Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Resolving Irresolute Resolutions


Life Deals the Cards, We Sort Them into Winning Hands !


Ho ho ho ho ! The Merry Season is here. Jingle Bells, Tinkle Bells, Plum Cake and Pudding. Christmas Joy and Cheer. The Yellow Brick Lane to Renewal, Resurgence and Restitution. Down the Lane from Yuletide, is the Corner to a Big Bang New Year ! One filled with Promise, Hope and Resolutions. Oops !! Where did that slip in from ?

I guess you already know where we are going to. New Year Resolutions, the most exciting to make, and most often, the easiest to break. At least that has been the case with most people I know and certainly with me too !

So why do we still make New Year Resolutions ? And still break them ? The “Thrill o’ Will” power struggle with “ Damn the Sham” I guess. Or just old “brainwired” habit, a ritual that routinely clicks into place.

Lets ask a few questions :

Why make resolutions at all ?
Why worry if we break them ?
Why wait until New Year to do so ?
How relevant are our resolutions to our real problems ?
How researched are our resolutions that they deliver significantly?
Can resolutions be changed as the situation changes ?
Should resolutions be changed anyway ?
How important are resolutions to altering our lives driven by destiny ?

We can go on of-course with innumerable questions to numb our mind and senses to the subject, so that we can then let it wither away from our zone of concern, leave alone our zone of influence and action.


Lets therefore see some of the logic behind New Year’s Resolutions :

The New Year is when we clear the page of life and start afresh.
The New Year has a common sense of renewal and resurgence which can find an emotional tie with our resolutions
The New Year denies the seamlessness of time that chains us down to our committed lives and helps get us of the old hook.
Every New Year seems to indicate a turning or tipping point in life. Resolutions made at the tipping or turning point are usually made with far greater insight than when made routinely.
Making resolutions are great fun. They allow us to air our dreams. Dreams given oxygen can live longer than those suffocated.
Resolutions are a release of the soul. We can unburden all our guilt of the past and commit them to the future, where we believe we can be more powerful to handle it.
Resolutions tell us what we really want, but cannot seem to get.
Resolutions are a way of making us conscious of what’s blocking our path to success or happiness.
Breaking resolutions are surprisingly an expected event, as the deeply rooted behavioral shift that is expected to accompany the resolution to implementation is often too difficult to accomplish in one go.


So what are we left with ????

Let us see if we can make some sense of all of this.

According to me, I could not agree more with the answers above.
It is difficult to give up old behavior we are emotionally attached to or have found even secret comfort with, in favour of a shining new but difficult-to-do behavior which creates extreme discomfort. It’s like wanting to shift home to a new fantastic place but have nothing to do with the back-breaking and often heart-breaking clearing, sorting, disposing and moving process at all ! But at least we now have embedded the desire to move. And we have an address.

I love making resolutions at New Year and I am delight at breaking some of them too. Funny or crazy or perhaps both ? But I do learn from them to some extent. This learning I fill into the gaps of my existing goal sheet and then it makes more sense.

The Blueprint of my life is a Five Pointed Star of Purpose and Direction.
I regularly set time framed meaningful, measurable and monitored goals in each area.

Every New Year resolution I make, must somehow connect with my 5 point Star. I must see the connect and deeply desire the difference it will make to my Star. This is the key to keeping or breaking resolutions made. It’s all about how much we really want it at the conscious and unconscious level of our thinking process. Resolutions reframe and redirect our efforts to meet our goals.

The blueprint of my life however is not set at New Year’s eve. It is an ongoing process of refining my dream. Sometime back I sat down and asked myself what goals I had in life and what was the quality of my goals ? I realized much to my shock, that my busy life was being run by happenstance rather than design. It took me a while to lay out a design and I have found this useful. May I offer this to you to see if you would like to try it out too.

The Tip of my Star is my Life Goal or my ultimate dream as crazy as it may seem. I do not change my Life Goal but continue to validate and qualify it, to keep deriving a greater sense of purpose to my life, in order to set direction
Around my dream, revolve my Personal Goals that support it, such as Health, Relationships, Social, Lifestyle, Habits some of which may also reflect in the categories below.

The other Four Points of my Star are:


My Career Goals ( My job, my designation, my advancement in my field, my professional path )
My Professional Equity Goals ( My History Sheet : What makes me Good and Reliable- the reasons why someone would invest in me namely my knowledge, skills, competences, qualifications, additional certification and so on.
My Brand Equity Goals (My Unique Selling Proposition, What I Want to be Known For, My Mindshare Flag – just as any Brand has to be developed to be an automatic choice of the market right across the segment )
My Leadership Goals (My ability to Lead, Influence, Impact and Inspire others – one does not need hierarchy to hold us hostage to the power of leadership, for leadership needs to be a way of life, anywhere in the pyramid of society or the organization )

At New Year’s eve, I allow my soul to set itself free to quest beyond the blueprint. To light up the new canvass with the same brilliance that the New Year seems to hold. I thrill at the colourful sparkles and fountains of radiance that my resolutions bring to my trusty Star of Life. And some of these glistening shards of my extended reality glitter on my Star as the year goes through. While some of them sprinkle fairy dust around the place. For even in trying and not quite succeeding, the journey itself is blessed and leaves a comet like trail to my shining star.

For this NEW YEAR may I wish you all a wonderful shining STAR of Hope and Promise, complete with glorious comet trails of glittering resolutions that fill your heart with as great a delight as the shining promise the future holds.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Bus Driving My Emotional Bank Account


Sometimes in life you do things you do not understand and yet they deliver positive results. At a shallow level of analysis, the reasons underlying this can usually be found in some commonplace answers, everyday rules, basic values and perhaps a way of life that has been adopted not by choice but by old habit.

Sometimes later in life you may realize the profound lesson behind some of these events and the immense learning it can deliver to you on your difficult yet determined way to success.

Let me share a personal experience with you that follows these lines.
Many years ago, when I was a child, I experienced a strange relationship which I did not give much thought to, but now I see it for what it was and ever since I have realized the lesson it delivered , it has changed my life.

I was the eldest of two children in a small family in Mumbai INDIA, where the family consisted my parents and also my ailing grandmother, my father’s mother, his dad having passed on many years before. It also included an aging unmarried uncle, Dad’s eldest brother, who though a hardy veteran of life in all it’s forms, had experienced terrible setbacks and had retreated to the safety of the family, a shelter from an unfriendly and hostile world.

My father was a quiet, industrious man with a strong sense of purpose and values. His humour was infectious and he embodied the “man of the house” status as if it were natural to him to deal with all the world had to shove at us, with the greatest equanimity I have experienced. Grandma’s ailments kept taking a turn for the worse, and the world too seemed to have turned a shade darker. Yet my father went about what he had to do with more vigour and yet always found the time for us children to play, teach and live in pace with our growing worlds.

My mother, was the perfect backbone the family needed. Talented and skilled in art, she set aside her career to look after grandma, and this lasted a long and arduous fifteen years. She was the rock in the family, on which dad could build the home. She was full of life, always busy, always loving, caring to the core, and for us kids, a safe haven to run to in times of trouble. In her arms, and they were strong yet immensely comforting arms affording incredible security, we could find great sanctuary from any form of danger. Mother was invincible. She was later to hold the family together with my father through such terrifying times, that this invincibility was often battered, but never gave way.

Our invincible mother died early at the age of just sixty, six months after she helped my father recover from an unexpected heart attack on the eve of Christmas 2002.

Between our two parents we learned several life lessons, not the least being how to hold a family and faith together in violent turbulence. The smaller lessons are what this note is all about.

Helping around the house, running chores, growing up from levels of dependence to almost arrogant levels of independence can often scar behavior beyond recognition. But ingrained in us was the need to be decent and respect ourselves and others in all we did. Dad was the role model here, his colleagues often telling us how much he stood apart from the others because of these traits. Mother followed up with the lessons we needed to learn to be like Dad. Respect everyone, she said, even those you feel are below your status, like the maid servant at home, the ordinary worker on the road, the shopkeeper attendant, the bus driver and bus conductor, the peon, other children, especially the deprived. Their pain and suffering was their badge of honour, she would say, their qualification for the right to an equal life.

All this translated to simple greetings like “ Good morning, Good afternoon, Good evening, Good night” and the all essential “Thank You” and “ I’m sorry” It also meant never taking credit for anything that was not due or belonged to someone else, returning money or fulfilling payments immediately without waiting for even the next day to pass, paying our fair share, and being responsible and accountable for the little things we took charge of in and around the house.

We schooled quite a distance from where we lived in Mumbai’s northern suburbs, about 15 km away, and with traffic and transport frequency being what it was around 35 years ago, mother took on the task of ferrying us back and forth, the school not having a regular bus service of it’s own. Poor experiences with a neighbouring school’s bus which left us stranded in a monsoon flood in waist deep water left her so furious, she decided that her responsibilities must include this very difficult ordeal.
So she made three trips per day, the one in between to bring us lunch, and yet managed a home almost entirely dependent on her to run. Even as carefree children and happy to see mother as often as possible , a beacon of warmth and safety , in the unfriendly environs a school often chooses to offer children; we could see the great strain this was on her. Yet she never complained.

To regulate life somewhat, mother chose a bus route that took us directly to school without any changeover midway. This meant being exactly in time for the bus and this being a ring route, we also caught the very same bus on the way back home. So we became familiar faces being regular passengers on a generous part of the route itself. Mother as usual would prompt us to greet the conductor as we boarded the bus and thank the driver as we disembarked. We would then wave to the bus driver and conductor as the bus eased away from the bus stop.

The bus conductor was almost priestly in his disposition and demeanour. Silver haired and dignified, he would return our greeting with his own blessing for the day or the rest of it, while the driver, a burly sunburned toughie with a walrus like moustache , would break into the most delightful smile as we thanked him in chorus and later waved him goodbye.

And so life went on, for a couple of years, before I finally mustered the courage to assure mother that I could take care of my younger brother and steer ourselves and back form school safely, given the regimen we had established. Skeptical of success , but now terribly overburdened, mother made a few dry runs with us to check our navigational and other competences. She also asked the bus conductor and driver duo to “keep an eye” on us. A request they quickly agreed to comply with. But could you really expect a busy public transport employee, harassed by his very work, barely managing to keep his own equilibrium on even keel, to keep this promise ? Well, we were in for a surprise.

Like clockwork we managed to make the daily circuit without any incident worth mentioning or remembering. Life was settling down to an even regularity, as far as transport was concerned. Till one day this took a big jolt. The school principal decided to lecture the school , for ten long minutes on some moral values of life after the evening prayer at the end of day. This meant that our timetabled life was now going to be turned on it’s head. The bus stop was a brisk 12 minute walk from the school door through the playfield, out of the gate, across the road at a busy traffic junction and then a straight run. This gave us 3 minutes to catch our breath and jostle in line to be the first to spring into the bus, my brother in front of me, held and shielded from the rushing crowd. Once in, the usual greeting to the conductor and a run for empty seats if any or a position in the front so one could pick up casual conversation with the walrus-mustachioed driver.

Scrambling for freedom, the school exploded onto the road at the traffic junction just across the gate. Amidst the melee, stood a red bus, unmindful of the green signal to go, and the jarring honking of the traffic behind, pumping it’s own loud horn in an SOS manner. Puzzled, I looked up, and saw a great big burly face decorated with a walrus mustache, followed by half the burly body, leaning right through the driver’s window calling us to board the bus. Grabbing my brother by the hand, I raced across and boarded from the front, to be greeted with a loud cheer from the passengers, and a huge grin from the driver and a visibly relieved conductor. Thanking him profusely, we spent the remaining journey, being grateful for not being pushed into an unfamiliar route home or being delayed to a degree of discomfort.

The memory soon passed, until it rang several bells when I read Stephen Covey’s thoughts about Emotional Bank Accounting. This concept is so simple and so real. It simply states that just like a financial bank, we deposit and borrow from people we deal with everyday. The account we use if the one we open with each and everyone we meet and work with.

It’s called an Emotional Bank Account. Simply put, we need to have a minimum deposit and keep filling in the account to make it work. It helps when we have to make withdrawals. The deposits are simple ones, like acknowledging the other, common courtesies, keeping the small promises we make, being sincere in helping, being sincere in owning up to mistakes made and apologizing with intent to repair the damage done and so on. The small stuff. But all this has to be made unconditionally without plans for withdrawals. No strings attached.
When withdrawals occur, like shortness of temper, demands on time and work priorities, abruptness with courtesies, anger mismanaged, and all the roughshod treatment we dish out liberally in a day, the unconditional deposits we have banked allow us to save the relationship from destruction.

So where does this leave my bus driver , all those many years ago ? You got it, the Emotional Bank Accounts we opened with them were liberally filled with the unconditional deposits of children not yet coached with the skills of opportunism of the world. Simple greetings from the heart of innocent children, filled the heart of these veteran workers of the daily grueling grind of life, to extend themselves to assume the role of parents , and reach out beyond call to fulfill this withdrawal they not just sanctioned but offered.

Keeping an eye on the clock, this grizzled bear of a driver, realized we would not make it on time, so he did the unthinkable, only a parent would do. Scanning the uniformed crowd of children, to search and find , two children from amongst hundreds, and get them on board, to keep a promise made so casually must have been the consequence of the EBA being driven right home.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

MUMBAI BLEEDS, INDIA WEEPS

Bloodstained uniform, ragged and torn,
Bullet riddled and limp, life ebbs
Through bleeding gaping wounds..
Yet with one last heave, my city staggers,
And wraps the charred remnants of her once proud flag,
Around her gasping soul and charges.
Right into the raging fire of the damned,
To rescue the incarcerated spirit and shackled dreams,
Of a nation set ablaze, nay not with zeal or ardour,
But by the ravenous hunger of a corrupt and corrosive mind,
Of a jealous neighbor, brimming with sinister design.

My Mumbai, my city, my home,
I can scarce behold your weary listless form,
Once so graceful and with vibrant life possessed,
‘Een though with unpolished rustic charm
You could ever with consummate ease disarm
The most gracious and grandiose guest.

Shot in the back, blown apart by explosive hate,
My city bleeds, the bullet shattered bones crack,
Her eyes turn glassy and unseeing..
Oh ! my Mumbai, my city, my home
On her knees in the dust amidst rivers of blood ,
Her dying soul shudders, rattles and behold,,…

She lives, she rises, she stands valiant and tall,
Crusted with the drying blood of her young and old,
Now screams her defiance right from her very soul,
My Mumbai, my city, my home
Turns her blazing gaze upon the cringing coward,
For time is up, time is through, time has ticked
Right through, my foe, to you.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

A PRESSURE COOKED LIFE : A Potful of Parenting Goulash


The children of today and their parents are subject to innumerable stressors and pressure-cooker circumstances of a competitive-crazy world. Managing daily life itself is a stupendous task. There seems to be no time or patience for any thing or for that matter any person out of control or even out of the careful alignment with our regulated lives.


The careless and carefree child, both real and the one in all of us, must conform or convert to a sedate straight-jacketed adult.


Living on the leading edge of life in today’s rushed and rough times, involves both parents being actively engaged with careers that turn in the money to fund the household and lifestyle economies. Growing awareness of competitive careers and advancement vistas in the great big span of working life, has helped cast the dragnet over even the most the unsuspecting home-warming individual.


Bounding out of the couch of comfort, both men and women are brandishing degrees and skills that lay claim to jobs and careers that demand an all-consuming attention absorbing time and life like a gigantic blotting paper.


Regulation, regimentation, rigour are the watchwords of a timetabled life , driven by the need for bringing certainty and predictability to an anticipated incredible combo of a see-sawing roller-coaster life.
Instead of creative-constructs we seek regulated-regularity. The happy lull of mediocrity is the way to an undisturbed life. But ever so often Life has other plans….


What happens when we are faced with uncertainty , when our time tables have no meaning, when our plans find no place to unfold, when our carefully crafted lives are ripped apart by reality ?
What happens when all this happens because of our children ? Or the pressures put on our children ??

Such as competitive social lifestyles, expensive gadgets & gizmos, tuitions, peer-pressure, overly competitive exam pressures, study-load, rivalries at school / college, victimization by teachers, failure, fear-of-failure, success itself, substance abuse like smoking, drugs, alcoholism, absenteeism, sickness – real and imagined………… ???


Parenting can be a bizarre experience for both the parent and the child. Almost all parents, teachers and tutors expect the child to develop in to a superhuman composition of talent, knowledge, skills, competence along with vision, foresight, clarity of purpose, ambition, all neatly folded and pressed into the sharp edges of the shining blade of the sword of success. All this must of-course fit into the pre-constructed timetable of the mentor, unfortunately soon to be tormentor !


Parenting from afar, remote controlling results, financing concern, and funding the future is the order of the day today. But where is the Love ? Where is the Care and Compassion ? Where is the Connect between lives ? Where is the Soul of the family ?


The expected brusque answer you invariably get is : Where is the Time ? Aha ! Find Purpose and the Means usually follows. Alas, the Means is oft the End !


So here is a potful of parenting goulash for the modern family meal:


1. BE INVOLVED : Decide to set aside time to connect with your children every day. Get to know your child and let your child discover you. Give the gift of togetherness, it is far more precious than any other.


2. CONNECT : Be a parent and a friend – and draw the line clearly between the two. Shuffle the cards and no matter which falls first, you will always deal a good hand. This makes the transition easier as you both grow.


3. VALUE : Always value the child. The messenger is sometimes the hapless carrier of an incorrect message.. Reinforce your belief in the person even when you have to admonish the behavior.


4. CO-CREATE : Take a personal interest in shaping, not shoving, the child’s knowledge, skills and abilities, on a regular basis.


5. BE PATIENT : Do not expect miracles to happen. Give the child time to grow and learn. Do not rob your child of the delightful process of growing and learning, just as you cannot hasten the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly.


6. SUPPORT & GUIDE : Be available to nurture the growth of your child- mental, physical, spiritual and emotional. It is important to move from choking controls of the regulating parent to performing as a nurturing parent within the footprint of the controlling parent. Which means while setting clear and enforceable rules, throw yourself into enabling and supporting performance within the rules.


7. COMMIT : Make a promise and keep it. Let you child see your commitment to the family. Demonstration of commitment is a sure fire way to build trust. Commitment means never giving up on promises, goals, dreams and especially people.


8. LEAD BY EXAMPLE : What you want your child to do, is best reflected in what you do and how you do it too. Role modeling is one of the most powerful ways to help your child grow by your own demonstration of the “right” way. We all remember what we see and practice. So give it a go, it will help you too !


9. FORGIVE : Learn to be generous. Bearing grudges and wielding the club of reform is hardly the way to conduct life. If you have to threaten , be prepared to carry out the threat, and bear the consequences. So wherever possible, forgive the messenger, and correct the message.


10 HAVE FUN : The bottom line here is so often in the red. What is life without a good dose of fun. Let your child grow in the sunshine of love and fun. Let the children of this world want to live on.


The Menu is the Meal. Bon Appétit !!

Friday, November 21, 2008

The Learning Teacher



The arbiter of knowledge and skills, the Teacher, is a revered figure around the world. In India , the Teacher is known as the Guruji, the Wise One who can be trusted to lead the knowledge-blind and shine the light of competence and skills in the darkness of ignorance and incompetence.
Over time it has been realized that the Wise One is not necessarily the most skilled teacher. Learning proficiently and transferring the learning just as well is not really as simple as it seems. It takes far more skill to teach than to learn.

The teacher has not only to have a full and wholesome appreciation of the subject but also know how best to transfer this in an intact and useful manner to the learner considering the learning styles and needs of each individual learner.
Whilst studies have been popularized concerning learning styles, and suitable adaptation of knowledge transference has been undertaken to match the varied learning styles of participants, the newer platform of transference has to do with the multiple intelligences that seem to be far more effective in reaching across to the learner.

The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited.

Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes several different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:
· Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
· Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
· Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
· Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
· Musical intelligence ("music smart")
· Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
· Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
· Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

How does this affect us Learning Facilitators and Trainers and our participants?

The theory of multiple intelligences has strong implications for adult learning and development.

Many adults, young professionals seeking to make their mark in life, often find themselves in jobs that do not make optimal use of their most highly developed intelligences (for example, the highly bodily-kinesthetic individual who is stuck in a linguistic or logical desk-job like Customer Care when he or she would be much happier in a job where they could move around, such as in front-line Sales ).

The theory of multiple intelligences gives adults a whole new way to look at their lives, examining potentials that they left behind in their childhood (such as a love for art or drama) but now have the opportunity to develop through courses, hobbies, or other programs of self-development.

This is another way of chasing away the boredom with the routine or the mundane work one becomes habituated to accept and live with, lowering the levels of enthusiasm, responsiveness and creativity – some of the essential ingredients for success in these competitive times.

What we must recognize is that these multiple intelligences offer choices to
a) Trainers / Teachers / Learning & Development facilitators – to use varied methods and practices of transferring and processing learning deliverables and
b) Participants – to acquire and learn varied methods of addressing work itself , using creative methods to address work issues through the favoured and more developed intelligences

Let’s look at the Eight Intelligences and how Training or Learning Methods can be matched against them.

Intelligence Type and possible Learning Methods

Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
Reference reading material, reference books, well scripted program handbook

Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Case Studies, Problem Solving Models & Techniques, Inventory / Questionnaire / Response Form / Instrument Evaluation & Analysis

Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Use of Graphs, Charts, Pictures and Diagrams

Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Role Plays, Projects, Structured Training Games/Activities

Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Music with learning deliverable lyrics- participants create musical learning summaries using popular tunes / leveraging Nursery Rhymes to Advanced Learning Songs & Anthems

Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Team Exercises, that need the identification and use of the varied resources of team members

Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Presentations by participants on processed learning, role-reversals : participants study and deliver ( teach ) selected modules in the program itself, participants are asked to create learning models / modules

Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")
Learning from Real World Experiences, interpretations and guiding principles that emerge from such experiences.

Dr. Howard Gardner says that other than areas of developed expertise, most of us react or process and infer learning outcomes in all other areas in the manner we used to do as 5 year old kids – the earliest levels of cognitive intelligence.

Implications of this are as follows for Trainers/Facilitators/Teachers and our corporate participants.

As Trainers / Teachers / Facilitators we need to be experts at what we teach else we are simply transferring our own 5 year old childish reasoning and logic to the participants, who receive it believing it is the word of the expert. The snowballing consequences are nightmarish !

To be experts, demands more than average attention and learning in the area of study.
Extensive reading (to replace extensive research and study) is the minimal effort one has to undertake to raise the levels of personal awareness, knowledge/content and competence/understanding.

Participants are unlikely to react in the “expected” manner in either receiving, processing or understanding the learning deliverables, as they are most likely to be at a level of “non-expert” in these areas and therefore would have learning conclusions matching their own 5 year old level of logic and belief.

Concluding Remarks

This exercise leads us to some interesting conclusions in the training-learning process
Content transference is easily possible at an adult learning level. Summarising receipt of content at the end of the program is not an indication of learning or understanding as pointed out by. Dr. Gardner

Understanding can only be ascertained when participants apply the learning in simulated real world experiences that are necessarily different from the experience created when delivering the concept. For example, participants can offer each other their own past experiences and ask others how they would use the learning to have handled the situation, or offer their own new approaches to the old experience

Training Videos, Role Plays, Case Study Experiments, Training Exercises, need to be processed with “understanding” in mind – not a simple analysis of what happened in the experiment or video or exercise, which is what participants tend to explain, but how this learning can be applied at work / back in real life.

Similarly hoping that the video/exercise or experiment is “self-explanatory” is not constructive as the learning derived by participants is likely to be unprocessed content management and learning summaries are derived from the 5 year old child-like “theories of life” . The “expert” must anchor the learning rather than leave loose ends to be automatically tied.

Understanding can be investigated only by moving from “Foundational “ Questioning / Basic Questions = What, Why, How to the more advance “Aesthetic” Level Questioning Skills / Questions that ask participants to offer personally processed input that has direct bearing on their work practices or behaviour

Program Design and Delivery Process
Program designs which are packed almost like a school-time table leave very little processing and understanding time. The program flow is often “impaired” by handling lack of understanding or processing by participants and therefore participants learn to respond by cleverly managing the showcasing of content to represent learning and understanding, in order to release the program flow and time which tends to be the casualty, in a concept-crowded program.

Dealing with Learning Hurdles
The Facilitator has to be equipped to deal with the following learning hurdles which participants will unconsciously throw up.
i. Misconceptions : based on their past experiences, pet theories and assumptions
ii. Rigid Algorithms / Formulas : formed from their earlier explanations of how the world works ; input to output formulas that worked or seemed to work ; expert opinions of others they consider experts, information in magazines / MIS data ( tabulated and charted data tends to overwhelm the thinking and understanding process )
iii. Stereotyping and World Views held by participants to diagnose and judge the rest of the world , in order to make decisions, are usually based on earlier formed assumptions and perceptions which without confrontation or validity checks, often script the guide book of their current life

Friday, October 24, 2008

Leading on the Edge !



Some thoughts about the way the world is evolving and the emergence of the new professional and learning organisation, learning to lead on the cutting edge of success.....


Management gurus and their disciples, thinkers, strategists and business process re-engineers have been busy propelling the corporate world and the corporate mind into not only coping with, but also keeping in step with the rapid changes of an ever shrinking, increasingly competitive and exhaustingly demanding global market.

Undoubtedly the 21st Century is playing host to the greatest revolution in communication the world has ever seen, and consequently, the businesses of today will have to constantly re-engineer and restructure their approach, ever so keenly, to first survive and then ride the crest of this tidal wave of change.

Today, the ability to mass communicate instantly, has drilled right down to the level of any individual choosing to use the Net, and is no longer the sole domain of large corporate houses with inflated advertising budgets. Information and yes, dis-information can be broadcast for over a billion to view, in the mere blink of an eye. Business transactions on the Web, or e-commerce as we know it, is only part of the almost immeasurable progress the world has achieved in less than a decade, decidedly overshadowing the undeniably tremendous evolution of the world over the preceding half century.

The changing times and tools....


As times change, so have the tools of the trade. Today anybody in the business without a certain savvyness on the internet or for that matter without a personalized email address or a Home Page on the World Wide Web, may as well close shop and go home. A dinosaur.

From the beginning of time, as the world and life itself evolved, Mankind has constantly striven to push the pace of progress, leaving the weak to die, and the strong to live and thrive. We called it the process of Natural Selection. And as I reflect on the changing world, so it seems today too, with even greater ferocity and ruthlessness.

The arithmetic is very simple. The size of the pie being constant, to eat more of it, somebody else has to go hungry. That is, unless somebody has the wisdom and the ability to make another pie and another. Business strategy is increasingly pointed in this direction. How to make another pie!

Reconstructing the ladder ......


For a business of the new millennium to succeed, organizational structure and operations have to be focused towards the Sun — that is, the entire organization and its various subsystems have to be energized to support each other, in one common direction. Organizational structure has to be redesigned or reconstructed to support operational efficiency and effectiveness. Knowledge based competences have to be ushered to positions of leadership.

Whether product or people, success will lie with those at the cutting edge of technology and a finger firmly on the market pulse. An explosive combination, such as this is, will always keep the business Leading on the Edge!

The Kaizen of Learning....


To arrive here, would necessarily involve continuous learning — structured training and exposure to the market needs, constant communication with the market place and the ability to discern, decide and function independently at critical operational levels of the organization, especially those interfacing with the market.

In the emerging market order, the factory will no longer produce what it simply can produce, of original capability or capacity, but will bend every resource it has or has to procure , to supply what the market demands of it — be this product or service. Because the customer ( read you and me too ! ) now has literally, a world at his or her fingertips, and the decision making process has crashed down to almost a heartbeat.

Marketplaces have already begun to shed their parochial boundaries, and with the world increasingly becoming one giant market, any business, which seeks to dictate terms to the market, is perilously close to the edge of survival.

Protection to local industry has been slowly and painfully recognized as insulating them from the real world. Enhancing their growing incompetence in the false bliss of restricted competition, leaves them totally unprepared for the awaiting onslaught, when the curtain on competition is raised.

The new reality : wake up or die ....


Needless to say, horrible deaths await such placid and in the most liberal sense, merely "reactive" organizations. It would therefore be a matter of plain common sense that at the micro level, should you ever as an individual, feel protected and comfortable, this is to be feared most. Because this means, that you have already lost touch with reality.

It seems to me that , anybody within reach of reality, must always recognize the compelling need –of discomfort, of constant change, of threat to survival, of creating and fostering change, of continually learning, of challenging the established norm and only when you can catalyze change continuously, can you truly consider yourself to be Leading on the Edge.

The organization that must carry this task through will demand man-management skills of a dimension far superior than ever before. Even today, empowerment of manpower has become the watchword of progress in Human Resource Development efforts across the globe. Every man, must view the business as the CEO regardless of his position in the organization, says one management guru, for the view is best at the top.


The organizational pyramid : shaken and stirred....


In order to do this, unshackling the operating executive from the traditional organizational bonds forms part of the key objectives of an enlightened management. It is a known fact that, any business entity is as good as the people who represent it. Tapping and cultivating individual potential has reached Critical Mass point in context of the business environment today.

The pyramidal Boss-Subordinate structure has to give way to flatter organizational structures, with teams of people spearheading identified tasks towards a larger common goal, interlinked with each other-, cross functionally too, providing a freer and wider berth of operation, with authority and responsibility extending beyond localized short term goals and targets, to encompass the overall aims and objectives of the organization.

The role of the traditional Boss, or the CEO of the firm – this may even be the Head of a Department or Division - has to mature into one of being a Facilitator and Motivator. At the cutting edge of business competence, the strenuous demands on individual performance and achievement need to be complemented and supported with the Boss providing a highly positively charged work environment, along with the necessary tools of the trade, continuous training in the techniques to perform and produce results, counseling at regular intervals and most importantly, leading from the front.


Frontline leadership ....

No better performance and achievement can be demanded, than by the sheer example of the leader. This has been one of the most major transformation in management thinking in recent times, and more often than not, organizational performance can be judged not just by that of the team, but more so, that of the team leader, Leading on the Edge, himself!

The new order of world business today demands performance right from the Top of the Pyramid, which provides the platform on which organizational vision , goals and targets to achieve this vision are laid in clear view of every element in the organizational network. Skilled man-managers should easily recognize that High Performers and achievers have to be recognized and allowed to perform with the complete support of the system.

The power of knowledge, the might of technology : staying relevant to the business....


Typically a high performer will also be high on knowledge and techniques of the trade, which have to be continually updated to keep abreast with the times. They will also often be subject to self imposed high level stress, as a result of demanding more of themselves than even the organization does of them. Their paranoia of complacency and stagnation, driven by a very high order of ambition, is the very force that powers the organization forward.

And they no longer need to fear for their jobs, for they are always in demand. They must have the freedom to choose the environment in which they can perform best, to their own lofty expectations of themselves. They exercise the choice to stay or go. And more often than not, they choose to go. Not always because they are dissatisfied , but because they have better options at each level of success.


The price of success....

The price usually paid by an organization on a victorious battle pitch, is the poaching of its top lieutenants. Organizations will have to recognize the inevitability of this and plan for it, with what is now being called the perpetuation of, or at least restricting the flight of, Intellectual Capital. In addition to the tangible ingredient "knowledge" which can be data based , intangibles form the other vital ingredients which cover Capital Resources involving the Company Management , the Employees, the Customer and indeed the Processes built into the system.

Almost any company on the Edge of Competitiveness and Growth would realize that their business is not just a result of well oiled systems working in unison, but instead, the cutting edge is indeed provided by the people who operate these systems. People involvement will always mean un-catalogued information and personalized knowledge, that affects the company and its business, often not shared with the system.

The Twain shall meet : the knowledge and information expressway to success


Managing the flow of information within the company and the smooth transfer of knowledge, where stagnant knowledge repositories are transformed into dynamic vehicles of growth, is one of the special skills that will daunt the abilities of corporate leaders.

While top human resources of a company can turn out to be, a critical casualty of success, in this New Millennium, more than ever before, any organization that can attract, nurture, retain, continually motivate and empower such people, and can at the very same time, conserve and build on its intellectual capital, will find itself invariably Leading On the Edge of Success.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Whither the Quality of Life



How’s Life ? All of us have been posed this question, at some time in our lives, if not almost every day by everyone we meet. And we usually shrug off the question with flippant dismissal. Very few of us are ecstatic or gush about how swell life is. Many of us reply with a weary sigh while some of us grimace with ill concealed pain. What we are really describing of-course is not life as in being alive and breathing, but instead, the Quality of Life we live.

I have often asked myself, what is the quality of life we seek, and could not help comparing life, to food, which is the easiest way to see whether we have or do not have, the recipe to make life tick. But lets talk about that later.


Childhood, the cradle of happiness...... seizing every moment !


Among the majority of us fortunates, childhood is when life is most enjoyable, as bereft of responsibility, all we have to do is savour every wonderful moment in time, to the fullest. We are taken care of, sheltered, fed, clothed, educated and kept in good health. Whenever we take ill, all we have to do is lie back and recover. Nothing clutters the brain beyond the events of the day. It is often said that a child is happiest because he or she lives in the present with both mind and body as one unit.

On our journey through life we begin transferring the state of mind to the past and the future, in opposition to the body, thus causing what is commonly called Stress. As young adults, life begins to bloom, as the mind and body are nourished with knowledge and metabolism, peaking to produce perhaps the finest co-ordination between the mental and physical states. Life is one great colourful flourish on the canvass of time. But what happens thereafter ?


The perilous path of maturity and focus....


Youth moves on to maturity and we begin to gain “focus” on our lives and what direction we wish our lives to take. Ambitions and achievements take the place of adventure. Dedication and devotion to purpose replaces dare devilry. Deliberate professionalism prevails over impulsive intuition, while Career quests overshadow the carefree spirit, forging character and mettle of leaders and entrepreneurs .

Coping with stress, chaos, work-life imbalances, pressures of the daily grind, people relationships, demanding targets, conflicting goals, aspirations and professional paradigms of an ever changing world can be not only a daunting and challenging task but also a mentally and physically sapping ordeal !

And the Quality of Life ?

Executive stress, burnout , suicide, divorce are some of the answers, unless life resembles a balanced meal. Aha ! you say, and how is that so ? Well, consider this . Sometimes we assume life to be , only that part which takes up most of our time. For the career chasers it is their vertical growth rate in the organisation or in their own business and for the homemaker , it is housework. All this reflects Quantity and not Quality. But not so with food !

The Quantity of Life ?


Almost anybody I know has dined out at a restaurant . When choosing where to eat , we invariably look for , not just good cuisine , but also the location of the restaurant, the parking service, the air conditioning, the music, the décor, the ambience , the nature of its current clientele and so on.. While all we really do is eat there. But the packaging and the surrounding benefits are so necessary and all so important to us. If so, then why do we judge life by just the food, or sometimes by just the main course ?

Why not package life such that even the most miserable meal or career glows in the ambience of the surrounding hobbies or career off-shoots? Whenever I’ve sat down to order a meal , I invariably look for the accompaniments, and often enough, it is these that decide the success of the meal. I cannot get into my steak , no matter how delicious it looks, without my baked potatoes, spinach and boiled veggies and that pat of golden butter oozing goodness. I know of a fellow who went berserk when he did not receive his pickles with the food. It simply shows that not always is the quality of food or for that matter, life, defined by just the main serving , but often enough, it is the tiny add-ons that really decide the lip smacking goodness of life.


Packaging the Zing !

What are these add-ons that put the zing into life ? This is for each one of us to determine and can often be an absorbing hobby or sport or music or any parallel line of activity that brings in tangible fulfillment. Sometimes physical evidence of effort ploughed in, does not reflect as much as we desire, in our basic square meal in life. So we choose to bring in activities of our own , which meet this need.

I often offset my reverses or lack of results at work by creating my own successes, unto myself, if not to anybody else, through penning my thoughts and experiences into tangible form , either in prose or poetry. Energizing yourself becomes necessary to sustain the quality of living in the main life zones, usually career and family life. Somehow , if we were as fussy about the add-ons to our lives as we are in choosing the toppings for our pizza, life could become one big delight.

Life is a choice, like it or love it !


Not all of us are fortunate enough to choose a line of work or career that dovetails comfortably with our skills or education or choice. Ideally , this is what we need to do, but haven’t we often been told at the restaurant, that the very item we wished to savour, is not on the menu of the day ? So do we leave the restaurant and seek another one where we find what we want, even if it takes all night ? The chances are , we don’t , and instead settle for next best ,or whatever else is available.

To reconcile to the misfiring of our carefully constructed plans, we can either open our minds to the new experience of what gets served in our plate, or disguise what we have with a whole lot of sauces and condiments , hoping to reconstruct something totally new , although with insufficient means to do so. Isn’t life often frighteningly like that?

When we approach the Quality of Life, we more often than not, consider the Quantity of Life as the Quality of Life , and here is where we source our judgements on what our lives are all about.

If we could only pause to listen to the winds of fresh thought whispering through our minds, we would certainly have cause for celebrating the true Quality of Life !

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Ten Tips for a Productive Life

1. Believe in Yourself – You Count !
2. Put Your Entire Energy into What You Do- It’s Your Signature !
3. Value and Respect Others, No Matter Who They Are or What They Do – You Can Learn From Anyone !
4. Experiment and Experience Life – Move Out of Your Shell !
5. Learn to Forgive Yourself and Others – But Do Not Encourage Incompetence !
6. Keep an Open Mind, Learn to Coexist with Differences- In People and their Opinions and Views
7. Take Charge of Your Life – Be Alert at the Wheel, Learn to Accelerate, Chart Your Course, Follow the Signs, Decide Your Breaks, Fill Your Tank and Turn On the Music too !
8. Make Sure You Have Passengers in Your Car too- Carry Others along with you, Create Wealth for Others too !
9. Be Humble Not Arrogant, but Market Yourself Vigourously and Honestly !
10. Keep revisiting Your Goals ( roadmap ) and Keep a Clear Eye on the Road too- Stay Focused on the Present while Working out the Future !

At the Steering Wheel of Life

Life is a mixed bag.....
Yes indeed, life is a mixed bag. What we package
it with is what appears to the outside world as our lifestyle. Within the package, is what it really is. However, not always is the packaging distinctly different from the contents of life. The best wrapping is a transparent one which reveals the contents for what it is and the blend it forms as one contrasting colour or layer merges with another.

When we join our lives with another, as we do in marriage or at work in teams or professional partnerships, what we seek is a blend of lifestyles : of competences, of outlooks and approaches, where often one lifestyle leads another at different points of time, very much like rotating leadership. There are times when the blend is so good that it is hard to differentiate one from the other.

Yet the individuality of each lifestyle is what counts in differentiating key operational arenas to increase or maximize the probability of success.

Today we are faced with certain challenges and tomorrow perhaps with others. We have to look at each challenge separately and at how we handle them and which partner can handle it best. Once this is clear, then all that has to be done is to support the front line, in other words, actively support as one body , the person taking on the challenge directly.

Goals and dreams.....
All of us have our own goals and ambitions, dreams and desires, methods and means by which we want to go about achieving them. Some of them are in sharp contrast to the other. However the common thread in all we do, has to embody, the essentials of life – which are – a clear sense of self worth, courage of conviction, determination to succeed, honesty of approach, strength of purpose, responsibility for results and a sense of practicality to guide and harness these to achieve our objectives.

Yes, it is important to manage all these qualities such that no single quality exists at the expense of the others. Especially true, where the sense of practicality often overpowers the rest and seeks relief in manipulating the means, to achieve a rationalized practical end. Also true that courage of conviction should not bestow a blindfold on reality.

The balancing of life's imbalances........
As you can see, this is a balancing act. The Scales of Libra if you may ! Equilibrium is achieved only after the balancing beam has tipped on either side.

Each side is you and somebody else- in your personal life it could be your spouse or your parents or your children or in your professional life it may be your boss or your team; and the balancing beam of the scale of our life is poised on the fulcrum of matured sensibility that holds us on even keel.

And to keep this even keel, each of us have to put in the correct measure of weights against values , means for ends, efforts for results, in each pan.

Values and purpose .....
Values across life so far, for most of us, are attached to a very strong sense of purpose and strength of resolve to succeed against all odds. Many among us would have faced some of the worst nightmares, which have taken our entire reserve of courage in our convictions and determination to pursue our beliefs.

The task is to ensure that we do not abandon the struggle, but instead stare it in the face at frighteningly close quarters. We have had to ask ourselves very difficult questions and verify the “bonafides” of our own values. At the end, you would have found that the greatest comfort is in doing what you know is right even when this makes the terrain treacherous.

Winning with the right values ......
Winning is the right result, but, the means is very important too. And ever so often, you may find yourself at the non-preferred end of a rather discomforting duel to maintain Life’s precious balance. In a world that rushes you through life like white-water rapids, the struggle is to first keep afloat and somehow manage to steer your war clear of the dangers that present themselves at each churning twist and turn. Life is in today’s competitive world, an unsettling yet exciting experience ! The sheer thrill of being on board your own life is hard to be matched. Staying at the helm and steering your way through unchartered waters is a task that separates the strivers from the strugglers.

No successful ship laden with precious cargo is far from the radar of pirates ! Life has its share of buccaneers and pirates. Many successful lives have run aground for reasons ranging from being asleep at the wheel to the comforting swell of mediocrity in deep waters to arrogant navigation flying in the face of Life’s tempests to mutiny to hostile takeovers. Of all these, the worst would probably be the handing over of your wheel mid-stream success, at the sharp end of a sword !

Defending your rights against those who want to snatch them away, calls for but one answer. Active defense, and not meek conciliation.

Especially when a sense of practicality tells us that we are capable of mounting not just a defense but an offensive. Negotiation is the route of least defense, when there is no other avenue open.

Happiness and success are NOT NEGOTIATED.

They are fought for. They are worked for. They are earned and then they are DEFENDED and PROTECTED with all one’s might. This calls for an active engagement with one’s life, not a casual enquiry. Investigate, Illuminate, Initiate, Innovate, Integrate your skills, competences, resources, align every thought and feeling and put every fiber and sinew of your body into the task of retaining and rejoicing in your right to a vibrant life.

I do not sketch Life as one big battlefield, but it certainly is no rose garden.

The Big Question is : Are you WILLING to negotiate your happiness, your right to life, your future, your family, your marriage and your children and their future, with circumstance or worse, those who feed off the average man’s hopes, dreams and aspirations.

Shall you SUCCUMB to a path of least resistance and offer your hard earned present and your well deserved future , on a platter to circumstance or those who have the effrontery to malign it ??

Would you BE JUDGED by circumstance or those who have no right to judge you and will you rather CLOAK YOUR COURAGE with the mantle of meekness ??

Then you shall surely HAND OVER THE KEYS OF YOUR LIFE to such thieves of this treasury.
Success and the cup of life ....

But you must succeed as who you are and cannot succeed as who you are not. But first, you need to believe in yourself . And get a special someone else to believe in you. Happiness can be yours. Success shall fill your cup of life. Only when you are proud of who you are , what you have done, and to whom.

Phil Mc Graw puts it succinctly in his book “Life Strategies” in which he enunciates “The Ten Laws of Life” which makes a great deal of sense and acts as a great guide on steering your way to success. Take a look at these Ten Laws of Life and the accompanying strategies:

The Ten Laws of Life
From the book “ Life Strategies” by Phillip C McGraw Ph.D.

Law # 1 : You either Get it, or you don’t.
Strategy : Become one of those who gets it.

Law # 2 : You Create your own Experience.
Strategy : Acknowledge and Accept Accountability for your life.

Law # 3 : People do what Works.
Strategy : Identify Payoffs driving your behaviour and others

Law # 4 : You cannot change what you do not acknowledge.
Strategy : Get real with your life & everybody in it.

Law # 5 : Life Rewards Action
Strategy : Make careful decisions, then Pull the Trigger !

Law # 6 : There is no Reality; only Perception
Strategy : Identify the filters through which you view the world.

Law # 7 : Life is Managed; it is not Cured
Strategy : Learn to take charge of your life

Law # 8 : We Teach people how to treat us.
Strategy : Own, rather than complain how people treat you.

Law # 9 : There is Power in Forgiveness
Strategy : Awaken to what anger and resentment do to you.

Law # 10 : You have to name it before you can claim it.
Strategy : Get clear about what you want and take your turn


You owe yourself this. You owe this to your future. And to all those who are counting on it.

Decide today to take charge of your ship by being awake and alert …………..
At the Steering Wheel of Your Life !