Experiment Kata

The Kata experiment asked a simple question and gave an uncomfortable answer. Those are the best kind.

The finding has been argued over, replicated, doubted, and refined — as it should be. What survives the argument is a modest, sturdy lesson about how people actually behave when nobody is performing.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

Think of the tuition teacher who says, 'First learn the formula, then forget where it came from — and then, one day, remember it properly.' That three-step journey is how all real learning travels.

Learning is the one wealth that survives every partition of fortune. You will meet this idea again this week, wearing different clothes. Now you will recognise it.