Can people open up and be authentic to the core in a training program? I have an interesting experience to share. We, a group of coaches, were in a self-discovery workshop. Most of us were regular acquaintances, some could call each other friends, and a few were new to the majority of attendees. What connected us was that we called ourselves coaches and we had a monthly meeting fixture for all things coaching related. In this workshop, we reached a point where people started giving feedback. One person at a time received feedback from all the rest, one at a time. So, when one person spoke, everybody listened. This was candid feedback about how I perceive you, what I appreciate about you, and what I don’t! And as these things go, everybody was getting hooked onto what was being said. It happens all the time, doesn’t it, that when people stop being politically correct and shed formal niceties, they become irresistibly compelling to each other and the whole group! As we were going about the whole thing in turns, we awaited a quiet lady; let…
Less Direct, More impactful. Thoughts on training.
Aspiring to be a better communicator? Expand your vocabulary. Modulate your voice. This is familiar advice. The direct approach. Could the areas to work on be less direct, and more impactful? An individual becomes a better communicator if the area he or she has worked on is clear thinking. If there is a quality workshop or a course on ‘effective thinking’, I would advise every individual intent on becoming a better communicator to choose that over a communications training program. I believe it will be more impactful. No individual on becoming a better thinker fails to communicate better. Further, an individual becomes a better communicator if he or she has become one with silence. Yes. Silence. We learn to inhabit silence and our peace and comfort grows. In that space, we find immense power to regather our real self. We become one – with silence, with ourselves, with the moment. Better communication results. Let us move onto a group scenario. If an entire unit of people at the same level – shop floor assistants, telecallers or operations staff – is…
Designing a (corporate readiness/ campus to corporate/ soft skills for work) course curriculum – Three Key Questions
India’s educated youth lack the basic skills to become employable; ready to be absorbed into work by various sectors. According to Higher Education in India: Vision 2030, a report made by Ernst and Young for FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry), 75% of IT graduates are deemed ‘unemployable’, 55% in manufacturing, 55% in healthcare and 50% in banking and insurance. NASSCOM says that only 10-15% of other graduates are considered employable in the IT/ITES segments. These are staggering statistics. What is meant by being unemployable? Quite simply, it means even though the job candidate has all qualifications on paper, companies do not consider them job-ready. They lack the basic skills to communicate & participate in a team, to understand the context of what their job requires, & to adapt what they know into specific output on the ground. A skills-gap of epic proportions. This crying need has led many colleges, educational institutions & corporate companies to try their bit & plug this skills-gap by imparting skills-training, especially in soft-skills. The result is the emergence of corporate readiness…
Why communication skills training is so much more than just working with individuals?
What is effortless for us to initiate takes concerted effort to do well. Take breathing & sitting. We breathe on autopilot. Hardly think about it. It barely registers how we sit. We slump into perceived comfort which is anything but that. We all know that there is a mindful breathing practise that makes us breathe better among other things. We all know our spinal health depends on a healthy sitting posture. We never get down to doing both unless we suffer some pain. Is communicating any different? We all can talk & hear wilfully; to fill the silence. And lo & behold, we are all communicators; so we think! The results do not deliver what we communicated for. This is especially true in organizations. Information is the currency of organizational transactions. Is there any other? When people envision & share, plan & co-ordinate, market & sell, organize & implement; they are always communicating information in some form or the other. Due to its all-pervasive nature, organizations rarely disown communication skills as a learning need. They attribute most problems to lack…
4 Standard Learning & Development Practices & Their Unintended Harm
What if the ‘right’ things to do in training are hurting you without you even coming to know of it? What are they? And how do they hurt? Organizations have mandatory training man-days, dedicated external training partners, full-time internal trainers, plans to track return on investment. They point to these resource commitments as a reflection of their solid commitment to training. And they are right. They do walk the talk. They put in the time, the money, and the resources. But, do they evaluate the unintended consequences or the missed opportunities of their actions in the areas referred to? That is something to explore. Mandatory Training man-days – Planning is not an event. It is a continuous process that adapts to everyday reality. Mandatory Training man-days are cast in stone. Mandatory Training days are a relic of the industrial era when safety drills had to be incorporated into the running of plants. Downtime had to be scheduled. When an organization has mandatory training man-days, it can showcase its commitment to people development in a tangible way. A grand plan can be…