Footprints on the Mountainside

Those who are in touch with me know that I have a keen interest in human behaviour processes and am actively pursuing my self-development journey with ISABS.

Its Summer, and its time for the National Event being held in Goa. After a lot of anxiety about being able to complete my logs and get them approved in time, I have finally been cleared two days before I am supposed to leave.

Needless to say, this is an exercise in pressure to be planning a trip to Goa two days before departure in the holiday season. Keeping fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

This time, I will be doing my Phase B of the Professional Development Programme. This is going to take two weeks, and hopefully I will be emerging on the other end intact and wiser.

I am a little anxious about my ability to cope with the intensity of the process work and can hardly believe that I made it this long. Seems yesterday that I attended my first Human Processes Lab. Time certainly flies when you are celebrating it.

Will keep ya’ll posted on proceedings and my condition

One of my more bizarre “potential clients”. I could write an entire book with the entertaining questions I get.

Got an email from a Sarita Sharma today asking for a quote for a training programme. Fabulous. I was online and sent one across immediately.

Got a response asking only for accommodation and food costs and need the outbound training complimentary!!! So now in a world of 20% extra with your toothpaste, there’s this new thing of free outbound training from a training company, while you book a hotel that is not theirs in any case.

Go figure!

After countless requests by parents for camps they can send their children to, we have finally succumbed and have organized a children’s camp at Kanheri Caves this summer.

The dates are from the 25th to the 27th of April 2008 and the camp is for children from ages 10 years to 15 years.

In terms of activities, the usual suspects are available - rock climbing, rappelling, nature trails, star gazing, etc. I have uploaded an entry form with more information about the camp if you want to send your son/daughter, nephew/niece, kid brother/sister, etc.

The camp fees are Rs.2,250/- per child and there is no cut off date for admission. However, we have very limited seats - not more than 25 for sure, and the cut off in terms of availability is fast approaching. So, if you have a candidate, it would be in your best interests to hurry up with the submission of the entry.

Cheers!

Ugh, this is an extremely wise post from me based on years and years of actual experience. I have learnt that with hugs, what you see, is rarely what you get. I’d like to illustrate some of the salient hug species we see commonly. I say species because after all this time, I have begun suspecting that they have a life of their own.

1. The Affection hug: This is usually initiated by one participant while the other enjoys receiving it. I like this kind of hug and its sub-types: protective, funny and emotional affection hugs.
2. The Space-War hug: This is initiated by the dominant person in a conversation and stated as an affectionate gesture, but one only needs to look at the poor stiff or squirming or uninterested recipient to know how much affection is being conveyed. Such a hug is basically the dominant person’s way of entering the poor victim’s personal space at will. I’d call it an attack.
3. The Obligatory hug: This is the beginning-of-meeting, end-of-meeting, when-we-meet, when-we-part variety of hug - like the Italians saying “ciao” or Spitians saying “Jule” - means everything from “hi” to “Bye”
4. The When-in-doubt hug: This hug is commonly seen after a disagreement or confrontation is mediated by a facilitator, when neither party is comfortable exploring their experience of the conflict. There is a spontaneous need to hug. Such a hug is also called the “Band-Aid” hug.
5. The reflected glory hug: Where you go and hug someone who is very powerful or well-liked, and let the world know that that person is your pal.
6. The sorry hug: Where you hug someone rather than do whatever they want you to do (mostly because hugging takes the lesser effort of the two.
7. The I-can-hug-too hug: The entire world seems to be in love with each other and rather than figure out why, you begin hugging people too.

Ooops! Need to go. Will come back with more info tomorrow.

Feel free to share your own pearls of learning in the comments.

In every organization, we have the odd success story of a person who rose through the ranks like a comet. As a trainer, the most popular question we get asked is how people can be made to perform at full potential.

Unfortunately, there is no answer that can be an instant solution - do this, and every person in your organization will be a genius. It just doesn’t exist.

So what is it that these stars have that others don’t?

For one, they have passion. When they find something they want, they go for it. When they find something they don’t like, they give everything in them to change it. Is it any wonder that they are on the pulse of whatever it is that they handle? They either are in love with it, or have created it, or know it in and out in their efforts to cause a change.

Another thing these people have is self-driven ambition. Being better than the next employee is irrelevant. What they are really competing with is their vision of how they could be at full potential.

How can this be brought into training? A simple answer would be - “It can’t”. However, that is not true either. People change. I believe that this is one shift that could at the most be inspired by someone, but the urge to walk the road is from the person walking it. It is not even a decision that a person can make, but a need inside. All the training in the world can only create some dream of this. Whether the dream fuels action when the person is on his own is what separates the stars from the masses.

Where could this journey begin? Right here. Right now. There is no rocket science to it. All it takes is being aware of yourself. Being aware of where you excel, what could be better, asking for feedback and absorbing it.

The most difficult thing in this journey is probably recognizing failure. Most corporate employees today have an inherent phobia of failure. When a situation doesn’t work as expected, a blame game follows. The brief was inadequate, time fell short, so-and-so goofed up, we didn’t have enough people…. and so on. Yet, there are also stories filled with pride about old successes where the brief called for guesswork and tarot cards, the project was due “yesterday”, everything that could go wrong went wrong, resources were short…… but the job was done. There is a reluctance to come out and say “the job was not done”, even when it wasn’t, where the simple statement gets replaced by miles of explanations, excuses and jargon, till the original subject of conversation is safely forgotten. This is an option - a comfortable one, but it doesn’t work for one who wishes to be a self-coched climber, because until you know what to fix, there is no “climbing” possible.

A difficult but necessary move is to strip the sugar coating and speak of the results as they are. Explanations have a valid place in the reflection and planning for changes - NOT in measuring results.

Another difficulty is in relating with people. The more we want something, the easier it gets to forget that others around us have things they care about too. One possibility is to step on toes, but unless you don’t need any relationship with them (work or personal), its going to come right back and step on yours. It is a conscious choice to explore how things different people want could fit in together and work out in a way that helps everyone. And guess what, the person to initiate this would be called a leader, no?

And so on. Its really about being aware and fixing what doesn’t work, and experimenting and taking risks and owning the results. Everyone goofs up. Its the risks that work that make you a star!