Creative Management

The 9 Mental Traps of Corporate India

“Mental traps are habitual modes of thinking

that disturb our ease, take up enormous amounts

of our time, and deplete our energy, without

accomplishing anything of value”

Submitted to: - Dr. Prasad Sundararajan

Submitted by: - Rahul Kumar

Roll no: - 110096
Sec: - B
 The 9 mental Traps of Corporate India

Creative Analysis of 23+ years of data on 'mind-sets' collected by direct interface with 5,050

individuals comprising Senior Managers, Management Students, and Government Officers.

The mind-set percentages of the select sample of 5,050 are presented against those of a larger

sample of 13,365 respondents of various other categories.

WHAT are the 9 ‘mental traps’?

 Fear-Tension-Anxiety of Uncertain, Unknown, etc.

 Centricity – Conformity

 Fear-Tension-Anxiety of Failure, Loss, etc.

 Fear-Tension-Anxiety of ‘Low-ness’, Humiliation, etc.

 Self-doubt and Resource Myopia

 Functional Fixedness and Rigidity

 Lack of Creative Sensitivity or Sensitivity-Lag

 Familiarity – Contempt [ taken–for–granted attitude Trap]

 Self – Importance [ Speed Trap]

The first seven mental traps are identified by the PNK-Questionnaire and the remaining two

mind-sets of traps have been differentiated out of observations and creative interviews with

hundreds of trainee and others as well as observations and creative analysis of events, incidents,

and media reports and articles on events and episodes of life, work, relationships.
In reality, all the 9 mind-sets are essential or even inevitable for survival-substance and

adaptation with the people, things, events, entities, phenomena, environment, and larger

society. Such essential pattern of mind-sets is called “threshold mental blocks.”

The term mental trap is used with all the concept sense and connotations of the word

meanings of the term. There is already the concept of ‘Psychological blocks. But it implies

relatively simple ‘mental inability or inhibition caused by emotional factors’

There are 3 mental “Blocks” that work precisely like ‘TRAPS’: Centricity-Conformity,

Rigidity, Sensitivity-Lag.

First of all, mental “blocks” are essential because of the nature of the engines of the very

mind.

In this documentary there is the inner linkages of mental TRAPS that divided into three parts

1. Centricity-Conformity

2. Mental “traps” of fear-and-anxiety of failure, negative future, defeat, loss,

missing-schedule-routine-plans, etc

3. Sensitivity-lag or Lack of Creative-Sensitivity

Apart from above there are some other mental traps which resist in one” s
“Being”, “Knowing”, “Doing”

4. Fear-Tension-Anxiety of ‘Low-ness’, Humiliation, etc.

Fears, tensions, and anxieties about criticism, evaluation, humiliations, comparisons,

etc; obsessed about sense of ‘low-ness’; inferiority feeling or inferiority complex.

5. Self-doubt and Resource Myopia

Perceived or real incapacities and lack of confidence in-self.

 6. Functional Fixedness and Rigidity

Rigidity in thought, cognition, perception, dialoguing, etc; low analytic-powers;

mechanical in expressions, responses, behaviours, actions, dialogues, work, and

relationships.

7. Fear-Tension-Anxiety of Uncertain, Unknown, etc.

Fears, tensions, and anxieties about the ambiguous, uncertain, complex, dangerous,

strange, unknown, new, unexpected, etc., anxiety about the future, etc.

All the mental ‘traps’ and mental ‘blocks’ are essential for survival-sustenance and social

adaptation.

o Mental “blocks’ or ‘traps’ are made up of indefinite number of small units of mind-

sets.

o All mental ‘blocks’ or ‘traps’ have linkages with emotive states or emotions and

feelings.

o Mental ‘blocks’ or ‘traps’ are involved in most of the expressions, responses,

behaviour’s, actions, work, dialogues, and relationships.

o The entire existence is but a game of mental ‘blocks’ and mental ‘traps.

o No human being can exist without mental ‘blocks. Even ‘sub-human creatures’ may

carry mental ‘blocks’ and mental ‘traps’ [of their level and functions].

o Mental ‘blocks’ beyond the threshold scale function as mental ‘traps’ – too much of

anything is negative in state and consequences.

This book also tells about

 Why should one know about the mental-traps?

 What is ‘Primacy’ of MIND?

 How or Why mental-trap sensitivity becomes an advantage?

 How the traces of eccentricity can be Recreated?

 Why Mental Traps remain un-noticed?

 The ‘super human beings’ from the vantage-point of mental ‘traps’

 POLITICAL Leaders and Mental ‘traps’

 Mental-traps and Creative Language Control

 Mental ‘traps’ and ‘self-discovery or Satori

 Mental ‘traps’ and ‘knowing’, ‘doing’, and ‘being’

This book finally asks you some questions

 Other than the work of the mental-traps, what else can block the true success,

happiness, and Satori of a standard human being?

 What else can block the engines of creativity, originality, and genius from being

manifested in the expressions, responses, behaviour’s, actions, work, relationships,

and dialogues of you?

 What else can block the development and evolution of families, governance engines,

institutions, and organizations in India?

Mental traps are identified not by the content of our ideas but by their form. Any aspect of

daily life – household chores, weekend recreation, careers, relationships – may be thought

about either productively or unproductively. We fall into the same traps when we wash the

dishes as when we contemplate marriage or divorce. It’s not the subject of our thinking, but

how we deal with the subject, that makes the difference. When we rid ourselves of any one

trap, we find that our problems in every department of life are simultaneously eased.