As I saw it

The newspaper headline today about 350 Indian cricketers going under the hammer for the next round of IPL auction, reminded me of something I had done years ago. A couple of years ago, I was doing a series of team building sessions for an organisation. This was years before I went ahead with my strengths certification from Gallup. To begin with, the participants were segregated into homogeneous groups based on their predominant style of behaviour as highlighted by a questionnaire that was administered to them. We segregated them into three groups of Thinkers, Doers and Relators. They then went about playing a game which brought out the need for a diverse, mutually complementing set of team members. In every batch then, I shared the story of how managers are selected in Semco, Brazil. Later on, as the participants had to regroup into heterogeneous teams that had a proportionally diverse mix of Thinkers, Doers and Relators, I pulled out the managers and put them o...

In my 19 and half years of career so far, I started training 18 years ago. As I look back at all those years, I happened to remember one of the most profound incidents today. It happened exactly 4 years ago to this date on a Friday on 12 th December 2014. I had been invited by the CMD of a company to develop the leadership abilities of 17 division heads and senior managers in his organisation. For me, leadership at its core is all about taking initiative, ownership and responsibility at one level and then having a positive influence on a group of people which inspires them to move in a purposive and possessed manner to make a positive difference in this world. I for one have always believed that there already exist enough and more traits and leadership abilities within people and that at best, my job is to chip away at the rocks and wipe clean the mould that has taken over the limiting beliefs of the person concerned to then let their natural and unique leadersh...

I was conducting a session on the GROW model of coaching some time back and during one of the practice sessions, I asked the coachees to share how it felt as their coaching partners were applying the model with them? I remember the most profound answer one of the participating managers shared: “Life would have been so much more better if only our real managers would have listened to us the way my coaching partner is currently asking me the coaching questions and listening to me.” Mind map courtesy: www.biggerplate.com

In the last couple of social functions that I attended, it became clear to me that the ones who love talking about themselves first, foremost and the most, tend to miss out on what others could do for them and how others could be of great help to them in their work. Without any intention of sounding superior in any way, what I observed as a pattern was that some of them seemed so dead-sure of what they had done and were currently doing that there did not seem any curiosity to learn from a diversity of subjects and sources. They just seemed so full of themselves. And yet I came across three people in those gatherings who spoke the least except to know first and know more and then shared how knowing something from a totally different perspective seemed to help them in their work. They asked lot of relevant questions and had the humility to learn first. The adapted version of Stephen Covey's habit number 5 becomes so much more apt and relevant here: Seek first to know an...

In the last fortnight, in two managerial effectiveness training programmes for two clients from vastly different sectors separated by about 1,500 kms, I heard the same remark from two participants: "Aap Urdu bohat achhi bol lete hain. Yahan tak ki, aap ki pronunciation bhi ek dum sahi hai." In both the cases I smiled and said, "You mean, meri pronunciation ek dum khaalis hai?" They smiled even more; nodded and asked me how I did it? Their question was basically how could a person with a clearly south Indian name be so good with a north Indian language, its nuances and pronunciation? One of them further added that he had noticed that I was equally good with pure Hindi as well as fluent in English and that I switched effortlessly between all the three languages. He too wanted to know how. Well before I proceed, I must share that I am not a master of any of the three languages mentioned here; least of all Urdu which I cannot read or write. I have been mi...

I was at a client site recently for a session on managerial effectiveness for new managers. During one of the tea breaks I stepped into the adjacent room of the training room coordinator. He got off the phone and shared something which at once was peculiar, funny and also highlighted something about human psychology. He shared that the head of their L&D team had just scolded one more of their team members for not complying with the request that had been passed on to the team from the CEO. While the rest of the team members were certainly upset at being scolded, they were more upset that the L&D Head had never scolded the training room coordinator and his assistant. He shared with me that to the best of his understanding, the L&D Head had never scolded him because he and his assistant had complied with all the requests on them and that he could also be assertive with the Head during the team meetings. I remembered the scene from the movie 3 Idiots when Farhan an...

"Kada, adakkyar-ayilley? Enda mazhaya inn." "Onathinn naati ponniley?" "Potta?" Three simple questions in Malayalam. Without context they mean nothing much and can at best be courteous pleasantries between two people. But there's more to this given the context in which I heard those three questions. I believe that religions should not have any more status in our lives than the bus tickets we buy. The moment we allow them to define our identity, they separate us from others and create most of the problems in the world that we see today in addition to what history has been a witness to. I guess the best commentary on this subject is to be found in this song from the 1972 Malayalam movie 'Achhanum Baapayum' which says: "Man created religions Religions created Gods And then, man, religions and gods divided this earth and divided the hearts as well. We became, Hindus, Musalmans and Christians, we cannot be recognised any m...

Those who know me up close, know that I am not much of a religious person and that I usually avoid going to religious places of worship even as I love listening to bhajans, sufiana kalaams, Christian hymns, prayers and the like along with listening to Kabir amritvanis and other nirgun bhakti songs and spiritual music and that I have a good collection of both religious prayers and spiritual music. And yet, something interesting happened today. I was to meet someone whose story I wanted to listen for the next book I am writing. None of the restaurants had opened by that time for us to sit and discuss. And so he offered to meet at a temple and by that time the build-up inside me regarding why I wanted to write that book and share the stories of those people with the wider world out there had become such that as I stepped out of his car and had begun walking towards the temple, I found myself praying to the formless, sect-less, denomination-less, name-less, reli...

“My response to such people is that even if you give beggars a golden bowl, they’ll still beg.” As I started guffawing my daughter immediately clenched my hand and cautioned me not to get into a laugh attack in the auto that we were in a little while ago. But when something simple & profound hits you, one does have reactions like these. I had waited for some time for an auto to take my daughter to her paediatrician in Mayur Vihar Phase 2 and was already resigned to bargaining with the auto driver and my negotiation range was to be between 40 - 50 rupees even though I was prepared for some asking even for 70-80 rupees for a short 3 km ride. And yet as Babu stopped and heard of the landmark Neelam Mata Mandir, he said that he didn’t know of the place and that he’d still take us there if I directed him to the location. And even before I could say anything he started the meter. As soon as we reached the clinic I paid him a little more than the meter reading ...