Category Archives: training

Two Words that Changed a Man’s Life

Ganesh N. Devy, a boy from Kolhapur did his schooling in Marathi medium. Within a few months of his getting into college, he had to drop out as the medium of instruction was in English which he found hard to comprehend. Continue reading →

A Tale of Two Key-Note Addresses

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“We are having our Annual Sales Conference and we would like you to deliver a Key Note address for our Pan-India Sales Team on Value Selling.” said Ramesh, the HR Manager of an IT company over phone.

“Thanks, but how did you know about me? “ I asked. “We make our own referral checks in the market before deciding on the speaker.” said Ramesh. Continue reading →

A Different Way of Curing Addictions (A Buddhist Perspective)

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Generally we look at curing addictions by eliminating the impact of the external environment. For example if a person is addicted to alcohol, he is persuaded to reduce the dependence on alcohol by suggestions on how alcohol is bad for health, its effect on the family, health and financial security. The patient is also exhorted to join Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) so as to reduce his dependence. These interventions work sometime but also tend to fail when a patient relapses as he is unable to resist the temptation.

Let us look at an alternative model from the Buddhist perspective. (Refer figure). An event (stage I) that happens outside is perceived inside the body through any or a combination of the five sense organs like eyes, ears etc. Sometimes it can be only an aural input like a piece of music or a multi-sensory input like relishing delicious mutton biryani ( sight, smell, taste, partially sound )This second stage is called as perception and acknowledgement of the external event which is a MAP and not the actual event and is termed as Vigyan in Pali. (Stage II). The moment an input is perceived, it is immediately evaluated by Sangya (stage III) which compares the event with something similar in the memory bank. Based on the comparison the event is either pigeonholed as either good or bad. The comparison instantaneously produces a sensation (Stage IV)) on the body which is either a positive or a negative one. The positive sensation may be tingling, soothing or a similar sensation whereas a negative sensation can be an itching, pain or a similar sensation. So far so good. The journey up till now from an external event of tasting a morsel of mutton biryani produces either positive or negative sensations which do not exclusively depend on whether the biryani is good or bad but depending on how it is perceived and the corresponding sensation it produces on the body. For example, a person who loves spicy Hyderabadi Biryani may like the taste if it is comparable to the one prepared by his mother. (Evaluation – stage III) An American who is used to bland food may find the Biriyani quite pungent. The same food has produced two different body sensations: for the former it is positive, and for the latter it is negative.

At this juncture, the subconscious mind comes into play and depending on the type of sensation, shall either produce a bond which is either of craving/attraction or Aversion (Raaga or Dwesha Stage V). The person decides to either have the next morsel or avoids depending on the bond that is created by the subconscious mind. A simple example of biryani can be compared to Alcohol, Nicotine or any substance drug.

Myths of Addictions:

An external event is the cause of addiction: If it were so, all people who take alcohol should have become alcoholics which are not the case. People do not become addicted to an external event or stimuli but to the sensations on the body.
By telling what is right people can come out of addictions: When we tell the message only reaches the conscious mind. However the subconscious mind which constitutes 90% of the mind and is more habit prone refuses to acknowledge the message given to and by the conscious mind. Quite often alcoholics know the ill-effects but the thought pattern prevents them. On the contrary the subconscious mind now starts justifying the action. Like a person says he is drinking because he had abusive parents, pathetic childhood, financial problems, spouse etc. However he does not realize that the addiction is not for the alcohol but for the craving of pleasant sensations (relaxed feeling) and the aversion of the negative feeling (turkey, shivering, irritation etc.)
Happiness and Pleasure are the same: We believe that pleasure is good and pain is bad. However any event whether pleasurable or otherwise, creates misery in the long run. Let us say a person who loves gulab-jamun feels that the sweet is the source of happiness. If it were so, irrespective of the quantity, galub-jamuns should make him happy. He may enjoy the first few very much, however if continued beyond 10 or so it may produce irritation. So the pleasure was not in the gulab-jamun but in the sensations it produced on the body.

How to Bring Change:

It should be clearly understood that the first four stages are primarily automatic on which a person does not have much control, which include the event(I), the perception & acknowledgement by the senses( II) the evaluation ( III) & the sensations on the body due to evaluation (IV) .However the reaction to the body sensations is within a person’s control. The bonds of attachment and aversion are continuously in the subconscious mind every moment. Taking an analogy of the hard disk of a computer, continuously the data is written by way of bonds (sankhara) which are habit forming.

If we stop creating new bonds, slowly the old ones will wither way and gradually the change starts happening. To bring this, awareness of the mind and body plays a very important role. It is not about concentration of the mind but a simple process of choiceless awareness which helps a person see the rapid thought process happening in the mind. Simple exercise like watching one’s breath slowly makes the mind so sharp that at one stage one is able to observe the body sensations. These sensations in a day-to-day life are generally not observable as the mind is gross.

The major trap for the mind to get into is while observing the sensations. People may start hankering after the pleasant ones and despise the bad ones. At this juncture, one has to observe the sensations with equanimity developing a clear insight that any sensation: be it positive or negative is ultimately going to create a sankhara, an impression on the mind. By developing equanimity towards any sensations; slowly the bonds get reduced in the subconscious mind. A change happens at the subconscious level which is long-lasting.

For most of us there is a gap between knowing and doing. At a cognitive level people know the terrible effects of excessive smoking, drinking. However the behaviour can change only at a subconscious level. To summarize, the sensations on the body produce the addictions and not the external event. This profound technique has been the unique contribution of Gautama Buddha. His technique of Vipassana has helped a number of people to bring a behavioural change in managing anger, fear, curing phobias or come out of addictions. Experiments were carried out on the prisoners of Tihar Jail by this technique which has amply demonstrated the efficacy of the technique.

Apart from curing addictions, the above technique of choiceless awareness which provides insights into the mind-body connect can be used in curing phobias, pain, dysfunctional anger etc. Amygdala is the seat of emotions in the human brain from where anger, fear, jealousy etc emanate. The addictions which happen at a subconscious level are very difficult to eradicate by instructing the brain at a conscious level or a cognitive level. Following examples will illustrate the change was completely or partially brought by this technique.

Subconscious Anger: Ramesh P. aged 61 years is an engineer and has worked at quality control in different spheres of management. The last position he held was that of GM level at an Automobile company. With financial stability, considerate wife and two children, both well educated and well settled we would perceive that Ramesh is be a happy person. Being his room-mate in one of the training programs I could see Ramesh shouting and screaming in his sleep which used to happen between 12 -1 PM. For first few days, I could not comprehend what he was speaking but later on I figured out it to be a few sentences of vitriolic anger against one of his former managers. Next day when I discussed with Ramesh about the incident, he confessed that he was not aware of such an incident but when pointed about the contents of his diatribe, he said that the incident happened around 12 years ago when his company was going through a major expansion and Ramesh was going through testing times when his immediate boss put him under tremendous pressure. Now Ramesh and his boss both have retired. Whenever they meet,they exchange pleasantries and are good friends. Only when it was pointed out to Ramesh about the latent anger he could see the impact of subconscious mind. Ramesh realized that when he resisted the negative thoughts about the past incident the negative sensations were produced on the body. By denying them he was creating more bonds of aversion ( stage V) thus multiplying his misery. Instead when he decided to be aware of the incident; slowly the impact reduced. The more you resist the more it persists!

Limitation of Chanting: Swati is a housewife from a lower-middle class family and her husband is working as a supervisor in a small private firm. Due to some reason or the other, the two could not get along well. However by sheer persistence and will Swati was able to control her frustration by regular chanting of sacred mantras, making holy pilgrimages etc. A highly religious person she had managed to keep her emotional life under control. However during the Vipassana program on the 7^th day, Swati refused to continue the course. She said now the anger within her has come out so badly that she feels a great urge to kill her husband with a gun. The anger which was lying dormant was exposed, exploded and resulted in her violet behaviour. By becoming aware, she was able to peep into the subconscious mind and get out of her anger.

You will observe that by the chanting of mantras, Swati was feeling calm and serence at a conscious and a superficial level. However when she looked deep within with awareness she could see the tremendous anger.

Sense of remorse reduces pain: Homi D. was a working as a fighter pilot for the Indian Air Force ( IAF) during the India-Pakistan war in 1971. He had shown exemplary courage in fighting the enemy. He was decorated with awards. During the war, while going out for a sortie most of the pilots in a vainglorious manner used to blabber about the number of bombs they dropped, and the number of people those were killed by their bombings. It was taken as a measure of one’s achievement. During the war Homi was injured badly, almost to be captured by the Pakistani army. He had to crawl on his wounded legs for almost 5 hours to return safely to the Indian base. His right leg had been amputated and left one was hit by few bullets. He had to undergo a number of operations but still the pain was unbearable for more than two decades. He even lost his left eye and was fitted with an artificial eye. He underwent a number of treatments, however nothing could alleviate his pain. While undergoing the meditation exercise, Homi became aware of the pain that he had caused to a number of innocent people killed due to his bombings. Till then, what he considered as his success, was nothing other than an act of barbarity. And this sense of remorse and guilt helped Homi to reduce the intensity of the excruciating pain. Now the pain even though not vanished, has been reduced by almost 50%.

From the above three examples, you may observe that the events which had happened more than a decade back were stored in the form of sensations. However due to the automatic nature of the subconscious mind whenever this sensations appeared on the mind there were repeated cycles of aversions which made the subconscious mind filled with aversion; which the conscious mind was not aware of. However by sheer mindfulness slowly the bonds of aversion ( Stage V) were reduced and the people were able to come out of their misery.

Rajan Parulekar| Bangalore | India| rajan@paradigm-info.com| +91 98450 14098

Three Bad Habits Sabotaging Your Productivity

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Peter Drucker was consulting for a CEO of a major bank in US. For every meeting the CEO used to assign Peter a time slot of 90 minutes. A highly effective person, the CEO was delivering consistent results for his bank year-on-year. During the one-and-half hour meeting the CEO refrained from taking any telephone calls Continue reading →

How NOT to recruit a candidate

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Natasha, a sales manager from a renowned hotel in Goa interviewed a candidate called Moin, a B.Com graduate for the post of a trainee sales executive. Moin was a tall, fair and handsome guy who spoke fluently during the interview. Natasha felt he was an ideal candidate for sales. When asked about his strength, Moin replied his strength was manipulation. Save for this ‘minor’ aberration he looked OK on other fronts.

He was shortlisted for the next interview, where he repeated the same answer when asked by the GM. The considerate GM said, “young man, please go home and refer the dictionary and check the meaning of the word manipulation. You should not give such answers. Elsewhere you would have been rejected straight away.”

After joining, Moin started throwing tantrums . When asked to usher a guest in the restaurant, he said, “I am graduate, I do not do such things.” Natasha once asked him to follow up for payment from one of the regular guests of the hotel. Moin fired the guest saying that if the latter does not pay immediately, he may have to face dire consequences. Luckily Natasha, the manager overheard the telephonic talk, seized the receiver and apologized to the guest. Within two months, Moin resigned without giving any reasons.

The manager had spent her precious time of hers as well as of others including the GM. It is very rare for someone to contribute significantly during the first six months. Precious time and money of the organization were wasted. Some of the mistakes managers make while recruiting are:

Selection Bias for common traits: The candidate revealed his interest in being a DJ which was a common interest for the manager too.
Emphasis on external appearance: Selection of candidates is based on appearance, personality as well the hearing the expected responses. For example when asked why would you like to join our company, the typical response from candidates is: “I would like to take challenges and grow with a growing organization.”
Ignoring the Obvious: Listen to what the candidate says and also what he does not want to tell. Here Moin went on harping his manipulation skills which was ignored.
Mistaken Competencies of a Job Role: Most of us feel that a good talker is a good salesman. It may be true for low-value sales. However for high-value product or service like premium hospitality, the converse is true. It is not the glib talker but the effective listener who fits the bill for a good salesperson.

For more details please refer the chapter, Why do Salesmen Love to Talk in my book Contextual Selling (for more details http://www.paradigm-info.com)

Cognitive Biases that affect Decision Making

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“I tried to get an appointment with my client for six months, I could not succeed”, said Shashi, my friend in an Omani Company. “However the moment my Scottish counterpart sitting in the next cabin called him, he got an appointment the next day”.

Two Caucasian ladies, one French and the other a Polish, sang an average composition on peace & harmony in Bangalore for 2-3 minutes. After their recital, there were hordes of people from the audience who wanted to get photographs along with them. The singers were neither celebrities nor accomplished singers, but the colour of their skin made all the difference! Let us look at the different types of perceptual biases most of us have.

Blind-Spot bias-: Your own cognitive bias is a bias in itself. People notice cognitive and motivational biases much more in others than in themselves. We have a positive bias towards the Caucasians but may discount brown or dark-coloured skin executives.

Anchoring bias: People are over-reliant on the first piece of information they hear. In a salary negotiation, whoever makes the first offer establishes a range of reasonable possibilities in each person’s mind

Availability heuristic: People overestimate the importance of available information. A person might argue that smoking is now unhealthy because they know someone who chain smoked and still lived upto 100. Quite often the information is taken out of context or only a sample is selected by ignoring the other data.

Bandwagon effect: The probability of one person adopting a belief increases based on the number of people who hold that belief. This is a powerful form of group-think and is reason why meetings are often unproductive.

Choice-supportive bias: When you choose something, you tend to feel positive about it, even if that choice has flaws. Like how you think your dog is awesome – even if it bites people every once in a while.

Clustering illusion: This is the tendency to see patterns in random events. It is key to various gambling fallacies. Like the idea that red is more or less likely to turn up of a roulette table after a string of reds.

Confirmation bias: We tend to listen only to information that confirms our preconceptions – one of the many reasons it’s so hard to have an intelligent conversation about climate change.

Conservation bias: Where people favour prior evidence over new evidence or information that has emerged. People were slow to accept that the earth was round because they maintained their earlier understanding that the planet was flat

Information bias: The tendency to seek information when it does not affect action. More information is not always better. With less information, people can often make more accurate predictions.

Ostrich effect: The decision to ignore dangerous or negative information by “burying” one’s head in the sand, like an ostrich. Research suggests that investors check the value of their holdings significantly less often during bad markets

It is not possible to eliminate all the biases, but the least we can do is to be aware of them and in mindfulness the chances of our decisions going wrong can be minimized.

Achieving expertise also depends on the domain!

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Why is there a gap between efforts executives put and the results they get? The linkage between the improvement in one’s skills vis-à-vis the efforts put can be termed as structure of growth.

Last two weeks I was conducting training programs on Effective Value Selling for Capital Equipments which were in the price range of Rs. 50 L to Rs. 1crore.( Approx. $100k-200K) Selling of CNC machines involves considerable technical complexity and the sales engineers need to understand the customer behaviour in a sensitive manner. For most of the participants, I perceived a huge gap between the job role and the skill set possessed.

Remember the adage, practise makes a man perfect. Generally it is assumed that the improvement of a skill is directly proportional to the efforts, time spent and the intelligence of a person which is partially true. But it also depends on the domain in which one is working. Most of the domains may have the following types of growth structure. There are a number of growth structures but the major ones are: Logarithmic, Exponential and Sinusoidal ( Please refer figure: growth figures )

Logarithmic Growth: Here one tends to get visible results during the initial phases of activity. But the growth becomes harder as you go along. For example, in athletics running 100 metres in 14-15 seconds looks an achievable task for a beginner. Chopping off the next second or two is relatively easy. But to break the 10 second barrier only athletes at international level can achieve. One needs to be an Usain Bolt to reach a figure of 9.79 seconds where the runner up can be behind by just hundredth of a second. Same is true in cricket where a cricketer can scores a century on debut and become a celebrity but then it is only people like Sachin Tendulkar who go on reinventing their styles and techniques even after reaching a few milestones.

The first phase of logarithmic growth is steep and success comes easily. The second phase is like a plateau where the rate of growth slows down considerably. (refer figure a. logarithmic growth)

Thanks partly to media hype, you see such growth in music ( with pop stars, Little Champs in Saregamapa shows etc.) and in sports like IPL Cricket. With some talent and average efforts some people in such domain, become instant celebrities overnight. The real challenge is in phase 2 where you need to maintain your disciplined habits. You need to move away from your regular routine and break away from those habits. You can even develop a technique which may be beyond the textbook. Tiger Woods reinvented his swing in the second phase.

Exponential Growth: There are some fields where one needs to put lot of hard work initially and the results will not be visible for considerable time. Mastering a field like Physics, computer science, music takes a hell lot of time. In the HBR Article titled The Making of an Expert by Anders Ericsson, Michel Pretula and Edward Cokely, the authors propose that to master a particular field it takes around 10,000 hours of systematic efforts. The results may not be visible initially so one needs to have lot of patience (refer figure b. phase 1 of exponential growth ). And one day, a miracle happens. Suddenly things fall in place and what you were struggling all these days and years, the obvious answers are revealed. The pieces of jigsaw puzzle get into the right place. Kekule developed the model of Benzene ring in his dreams by correlating a serpent swallowing his own tail, Einstein worked on his special theory of relativity for a number of years as a clerk in a Swiss patent office. Marie Curie had to process tonnes of pitchblende in inclement weather and in an ordinary laboratory for a number of years before extracting a few milligrams of radium. Science whether applied or pure is a typical example where the structure of growth is exponential. Einstein, Kekule or Marie Curie did not get the success overnight but had enough perseverance to sustain the phase 1

Sinusoidal Growth: Fields like spiritual growth are neither exponential nor logarithmic. You do not start your spiritual journey as your hobby or for earning a livelihood/achieving fame. ( with the exception of fake gurus,babas & bapus ) It only comes out of genuine suffering or existential dilemmas of life. ( Refer figure c. Sinusoidal Growth ) It is said if you have not suffered a breakdown you may not get a breakthrough. Initially you start from a negative state, you may get results for some time, again you fall down and each time you raise the bar. Siddharth Gautam had to experiment with different techniques that were available in his time from the age of 30, and by 36 he realized chasing the techniques itself was a mirage and he was enlightened to realize his Buddha nature.

Each field may have either one or combination of the above growth structures. So to be an expert and an authority in a specific domain, it is not only important what traits you carry ( which is your DNA ) but to see whether there is a synergy between your traits and structure of your domain.

Remember, Vinod Kambli and Sachin Tendulkar had similar talent. Sachin could sustain in the phase 2 of logarithmic growth; Kambli could not.

As a professional remember, a formal education at the university does you no harm, provided you start learning there afterwards. It is simply beyond attending a 2-day company sponsored training program.

Ground-rules for Implementing Key Account Management