Tag: Learning & Development

Are We Trying to Change People — or Energise Them?


During one of my courses, I was discussing the idea of “Energising” with a participant when he suddenly asked me a question that stayed with me.

Participant: “But isn’t our job to make people change? If we can see what they are doing wrong, shouldn’t we tell them?”

Me: “Perhaps. But let me ask you something. How do you feel when someone tells you that you are wrong?”

Participant: “Defensive, usually.”

Me: “And what happens when someone believes in you, even when you are struggling to believe in yourself?”

He paused, then replied, “I suppose I become more willing to try.”

That, I believe, is the difference between changing someone and energising someone. We often try to bring about change through criticism, pressure, fear or even guilt. It may work for a while. But it rarely creates lasting change. At best, it makes people comply. At worst, it makes them doubt themselves. Energising is  quite different. It is not about pushing someone towards the destination we think is right. It is about helping them discover the energy and courage to move towards the destination they want.

As we continued our conversation:

Participant: “So, what does an Energiser actually do?”

Me: “Sometimes, very little. You listen. You create possibility. You help the person see what they cannot yet see in themselves. And when the moment comes, you say something as simple as, ‘I know you can do this.’”

Participant: “But can words really make such a difference?”

Me: “Words matter. But what matters even more is the energy behind them. People can feel whether our encouragement is genuine or merely convenient.”

We have all experienced it. One person walks into a room full of enthusiasm and somehow the room feels lighter. Another walks in carrying anger or cynicism, and the atmosphere changes without a word being spoken. Perhaps leadership, coaching and even relationships are less about transferring instructions and more about transferring energy.

And perhaps the most profound question we can ask ourselves is not: “How do I make this person change?” but: “How can I help this person find the energy to change?”

Because when people are pushed, they may move. But when they are energised, they move with conviction. And that is when change becomes their own.

In musing…… Shakti Ghosal

#learning, #energising, # leadership, #coaching, #mentoring,

Winning in a Disruptive World


Sometime back, at a ‘Learning & Development’ elective course I was running at Indian Institute of Management Kashipur, one of the participants came to me for a discussion.

“ Sir, you have been emphasizing again and again about the need to have a lifelong Learning mindset. You have also been mentioning about the criticality of the L & D template to remain relevant during unpredictable and disruptive situations in terms of one’s problem solving ability and initiatives. Don’t you think these two aspects are contradictory to each other? “, he said.

This intrigued me. I asked, “How so? Could you clarify some more?”

The participant explained, “In my MBA program, we are learning concepts and tools which allow us to make sense of a business situation and solve problems. They have stood the test of time. But what you have been advocating is to seek completely new way of looking at things to solve problems in uncertain, fast changing environments. So whatever we are learning in our MBA Course would no longer work. To me, that is both scary and disheartening”.

“Well, It is YES and NO”, I replied. “ Your domain knowledge would always continue to play a role. It would be something like a searchlight which will show up a situation in a particular manner, highlighting certain aspects but hiding others.  However, the L & D funnel which you would master in our course should allow you to do a Learning Needs  analysis in terms of desired outcomes within a shifting environment and spot the needed L&D strategy. In other words, the superstructure that you would need to build on top of your domain expertise would be your new learning need tactics”.

***

We remain dis-satisfied and uncertain about how to face emerging situations and challenges. Be it on the professional front or may be in our personal life.

“Winning in a disruptive world” would mean succeeding in a business environment that is constantly changing and being disrupted. By new technologies, new competitors, or other factors that can disrupt traditional business models. So, what does one do to win?

The human mind loves continuity and certainty. These allow us to make sense of what we see as stuff we are familiar with. This is why we, our sense making brains, detest change and disruption. For the latter take us into uncertain and unfamiliar territory. We thus like to lull ourselves into believing we are living in a stable world, a world which we understand. We handle new and unfamiliar aspects by distorting and force fitting them into the mental model we hold of the world.

If you have seen the movie, Matrix. It is like living in a never changing, make believe world as the protagonist Neo was doing even though the real world was totally different with its own equations and challenges.

Neo’s Make Believe World…..

Neo’s real world….

So if we are to draw some lessons from the story of Neo in the matrix, ‘Winning in a disruptive world’ would require a mindset to embrace change and adapt quickly to new circumstances, as well as a focus on innovation, creativity, and agility.

I invite you to dwell on the following questions.

  • What are the questions we need to answer in the exploration ‘making sense’ stage of our Learning & Development cycle?
  • How do we align the outputs of the ‘making sense’ stage with our critical analysis of the emerging situation?
  • How do we carry out a decentering exercise between our domain expertise and the gaps thrown up by our critical analysis?

In Learning……..                                                                                           Shakti Ghosal