Fill In the Gaps - Learning and Development

I wanted to write this blog since quite some time. Never found that time and space. At my work we started a concept called 'Work Out Loud' and I am using this opportunity to write this blog thanks to my compliance to the activity this week.

Now if you see the activity that I am doing out of this learning is something that I think I am fairly good at, but at the same time never found myself encouraged enough to do this. This is one category of corporate learning. The other category being, that the learning outcome is my weakness and I am not encouraged to pursue it. It might also be the case that I am highly motivated to work on my weaknesses. Or exploring the last quadrant, that I am motivated to learn more about my strengths.

Most of us find our comfort zone in whatever our strengths are and need encouragement to pursue things that are our weakness. For example, if I find 'Leadership Skills' as my strengths, I would tend to build my entire career upon it. However there is a force from the other end of the spectrum which is a compliance called "My Learning Plan" or "Associate Annual Learning Plan" which explores what are the weakness of an associate and based on the competencies required for the job profile, the weaknesses of the associate are pushed to the 'Learning Plan'.

Now since it is the associate's weakness, s/he doesn't really get motivated enough to pursue it. So the corporate structure pours in more money to ensure that they love the bitter medicine. However colours you add or make the packaging interesting, the medicine is still bitter for the employee and hence the showbiz makes little impact.

I was going through Strength Finder and I could so relate to the argument placed in that book by Tom Rath. 

Let us imagine that we are able to discover strengths of an individual and we push learning plans according to what the associate is good at rather than what are his/her weaknesses, I think the associate would love to pursue the topic further. Moreover the amount of effort needed to pull someone from 30 to 80 is much more than pushing someone from 90 to 95. The reason being very obvious, "I love this topic. Give me more."

With this, are we at risk of placing our employees in their comfort zone? Comfort zone gets created by familiarity of the topic. If I am exposed to something unfamiliar in the topic I love, I would be challenged to resolve it and hence push myself further to improve on it. With this we are rather increasing the chances of removing complacency.

"But pursuing the course is not the objective of the curriculum. We need associate's growth as the outcome from the learning. What is growth from 90 to 95? I can show higher growth from 30 to 80."

I beg to differ here. The objective of corporate learning is not growth of the employee but productivity of the employee. If there is no return on investment there is no point of that learning. There would be much higher return for the growth from 90 to 95 even though it is mere 5 points ahead. Reason being the higher you achieve in a field, the niche area you enter and hence the work style and the outcome is more unique. Now as the employee hikes further towards the peak, the organization can expect innovations of most productive forms.

Most of the annual appraisal discussions focus on "What you need to improve?" While yes a basic compliance is needed to maintain the organizational sanctity, I believe it would be more prudent to discuss on "You are really good at this. Let us see what all opportunities we can offer you to improve on it. What all can be done to hone your skill further. How can we make it niche to the extent that you are a thought leader for that niche!" 

Yes I have experienced this in my current employment. It makes huge difference to the productivity. The employee feels more productive and hence valued. The organization reaps benefit from that value and hence it becomes a win-win situation.

As a L&D personnel we tend to think about how to 'Fill In the Gaps' within my organization. For a change let us discard this thought and focus on how to fortify my organizational strengths!

How to deal with extremely boring work?

Does it ever happen to you, where you have to do some mundane work which doesn’t suit your interest? Or maybe it is a mammoth task that requires some extra time and energy. Or it can simply be work that doesn’t suit your current mood and you just have no choice of escaping it at that moment?

Doesn’t that moment of lack of productivity become really agonizing? What do you do in such times? I generally get tempted to open up Facebook / WhatsApp / Twitter / Quora. Or I get tempted to eat something at that moment. I am sure you would have some other comfort zones where the mind tends to get diverted at that moment. And the one who succumbs to that temptation, eventually lives life in the country of ‘Procrastination’ which is ruled by Queen - Petty Pleasures and where we pay frustration, agitation, guilt and embarrassment as taxes. And trust me that is The Hotel California – ‘You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave’.

So what is really happening in your mind at that time and how to steer yourself back to productivity?

Here are certain things that I do and they work for me.

Consume fluids but avoid coffee.
Such times, mind gets tempted towards eating spicy or sweet. These are the elements that further add rust on the current situation. Lack of concentration, is quite a lot of times due to lack of water in body. Drinking water (preferably warm) helps. If you can find a mug of green tea, perfect.

Take a power nap of about 10 mins.
Many a times, mind loses concentration due to lack of oxygen. This can very well be due to lack of sleep. Closing your eyes for 10 mins, taking a power nap helps rebuild concentration levels.

Pranayam.
A very effective technique to boost your concentration levels is Pranayam. Do Bhastrika Pranayam or Nadi Shodhan Pranayam. If you have done Yes!+ course then you know the Concentration Pranayam.

Meditate.
If you know how to meditate, nothing like it. Meditation relaxes your mind, boosts your focus, and enhances the capacity of your mind to receive more. And trust me, investing those 20 mins would help you way better than saying ‘Don’t have time for meditation right now’. If you really really don’t have 20 mins, spend at least 10 mins, but do meditate.

Mind in such times always seeks an easy way out. Starts pleading for things like earthquakes and fire to avoid such work. It gets tempted to get up and do a lot of other stuff. But understand that the work is your karma and you have to do it. Despite the earthquake, despite the floods somehow you will have to do that piece of work. This acceptance is very important.

Now when acceptance dawns, I would say begin work by splitting it in fragments. Don’t take up a task for more than 20 mins. By breaking the giant mountain into smaller stones we confuse our mind into believing that it is barely 10 to 20 mins task. “Let us finish it.”

Take break after every 20 mins. Take a stroll outside or simply close your eyes for 2 mins. Yes! It is not easy for many people. Closing eyes for 2 mins requires a practice. You can download some ‘Pomodoro’ type apps to facilitate that.

Never resist your mind from doing something. “Don’t open Facebook” tempts mind more than ever to open up facebook. I give my mind the option to close eyes. So I either work, or close my eyes. “Want to check whatsapp? Ok, let us close our eyes.” “But whatsapp?” “Oh yes, correct, let us first close our eyes” Then I simply observe the temptation fade out. That might take less than a minute (depends on whether yours is a meditating mind or not). Once the temptation is out, I open my eyes and start working again.

This way, I save my mind from spending energy unnecessarily, develop my mind’s capacity to observe, get multiple opportunities to relax my mind and I become more aware to correct my body posture.

When your eyes are closed, a relatively focused mind would find it attention on the breath. What is the breathing pattern? If the mind is really focused, breath is steady, calm and deeper. Simply taking the attention on breath improves the quality of mind drastically.

Do try these techniques out and let me know if any of this was helpful.

Happy Producitvity to you!

Demonize Demonetize

Nov 2016 to Dec 2016 demonetization seemed to be a buzz word. So much so that there were many elements who tried to demonize 'demonetization' and yet Modi stood victorious in most elections that followed demonetization. He promised 50 days to bring in normalcy and come Dec 30 we did see huge decline in ATM lines. So now I see the new target is the term 'Cashless'. And the same elements are trying to demonize cashlessness.

Here is my take on it.

Did you know that about 1.6 crore paid tax in the year 2012-13? That means just 1% of the nation is bearing the financial weight of the entire nation. Doesn't this ring any bell? With so many rich people around, does it make sense that only 1% of the nation's population bear the burden of the whole nation?

How do we know how much money people have? Unless we enforce cashless transactions, it would be very difficult to monitor who is hiding how much wealth? Unless of course the myth of the super powers of Rs 2000 currency are true. Every single digital transaction can be recorded.

So whether it's Paytm,  Jio Money or any mobile wallet transaction  or any Credit Card transaction,  every transaction can be recorded and accounted for. With this level of transparency, there is a good chance that people would pay the due tax.

And when so much of money comes in banking, it helps in generating good amount of credit. This in turn helps the economy. In layman terms, when banks get more money, they get more power to give more loans. Thus the supply of loans increases. This will benefit people who need loan. This will help entrepreneurs, people buying houses, cars etc.

There is an argument floating that the govt has taken this step to favor certain big industrialists. And gullibles are easily falling in that trap.

Cashless economy is a service. Credit Cards offer you a credit of 45 days. Who would pay for that? Huge expenditure is needed to maintain security of the digital transactions made, who should pay for that convenience? Nothing comes for free. Where there is a service there has to be a fee attached to it. They primarily charge the vendor and the banks. Certain vendors pass on the charge to the end user while others succumb to competition and wave off that charge. As end user you can take an informed choice of whether or not that trade off works for you.

Yes this policy of govt is going to help certain industries. But then that is true for every government policy. Should we be restricting every government decision just because it specifically favors certain industry? I think it is important for us to look into the larger picture.