Understanding Human Psychology

In over a decade of corporate experience and few years spent in educational sector, I have come across all kinds of personalities in the senior management cadre. By this I mean, I've seen those who truly believe their power is their Designation, their Chair and their Title (the way they are addressed- sir, mam). And I've seen those who recognise and follow the fact that a leader is what he is because of his followers. Respect is earned and commanded and cannot be demanded. I've seen those earlier lot of people which I mentioned here, are highly driven by cabin culture. The size of the cabin and the table they have is their reason to boast. Sadly, within themselves they attach their self worth to it, and in one way they are slaves to their Chair. I say this because they attach their purpose, respect, ego and life to it.  Then there is a category 3 which I call the 'confused minds'. They are the ones who yearn for a large space and want their names to be addressed wit...

  As I read more and more about positive self beliefs and about the conscious decision to disregard negative self beliefs, I realise how my life is changing, how each day, each passing day is summing up as more productive. For me every positive thought is making a difference. I coneciously realise that previously in the same situation, I would have got disappointed or angry in the heat of the moment.  At many times maybe to satisfy ego or maybe to put a point forward, we want to just argue or at times just feel the need for showing dominance. However, in most circumstances we land up with an event not in our favour. It either becomes a win-lose, lose-win or a lose-lose. None of it really is an I am ok-you are ok, because it's not a win-win.  Inappropriate words may not just be bad for personal life, but even professional lives of people get badly affected by it. Very recently I have observed many people who come to the brink of of doing an action which is positive for th...

  In a training session I asked my audience to introduce themselves. I invited them to describe their special qualities by using adjectives for themselves, while they introduced. It turned out that few did not find positive words for describing their qualities. For example a woman stated “I am Stubborn Seema.” (name changed to protect identity). I paused the introductions for a bit, and looked at her with a certain disbelief in my heart. How can one describe self with such a negative quality and that too in an open forum. The woman was trying to say she is stubborn and that is in all the aspects of life and that would reflect in the training room too. If that is the case, I was sure the rest of the training days, I would have a student in the class who would be not absorbing the ideas I put forth and a difficult to interact element. I wanted to change her outlook and refresh her perspective about herself, then and there. So I questioned her, “Okay, so if you say you are stubborn. C...

  Recently I was attending a session on counseling where we were discussing energy exchange between the counsellor and counseled. We also spoke about how a counselor must be able to empower the client by maintaining the same energy within. By energy here I do not mean the obvious physical display of energy or physical strength. Energy here means the energy our aura reflects, the energy charge which every atom in this universe has.    Coming back to the session, I heard a question pop up to our speaker, 'Sir, many-a-times I have heard that we must stay away from negative people, negative energy. That drains out our own energy drastically. Sir, but you asked us to empower everyone. What do you suggest in case of negative people who drain our energy?' There was a pause and gripping silence in the group. I felt like many resonated with this question.    I too got answers, in form of different thoughts, which I was not sure of whether right or wrong. But yes what...

  Training & Learning In earlier times, managers used to send their people for a training if they would be sitting idle. It was a perception that training is one way to occupy them with a meaninful activity, or just becasue people should be made to feel engaged. Trainers are just people who may give you some knowledge, called 'gyan' more colloquially. Managers weren't sure of how this 'gyan' would affect their work and businesses to make impacts on profits, but trainings surely motivated people, more so because it was a welcome break to their fixed, mundane schedule. Not very long ago, in the mid of 1900s when Donald Kirkpatrick developed the Kirkpatrick model of measuring training effectiveness. It had four levels of measuring training effectiveness. These were reaction to training, knowledge retention, transfer of learning on the job and impact on the business in terms of training return on investment (ROI). This model went on to become the most accepted an...

  Its me today and you tomorrow   In my experience, I've seen multiple people who are in a position to help others, but they hesitate or directly refuse. The last 2-3 years have been so troubling for the entire world. With Covid 19 setting its foot so strong in the entire world, different countries are affected with varying degrees of severity. However, one thing in common is humanity at large suffered in various ways, the effects and after effects of the pandemic. Thousand of people lost their source of livelihood, few thousand lost their loved ones and innumerable others faced depression and anxiety issues due to restricted movement or isolation. Many people posted their needs of jobs, hospital beds, ambulance, oxygen and even food, on social media, and many reached out to them with open arms to help them pass that difficult phase in life. Many other times when crises situation has come up, like natural calamities or manmade terror attacks, kind human beings have helped to...

  The Beautiful Journey Towards Success Smart work does not replace hardwork to achieve success. To be a leader, to grow to that level, you should have done all the work that you are going to then, at that stage, supervise. Your hands on experience much earlier in your career will help you confidently take future roles. Sadly, the generation in their 20s, so many of them, do not resonate with this concept. This is purely my observation over a few years and I am open to any logical argument, if you propose otherwise. May be this interaction and observation of mine is limited to the call centre industry that I've been associated with beyond 4 years now. After finishing swanky MBAs or engineering degrees too, a large number of pass-outs come to join BPOs as a Customer Care Agent. Where, I do very much respect all types of jobs, at the same time, I feel waste of a college seat, waste of money, time and talent should not be done. After a great degree, unfortunately done under the for...

  In a search for meaning and purpose of life, most of us associate ourselves with tangent entities around us. For us even God has to be tangent, therefore idol worship exisits. But once our family and friends get on with their own lives, our children have their own careers and families to settle with, our education is over and we retire from our careers. One day we wake up to having one or more of these aspects missing, in our lives, to look after and look forward to. It could be that we have retired and the job which was an identity or purpose of life, is not associated with us anymore. For example a person who has got fired from her job may feel an absolute helplessness, void and would question their existence. We all must have our own purposes and that should drive us to being ourselves. We must go after the things that we want. And this want is different for everyone. I am what I am within myself. My purpose is not my family, friends, education, child, job or career. My pur...

Creative Problem Solving When the ball pen did not work in space, as ink did not flow in absence of gravity, millions were spent to develop a pen which would work. Then came a very simple suggestion, simply use a pencil! Although many of us have heard of this story which describes how simple solutions can be arrived at, when seemingly complex problems are thought through with a calm mind. This story is purely fictional and just to explain the concept of valuing simplicity over complexity. The solution may be right in front of us most of the times.  A video on a channel shows a young woman was given a math problem to solve, which she, after few minutes, gave up. When a child sitting beside her solved it in one go. This was the problem and the solution. Problem : 5 + 5 + 5 = 550 (add one straight line to make both sides equal) Solution : 5 4 5 + 5 = 550 A website, whatwedoallday, trigged my thoughts further towards the simplicity in which seemingly complex problems can be managed...

  Starting a new business? Getting settled in a new job? Adjusting in a budding relationship? Still figuring out work from home even after a year up for it? Any of these...Difficult, is it? However prepared you are to make the shift in your life smooth sailing, you are bound to have initial hicups in any change you want to make. Change, however, is inevitable. No matter how much we try to keep our life in control, the truth is you are never in complete control. Some amount of ambiguity is always tagging around.  Ambiguity is in all or some areas of our lives. So its the ambiguity that troubles and not the change itself. It's said that 'Its a matter of time that you settle down with the new way of life.' How you think and feel about change, will determine your reaction to change and subsequent effect on your life. What if we see 'change' in a positive and productive context? It is natural to get daunted with what is new. At times, even minor changes like a change in ...

 Have you ever felt a deep sense of emotional connect when someone is narrating a situation? Did you ever relate a personal story to an issue your friend,teacher, parent or trainer is narrating? I'm sure we face such feelings multiple times in our daily life. Learning occurs when we listen to life experiences of others. Listening is a powerful mind tool. Research suggests that we remember around 25 to 50 percent of what we have heard.  A great deal of material is available on storytelling and learning how to do it better, in today's times. Adults learn from each other everyday through stories. So we are actually storytelling in our everyday lives, always. We have stories at workplace, in webinars, in classrooms, in training rooms, even the media, always, tells us a story. By story I do not mean pure fiction. Stories mean incidents which are either real or fictional, but they leave us with lessons to learn from. If you want to enhance your learning, then listen to other's s...

  Learning comes naturally when you are motivated to learn. A child learns how to sit, walk, move around, and talk. Although we know these are gradual progressions which any individual makes in his life, as growth and survival instincts, it is also a motivation to learn, grow and engage in that new action. We learn so many things in our life time due to this drive within us. Hunger teaches us the understanding of food and at times how to cook. The need to remain connected has taught us how to use new technology, applications and devices which offer that connectivity. Wonder if the schools offer that kind of motivation to learn! In my times, I had not faced any strong desire to learn new subjects, know about different topics as the curiousity was not generated by the education system itself. With the New Education Policy 2019 in India promising a major reform in the learning culture of schools, it is just a matter of time that the claims are proven correct. The hindrance to imp...

  To learn you need to unlearn and relearn and associate your learning with something in your daily life.  You cannot keep learning new information unless you  revise and practise for improving retention. To improve memory and learning, you need to practice the newly learnt information over and over again. Just taking in new information would be like pouring tea in a cup, which will eventually be full and over flow untill you consume some tea, that is ustise the learning practically. Reading and knowing about new things brings immese intellectual satisfaction, but it does not necessarily guarantee retention. To assure yourself of adding value by spending time to learn new things, we must challenge ourselves by putting them into practise in different ways in our daily schedule. According to an article in APA, learning performance is enhanced if students engage in deliberate practice.   A Youtube video of certified speaker, corporate trainer and guinness record holder...

  What is common sense for today's generation is innovation and science for the previous one. My husband said this to me. And that made me ponder on. Our lockdown life, due to covid, has prompted the government to apply strict rules. One of that includes 'only essential services will work from office'. Since I work in one of those sectors, it was my usual day to work. On my way back, I booked a cab service through an app; just a regular affair for me. The driver called and asked me where I was, I told him to follow the map, but he failed to understand and asked me for directions. While he arrived, I was on the phone, so I gave the OTP of the ride to the driver. Engrossed in my convesation, waiting for the ride to begin, I started to get impatient. I asked the driver what the matter was. Then I saw him struggle with the app to put the OTP and get the directions. Losing my temper I asked him to make it quick and finally gave him inputs to get going. Soon after, the driver sta...

 Have u ever felt a feeling of remembering a past instance in an extremely distinct manner? Such that you can feel, smell, taste exactly what u did at that time in the past. Books are a source of knowledge for us, however, that is reinforced and imprinted in our minds through experience.   We all learn through experience. It is more so to do with how common things around us have left an impression on our minds. For example, in school, our science lab was a fascinating world for us. It taught us how common things like heat, electricity, pressure, gravity, etc. worked, and this left some lifetime learnings. Most of the early life experiences are either at home or at school. Parents and teachers play an almost irreversable role in the child's life. Certain incidents either positve or harrowing, make such a distinct memory, that even after years, the feeling which it gave at that time when the incident happened can arrive.   According to research by the APA , p eople who hav...

Simple Pleasures of Life    As a child, I loved to play with balloons, the attractive colours, the fact that it could rise in the air and float for a while before falling down, the shapes and sizes it would be available in and the ones which were blown on parties and weddings, all, so fascinated me. I felt elated playing with one. Owning a balloon to yourself at a party was pride and happiness for a child, in our times.     As I grew up and got swankier games to play with, I had forgotten the humble balloon and what it could teach a child, and how it can keep a child entertained for a good deal of time, until a few weeks ago when I saw the happiness on my child’s face when she got a balloon to play with. After a hard day’s work, I retired to take a walk in my society, as a woman passed by with a bunch of balloons, each tied to a stick, and each had some grains of fine sand put inside before being blown up. That caused a light rattling sound when the balloon was ...

Formal Education Have you ever been asked, "So you have completed your education?" I am sure most of us have faced this question. It is not surprising for society to think that education has an end and so does gaining knowledge and learning new skills. Well, the intent of asking such a question would be probably just to understand if formal classroom education/degrees have been acquired for the said field of interest and career. But the truth is, it is not unusual to think that these two words 'education' and 'knowledge' are synonyms. The question raised on completion of education also indicates to the other person that ‘I am sure you have gained all the relevant knowledge in the field of career and you are all set to face the real-life situations at workplace.’ As per Oxford dictionary, ‘education' is defined as 'a process of teaching, training and learning, especially in schools, colleges or universities, to improve knowledge and develop skills....

  Colours influence mood I have heard about how colours influence our mood, our feelings and emotions. For that matter even donning different colours make us feel either happy, dull, confident and so on... But lately, I have been reading about how colours can influence learning. Being in the training field has intrigued my interest in this topic. Out of all the information we take in or comprehend, most of it is in form of visual material or visual cues. So the same goes for learning too. Research states that 65% of humans are visual learners . (According to the Social Science Research Network.) While learning, whatever information our brain is absorbing, is mostly through the sense of sight. With the percentage of visual leaners being pretty large, we can definitely study more about how to enhance learning using this modality. Everything which comes in the vision of the learner, at the time of learning, for him, that is his visual learning material. In this article, I shal...

Learning and Education It has been a year of tremendous ups and lows for the entire world. 2020 has shown us the good, bad and ugly of life. At this time of the year, just like every year, last year too, the world wished each other ‘A Happy New Year’ and celebrated the inception of the fresh year 2020. But the last year of the decade phased out to be full of challenges as it brought along the pandemic Covid 19 in Feb. By Mar the seriousness of the deadly virus caused the world to shut down social and business activities. Schools, colleges and all educational institutions shut their operations, sending millions of students home. The repercussions on the education sector was a change due to the non-availability of contact sessions for students. Just like at many workplaces, employers arranged to send laptops and desktops at home for their employees to continue uninterrupted, similarly, the education sector also saw institutions moving to online education methodology. Use of Technology ...