The continuing legacy of Field Marshall General Sam Manekshaw:

I was invited by a government body to deliver a one hour session on the importance of soft skills for police officers undergoing a particular online course. We had people joining in from Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Delhi-NCR and Madhya Pradesh.


While I prefer to have a structure in my planning, I also prefer to go with the flow, tap into the magic of questions from the audience and respond from a space of intuition, spontaneity and stories from my memory.

 

As a result; Nelson Mandela, General Sam Manekshaw, Mahatma Gandhi and William L. Shirer, Katya and Kashinath, Asrani, Devdutt Patnaik and a former Gwalior jail superintendent came alive in the session today.

 

As it happened, in response to something one of the participants said, I remembered four stories about General Sam Manekshaw from the 1971 war and I shared it with them.

 

All the four stories landed in the right place and the participants were then able to deduce most of the soft skills including leadership and problem solving that help in bringing in the hard results.

 

I just had to bring up the rear flank with three other crucial skills – listening, probing and storytelling.

 

I have always believed that we all have a responsibility to live an inspiring life.

 

General Manekshaw is one great example of it where his beliefs and behaviour continue to inspire generations to come.


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