life – Einstein had strong convictions about the world which shaped his work. His belief in the simplicity and beauty of the world was captured in e=mc2. Some of Einstein’s other core guiding beliefs were:

  • Reality exists independent of our ability to observe it.
  • The world works on causality, not probabilities. One event leads to another and not to several probable or improbable events.
  • The cosmos obeys strict laws that are comprehensible to humans.

Write down the convictions that shape your personal philosophy. Here are some questions to guide you:

  • How much of a role does luck play in your life or can you control your destiny?
  • Do you take a solipsistic view of world, where our observation of the world is what is real, or do you believe in an independent realism?
  • Is the world unpredictable and chaotic and even incomprehensible or are there underlying rules that govern everything?
  • Are you an atheist, theist, or monotheist?
  • Are people fundamentally competent or incompetent? Ethical or unethical?
  • Which is more important: individual rights or the welfare of society? And what impact does that have on your choices?

After you have written your beliefs, think about how they shape your actions. If your beliefs were different, how would your thinking be different? Choose one of the questions above and imagine how your beliefs and opinions would change if you chose a different answer.

Conduct thought experiments – Einstein was famous for his thought experiments. To help him understand the relationship between acceleration and gravity, he imagined himself in an elevator that was accelerating towards the heavens. It felt the same as standing on Earth. Imagining a bowling ball and lighter balls resting on a trampoline helped him realize that curved space could explain gravity because everything rolled towards the heaviest ball. Three ways to conduct thought experiments are:

  • imagining being something else, like the end product you are working on
  • constructing analogies, like the balls for planets
  • creating pictures of your problem.

Use these experiments and combinations of them to examine your problems. Move things around in your pictures, imagine your feelings, and substitute items in your analogies. The purpose of these exercises is to gain a fresh perspective.

Make sure you schedule time, preferably at least an hour, each day to be alone and think. Take up solitary hobbies that allow you time to reflect, like running or weight lifting.

Activities to Conduct with Others

Get involved politically – After WWI, Einstein advocated for the end of militarism, especially conscription and the buildup of arms. He also spoke on behalf of Zionism and travelled extensively to raise funds for the Jewish state. Find a cause you believe in to advocate for at work. It doesn’t have to be a political cause, but something you believe will make work a better place, even if it’s campaigning for casual Fridays.

Reverse one of your principles – Although his personal convictions were strong, Einstein did reverse himself on some of his positions when circumstances changed. A committed pacifist after WWI, he realized that the only way to combat the rise of Nazism was to build strong militaries outside Germany. In fact, he wrote the letter to FDR that instigated the Manhattan project. Review your list of your convictions above and choose one to reverse. Spend your time as Einstein acting as if you believe the reverse is true.

Give a creative gift to the world using the Creative Commons attribution – In addition to the examples above, Einstein’s theories became the foundation for new fields of study, most notably quantum mechanics, but also in mathematics and thermodynamics. Do you have a piece of work you can send out to the world for other people to use and build on? Find or create something and post it on internet using the creative commons attribution so that people know they are free to use it.

Help someone at the bottom – While Einstein lived in Princeton, he was well-known in his neighborhood. His neighbor’s little girl sought him out to help her with her math homework. Although her mother was aghast, Einstein quite enjoyed helping her and tutored her regularly. Find someone in a very junior position you can help, especially someone who might be surprised by your attention.

Take on work no one else wants – After his work on general relativity, Einstein spent the rest of his life pursuing the grand unified theory, a theory that would unify gravity, electromagnetism, and nuclear forces into one simple law. He was never successful, and many of his colleagues were frustrated at his continued efforts. Einstein’s explanation was that he felt compelled to work towards this unifying theory because someone had to, and he already had made a name for himself and could sacrifice the rest of the his career to a fruitless pursuit. Take on a thankless job in your department that no one else wants to do.

Additional Resources

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Role play Instructions

Page through the profiles and read the summary sections with the lessons, goals, principles, traits, and values. Find one that “speaks” to you or that has a lesson you could use at the moment. Liking the person or sharing that person’s values is irrelevant, though it may require slightly more effort on your part. Keep in mind that you control the experience and can adopt as much or as little as you feel comfortable doing. Most of the changes you will be making will be internal, in your thought processes and resultant behaviors, and you are not expected to impersonate someone outwardly like you would for Halloween or a play. Explanation of sections:
  • Demeanor – This section describes clothing, speech, and eating habits to adopt. The purpose of this is to break out of your routine and ingrained patterns of behavior. If you start the day eating or dressing differently, you will be more likely to act differently. Use your judgment to determine the extent of the changes needed to change your habits without being disruptive.
  • Activities Alone – Conduct these activities first as they are meant to help you get into character and better understand that person’s values and motivation. They are also indicative of activities the character performs on a regular basis. Again, use your judgment regarding which activities make sense for you, but please make sure you do at least some.
  • Activities with Others – Again, choose which activities pertain most to your situation. These are an excellent opportunity to practice being your persona and solicit advice from others on “What would this person do?”
  • Behaviors – While activities are one-off or have a concrete start and end, the behaviors and questions should be ongoing when you are enacting the profile.
It should take you somewhere between 1-3 weeks to master the character. We recommend that you plan on two weeks, and continue if you need more time to fully internalize the persona. Thinking like the persona or exhibiting their behaviors without thinking are signs that you have internalized the skills. We encourage you to tell the people you are with what you are doing so that they can help you master the character and provide feedback. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask others what they think that person would do. If you have trouble getting started or feel stuck, just ask yourself “What would this person do?

Instructions

Here are some suggestions for using the icons. Click on the i icon to open this box again.

One-on-Conversations

The icons are useful when conducting any kind of port mortem or difficult conversations, like project, progress, or performance reviews. 

Each person chooses a card that reflects the perspective he wants the other to hear. One person shows the card, and, together, both brainstorm the feedback that the persona would give. Repeat using the second person’s chosen card. Both compare and contrast the feedback and agree on lessons going forward. If deadlocked or otherwise desired, they can choose a third card and perform the feedback again

Expectations Setting

Use the icons at the start of project or with a team to understand each person’s default behaviors and identify potential conflicts.  

Each person chooses three cards: one that best represents her, one that she would most like to work with on the project, and one she would least like to work with. Each discusses her picks and agrees to actions for working together.

Team building

The goals are to create awareness of missing skills and traits on the team, use the personalities to fill those gaps, and to improve team creativity by role-playing other perspectives.

Review the cards to determine which personas the team needs but is lacking. Conducting the expectations setting exercise first may help. Create virtual seats for these leaders and assign team members the responsibilities for representing these perspectives.

 

Brainstorming

During brainstorming, choose cards at random and generate ideas as the leader personas. Alternately, team members can act as the leaders during the meetings.

Meeting feedback

At the end of the meeting, each participant, including the meeting leader, chooses a card, either randomly or deliberately, and takes turns providing feedback in the manner of the personality. Alternately, the meeting leader can choose cards at random and ask participants for feedback in that leader’s perspective.

Personal Development (method acting)

1. Look through the profiles and read the summary sections with the lessons, goals, principles, traits, and values. Find one that “speaks” to you or that has a lesson you could use at the moment. Liking the person or sharing that person’s values is irrelevant, though it may require slightly more effort on your part.

2.  Keep in mind that you control the experience and can adopt as much or as little as you feel comfortable doing. Most of the changes you will be making will be internal, in your thought processes and resultant behaviors, and you are not expected to impersonate someone outwardly like you would for Halloween or a play.

3. Explanation of sections:

  • To get into character– This section describes clothing, speech, and eating habits to adopt. The purpose of this is to break out of your routine and ingrained patterns of behavior. If you start the day eating or dressing differently, you will be more likely to act differently. Use your judgment to determine the extent of the changes needed to change your habits without being disruptive.
  • Activities Alone – Conduct these activities first as they are meant to help you get into character and better understand that person’s values and motivation. They are also indicative of activities the character performs on a regular basis. Again, use your judgment regarding which activities make sense for you, but please make sure you do at least some.
  • Activities with Others – Again, choose which activities pertain most to your situation. These are an excellent opportunity to practice being your persona and solicit advice from others on “What would this person do?”
  • Behaviors – While activities are one-off or have a concrete start and end, the behaviors and questions should be ongoing when you are enacting the profile.

4. It should take you somewhere between 1-3 weeks to master the character. We recommend that you plan on two weeks, and continue if you need more time to fully internalize the persona. Thinking like the persona or exhibiting their behaviors without thinking are signs that you have internalized the skills. We encourage you to tell the people you are with what you are doing so that they can help you master the character and provide feedback. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask others what they think that person would do.

5. If you have trouble getting started or feel stuck, just ask yourself “What would this person do?