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...