Realities of Corporate Training Institutes in Mumbai

There are many Corporate Training Institutes in Mumbai. Some are large and have a large sales force and in-house training delivery team, while others are individual trainers who operate from their homes, what we call one man armies!  There are also many aspiring trainers in the market, some of whom have elementary knowledge and no formal experience. All three are constantly competing with each other to grab their share of the training pie.

Apart from these three categories, their is a fourth category that we most certainly cannot leave out. It's the training managers, learning officers and process trainers that form the in-house functional and behavioural trainers teams who conduct programs for their respective organisations.

Each of these categories have their own specialities, strengths, lacunas and challenges that they face while trying to accomplish the required outcomes.

Although the training industry in India is a multi billion rupee industry, yet it is rather unregulated and there are no set standards that everyone follows. On one hand this leaves room for a lot of creativity at work, while on the other it gives rise to glaring gaps in the quality of training delivered.

If training is to be successful in fulfilling the required outcomes, it has to follow some standardised methods and processes. Let's have a look at some of these:

1. The first and foremost area to explore is whether training is the solution to the issue being faced. I know you are surprised to read this as my first point but I think it the first question that needs to be asked!

On many occasions I see leaders looking at training as a solution to everything. However they forget that the issue might be due to other reasons and training might just provide a temporary solution. Training employees cannot solve all your system, process and leadership issues.

2. Now if we have identified that it is a training issue then we need to identify exactly where the training is required. Very often leaders think that if they train their employees then everything will change. They however often forget that change has to be driven top-down. It's first the leaders that need to change and this wave of change needs to then percolate to the rest of the organisation. We sometimes forget that actions are louder than words and if we change first the rest of our team will automatically follow.

So the question is that what can help us decide whether the issue at hand is a training issue or not and if it is one, then how do we make a program that is effective enough to produce the desired change in the organisation?

My experience of having trained for the past 11 years tells me that to decide if this is a behavioral training need is possible only when you do a thorough Training needs analysis and identification. This means you need to talk to various different people in the organization to get an idea of the situation and the need in its totality and understand the commonalities as well as the outliers. Trainers need to learn to probe neutrally to avoid bringing in personal biases and that is where i find Edgar Schein’s human process consulting techniques very helpful.

These techniques help us in identifying the common factors and also the not so common ones! Once these factors are identified, we can then present the findings to the concerned stakeholders, the top executives to be ideally involved in the process.

By effective probing we can successfully make them share what they think about the same and then help them zero in on developmental areas, some of which they need to work upon internally and some which can be addressed by hard skills or soft skills training.

Hmmm...Got you thinking? Well I'm going to leave you with these thoughts right now and will catch up with you soon to share some more thoughts on what can take Corporate Training Institutes in Mumbai to the next level. In the meantime I'd love to hear your views on the same. Do get in touch with us by visiting our website http://www.theyellowspot.com/ See you soon:)

Want to Know More Facts about Corporate Training Companies in Mumbai?

I am back with my discussion on Corporate Training Companies in Mumbai.

If you remember, we were looking at areas that these companies need to look at to take them to the next level.

So let's continue with the points:

3. The next step for a top corporate training company would be to check the outcomes that the client wants from the program. We must also assess whether this outcome can be accomplished in the timeline provided by the client and whether it needs more inputs before, during and /or after the program.

Here one needs to be able to identify the existing gap properly, whether it is a skills, knowledge or an attitude gap. Attitude gaps usually takes the longest to fill over skills and knowledge gaps. Coaching and counselling are usually the best way to go about with them.

Take a note of what I'm going to tell you now carefully as here is where most of the corporate training institutes in Mumbai as well as solo trainers often falter. Very often in the fear of loosing the business we give in to the client's demands. We land up promising to deliver objectives that are not possible in the given time and/or in the methodology the client approves. This eventually leads to unsuccessful training interventions.

Most successful training programs are well assessed, delivered objectively using instructional design techniques and are followed up well post the delivery. However the ground reality is that due to paucity of time, funds and pressure from business; very often clients wants everything to be delivered in one go. They lack the resources to spread the intervention across a longer duration and more often than not do not even give enough time given to the pre and post program work. The results in poor programs which either do not create the expected change or create a very short term impact with low learner retention.

To tackle this problem, my suggestion is to follow a middle approach. A consultant can suggest what is good or ideal and look at the training not as a one day event but as an intervention. He can openly suggest his or her findings as well as accept the clients challenges, clearly sharing what outcome is possible in the time allotted. A good training intervention is always a joint effort and not one person's responsibility. Thus if the consultant joins hands with the client in fulfilling the objectives; the outcome is better, there are no false expectations set and the consultant can go ahead doing his best in whatever opportunity he has been given without taking the entire burden on himself.

 

Joining Hands with the Client

4. Most training programs and interventions land up being person dependent and largely dependent on the knowledge and skills of the trainer and his interpretation of the organisational issue at hand. This typically results in a trainer being able to only partly solve the issue at hand due to his limited knowledge and experience as an individual, leading to very few training programs being successful in creating the desired change in individuals and organisations.

This is where corporate training companies that have diverse trainers and consultants have an upper hand. If these trainers can all lend their expertise to the training intervention, then it becomes more holistic in nature and can successfully solve the issue at hand.

5. Most of the theories and concepts that are used during delivery are picked up from the west and are well accepted and applied blindly without much doubt. Some of these concepts come with good research and backing while many of them are just eastern philosophies which are repackaged and sold back to the east in a flashy costlier form!

Trainers and training companies need to ensure they use concepts that actually tackle the organisational issue and not just offer good sounding concepts that may result in not meeting the objectives.

Am sure I have given you enough food for thought right now and am hoping it will help in making your training interventions more successful. Once Corporate Training Companies in Mumbai start looking at interventions holistically and truly look at partnering with their client stakeholders at every front there's no stopping them. If they can have a consultative approach towards their interventions and also have a long term approach over a short term one, they can definitely look at being one of the top Corporate Training Companies in Mumbai.

Have something you would want to discuss to help you take your training interventions to the next level? You can definitely contact us by visiting our website http://www.theyellowspot.com/ 

Not just another Train the Trainer program

Developing as a Facilitator

What exactly is the difference between a trainer and a facilitator? Think they are the same? To tell you the truth, just like most other people, I was not aware of the difference either before i entered the learning and development space. I actually thought that a Facilitator Development Program was equivalent to a Train the Trainer program!

So let me explain the difference to you. A trainer is one who is well informed about the content that he has to deliver but a facilitator may not be well aware about the content. Confused? I'll explain. Well, facilitating is basically ‘making an action easier’ and bringing out the learning from it. So, a facilitator is one who helps the participants in assessing the issue and finding out a way to resolve it while point to specific learning outcomes. So a facilitator does not have to be a subject matter expert. He just needs to help the subject matter experts to analyse what wrong and help them reach a solution by facilitating the process.

Facilitation at its Best

Facilitation focuses more on the learning aspect of the process rather than focusing on achieving the target. In fact, it is actually about focusing on achieving the objectives from the perspective of a learner.

So a facilitator helps in assessing, planning and guiding in a process by encouraging the group members to participate and contribute their ideas and learn from it during the process. However one thing that the facilitator needs to keep in mind at all points of time that he must carry a non-biased attitude. He must give every member the same opportunity to contribute and should not contribute his own point of view on the situation being discussed, lest he colour the opinions of the members. He is just supposed to facilitate the process of drawing out ideas from the members and bring them to the table, not add his own. Thus a trainer who can facilitate learning engages his audience the most and helps them draw meaning and awareness from activities which they were unable to do in the past.

The FaDP

To facilitate the development of a Trainer into a Facilitator, we are conducting a Facilitator Development program. We call this the FaDP and its going to be held sometime in May in association with Pegasus Institute for Excellence. I am frankly super excited about it and am eagerly waiting for it!!! It's a great opportunity and am so glad that I am going to be a part of it. To be coached by a person of the calibre of Mr. CK Dwarkanath is a true privilege. He has an experience of around 20 years of service with organisations like IISc, DRDO and ILFS. Currently, he is a senior faculty in Pegasus Institute for Excellence and also is the lead for Knowledge management, Research and innovation. He has special interests in subjects like co-creation, faculty readiness in higher education and employability enhancement of students. As a programme architect, he blends in the conceptual detailing of the program with participative action research and has already coached many participants on the same.

FaDP is about learning the facilitation concepts by experiencing the facilitation practices in a simulated environment for developing oneself in the facilitative process. The methodology that is used is simulations, role plays, narrative inquiry, etc.

So why should you join this program when you are already doing well at what you are doing?

1. To become more effective in your profession by 'learning to train'
2. To learn concepts and professional practices to make your programs more effective
3. To learn to evolve as a better facilitator or as a better coach

All you have to have to benefit the most from the program is, is the readiness to ‘Know’ things (concepts), ‘Do’ things (practice) and ‘Be’ (self), the three spheres of learning. The ultimate objective of this program is to enable individuals to ‘learn to learn’ and to facilitate learning. Mind you, facilitation development is not just limited to Facilitators and trainers. Anyone could be an eligible participant, be it a coach, consultant, leader, manager at any level, teacher, professor, social worker, tutor, etc. So it is an open platform and anyone can be a part of it. In fact, I myself am a novice in the L&D space, but am eagerly looking forward to program. I know it is definitely going to add a lot of value to me not just as an L&D professional but even as an individual. It perfectly falls under our philosophy of ensuring that we also add value to our clients as well as ourselves.

It would therefore be great if you could join us to be a part of this 'beyond the Train the Trainer program!' This developmental program will definitely help you in self-development and become more effective professionally. To know more about the FaDP, you can drop us a mail on info@theyellowspot.info or call us on +91 9769733305. Don't forget to visit our website http://www.theyellowspot.com/ for more information about us and our offerings:)

Our Organisation is a Learning Organisation

Honestly speaking, a Learning Organisation as a concept is very complex. However, if I were to put it simply, a learning organisation is one which continuously transforms itself through learning. So it is one where people in the organisation look forward to increasing their capability to gain better outcomes in order to achieve what they truly desire. It is therefore the process of overall development of the people, culture, processes and technology of an organisation and also it's ability to deal with the external environment.

For an organisation to be a learning organisation, it has to work as a team on a whole. It has to be one solid unit. Why as a team, because when you truly work as a team, you learn a lot from each other and develop at a much faster rate.

We all know the three pillars of a team right? Openness, inclusiveness and control. Since a learning organisation is made up of one big team, these pillars are also essential to a learning organisation.

A learning organization has to have an open environment where people are open with and to each other, open to suggestions, open to discussions and most importantly open to learning. It has to look at inclusiveness, which is about people feeling included, the feeling of belongingness. Lastly, it also needs to consider the control factor, which talks about trusting people to do what they have to without too much control, yet keeping enough to maintain the required order. It therefore believes in letting people work on their own by giving them the power to make decisions as and when required.

Typically which kind of organisations is this seen in more? Flat organisations where each person is responsible, teams are very well connected and everyone knows what’s happening, not just internally but also externally i.e. technologically, politically, socially, with competitors, etc. That is when an organisation truly learns and eventually develops itself.

Transforming from a Traditional to a Learning Organisation[/caption]

Well, if you ask me, the best example of a learning organisation for me is ‘The Yellow Spot’ itself. At The Yellow Spot, we truly believe in practising what we preach. So when we go around telling our clients to build a learning organisation, we ensure ours is one too! So we have a flat structure with an open culture where employees are more like partners. We don't believe in hierarchies and work as a team; deal with & solve problems, discuss, suggest and learn together. All these are of prime importance to us and are the main reason for making us reach where we have. So every new programme we deliver, we learn something new from it and ensure we use the learning to take future programmes to the next level. Apart from this, we also spend time in reading, reflecting, experimenting, attending other sessions, etc. to ensure that we are updated and well versed to deal with the current needs of  our client organisations and their people. That is how we are a learning organisation ourselves.

Now coming back, why do learning organisations play such an important role? Primarily because they focus on both individual and organisational development, which are highly interrelated and cannot be treated separately. They focus on the total quality of the organisation by developing the individuals, teams, leaders and the company on the whole; to be able to sustain themselves in the ever changing environment and move ahead to create a difference.

They foster an environment of team learning which helps in thinking together to manage the complexities to take the business to the next level. They offer an open culture and emphasize on a readiness to unlearn things in order to learn new things and develop oneself. The people oriented approach they follow always pays off, as the human resource is the only resource that actually appreciates with time!

Learning in an organisation is a continuous process and when implemented appropriately, it positively reflects across levels and helps in managing change, creating a competitive advantage and developing and engaging all the stakeholders taking into consideration their collective aspirations. It thus brings in the feeling of togetherness in the organisation and builds a cohesive team which helps take it through to the next level.

Having realised the importance of a learning organisation, organisations today are investing heavily on their developmental activities. They are empowering their employees and giving them opportunities to develop and go to the next level. This in turn is increasing employee motivation, engagement and the feeling of ownership and loyalty that they have towards their company.

As one of the top corporate training companies in India, we help organisations step into such a learning environment and help them grow. Our developmental programs help organisations adapt to change and deal with challenges in the rapidly changing environment. We help them become self sufficient and capable of sustaining growth. Learning is an on-going process for transformation and learning encourages innovation, which further encourages sustainability in this highly competitive world. Hence learning and developing with time is important and essential.

So when are you planning to become a learning organisation? If you need help in your learning journey, you can always let us know. Visit our website http://www.theyellowspot.com/ and let us know how we can assist you.

Taking Forward Transactional Analysis Training

Welcome to Part 2 of our article on Transactional Analysis Training. In the last article we discussed about Life Positions. Let's talk about Drivers and Ego States in this one.

Drivers

Drivers also play a big role in helping you feel OK or not OK. They are parental messages given to us by our parents or other parental figures in our lives like older relatives, teachers, etc. As the name suggests, they literally start driving us!

Some common drivers are "Please others," “Try hard," “Be Strong," “Be perfect," “Hurry Up," “Try Hard," “Boys never cry.” Sound familiar don't they?

Now each driver has its positives and negatives, it's really in the way you perceive it! For example, the positive of "please others" is that you can establish relationships really fast by pleasing others. The negative on the other hand is that you end up trying to always make others happy and tend to make yourself miserable in the bargain!

So where does the difference lie in the perception of the driver? It's in the life position that you see it from. So if you operate from an (I+U+) position, you will be able to connect with people really fast using this driver. However if you operate from (I-U+), you will land up pleasing others at your own expense. This in turn will take a hit on your self-esteem and you will get stuck in a vicious cycle because you will then try to please others as a means to make yourself  feel good and bring up your self esteem! In this way the driver will really have you  stuck and going around in circles.

“Try hard” is another driver where you keep trying hard all the time forgetting that there are smart ways of doing things and that everything does not need to be done the hard way. It also means letting go if something is not working for a long time.

The flip side of "Try hard" is that it makes you try again and again until you succeed.

Thus identifying one's drivers and the life positions through which you see them from is of utmost importance.  This then enables us to you use the positives of these drivers and diminish their negatives. However it’s important to remember that it's a gradual process and takes time as you are trying to change something that you have been following for a major portion of your life. So don't be harsh on yourself or you will land up pushing yourself to an I am not OK position!

Ego States

As per Eric Berne and Claude Steiner, the 3 ego states are formed over a period of time and we actually operate from either of them in every transaction.

E.g. the Parent Ego state is about what has been told to us by our parents. What we have acquired from our parental figures - the values, beliefs and other things that we swallowed without questioning.

The Adult Ego state is about questioning, inquiring and understanding the reality; keeping in mind the thinking, feeling and behaving. This state depicts a balance. Its the rational or logical thinking state and is an objective state.

The child state is the feeling state. It’s about your own childhood experiences of thinking, feeling and behaving. It feels in the body mainly and is an intuitive thinking state.

Ego states are the building blocks of the personality. Even children have all the 3 ego states in them, however the child ego state is the one that is dominant in children.

The most important thing to understand after you learn about the PAC (Parent - Adult - Child) states is that each state has its positives and negatives and it is up to you to see how you can create a balance between the two.

The further sub divisions of the parent and child state are:

• Controlling Parent
• Nurturing parent
• Free Child
• Adapted Child

Each of these sub divisions too have a negative and a positive side.

E.g. Let’s look at the Nurturing Parent. A negative nurturing parent is over pampering and behaves as a very soft ego state which can actually lead to the people around the person taking undue advantage of the person’s empathy and over sensitivity.

However a positive nurturing parent will always support the people around appropriately. He / She will create an environment conducive to others growth and will also know when to keep a stand as per the situation on hand.

It therefore greatly helps if one can reduce the dominance of negatives of each ego state by increasing the positive side so that one operates from a healthy ego gram. The best part about an ego gram is that it always looks at creating a healthy balance of each state. So you don't need to diminish the negative ego state, just enhance the positive side of the same to balance them out.

So a Controlling Parent needs to ensure that he doesn’t keep controlling all those around them all the time, a Free Child needs to also take responsibility some time and an Adapted Child needs to ensure that he does also do what he feels like sometimes!

Transactional Analysis is thus a beautiful tool to help one with enhancing communication with the self and eventually communication skills with others. It is a tool for enhancing self awareness which in turn helps produce change.

If you feel Transactional Analysis Training can help you in improving your relationship with yourself as well as those around you, do join our Transactional Analysis Workshops.  You can also visit The Yellow Spot website to learn more about the other programs we offer.

Transactional Analysis Training, the way forward

Transactional Analysis Training comes from a wonderful school of psychotherapy which deals with self development, communication with the self and interpersonal skills. It was created by Eric Berne and gained momentum across the globe in the later years of his life as well as after his death. Many of his students like Father George Kandathil (ICTA Kochi), Thomas Harris, Albert Mehrabian, Ian Stewart and Vann Joines (their book 'TA Today' is widely regarded as a definitive modern interpretation), John Dusay, Aaron and Jacqui Schiff, Robert and Mary Goulding, Pat Crossman, Taibi Kahler, Abe Wagner, Ken Mellor and Eric Sigmund, Richard Erskine and Marityn Zalcman, Muriel James, Pam Levin, Anita Mountain and Julie Hay (specialists in organizational applications), Susannah Temple, Claude Steiner, Franklin Ernst, S Woollams and M Brown, Fanita English, P Clarkson, M M Holloway, Stephen Karpman and others have been instrumental in popularising this school of thought and spreading it across the globe.

As some of you may be aware, TA theories focus on Life Positions, Ego States, Drivers, Scripts, Transactions etc. We will be discussing the first one in this article and some of the remaining ones in articles to come.

Life Positions

Life positions are one's basic beliefs about one's self and others, based on which we behave.

The four life positions that we tend to operate from are:

• I am OK; you are OK (I+U+)
• I am OK; you are not OK (I+U-)
• I am not OK; you are OK (I-U+)
• I am not OK; you are not OK (I-U-)

[caption id="attachment_99" align="aligncenter" width="367"]

The Four Life Positions

(I+U+) depicts equality, balance, positive self esteem, consideration for others, win-win, world is a great place to live, we all are equal and life is progressive, I am willing to consider myself as well as listen to the other.
(I+U-) depicts resistance to others ideas, aggressive, win-loose, get rid of other's ideas, one up and homicide.
(I-U+) depicts inferiority complex, others are better than me, passivity, feel victimized, poor fellow, get away from it.
(I-U-) depicts despair, suicidal, frustration with everyone and everything around, nothing is worth it and all is vain.
Pretty self explanatory isn't it!

The beauty of these life positions is that they form in early childhood and most of us practically spend the rest of our lives operating through them unconsciously!

As per the Transactional Analysis philosophy, the best position to operate from is the I am OK you are OK position and this thought process actually has a profound impact on one's inner landscape. It gives a deep sense of accepting oneself and others and the universe the way they are, with love and awareness.

In fact it really helped me as a Consultant too. I can now see that an Individual, Team or Organization for whom an intervention is being held is typically operating from a position other than the I am OK you are OK position. This creates disharmony, both for themselves internally as well as for those around them. As a Consultant, it is up to me to bring them to an I am OK you are OK position so that they, their teams and in turn their Organisations can benefit.

The first shift that is to happen is to move to an I am OK position. This comes from accepting ones self just the way we are. With this deep acceptance, the you are OK follows automatically. Most of us operate strongly from an I am not OK space or you are not OK space and to look at oneself as OK and others as also OK the way they are itself is a huge shift in one's consciousness.

We also need to realize that we all have a preferred life position. There may be momentary variations in this position depending upon the situations we face, however we tend to steer back to our preferred life position.

So is there some way to change these life positions or are we stuck with our preferred life position for the rest of our lives?

The good news is that we can change them. How? With awareness , the most powerful tool. When we get aware of the life position we are playing out of at that moment of time, we get the power to change it and can with practice gradually move towards the I am OK you are OK position.

To know more about our Transactional Analysis Training, visit us at http://www.theyellowspot.com/

Changing your World by Communication Skills Training

Communication means expressing your thoughts, feelings and emotions in a way that you get your desired result. Communication Skills Training is therefore the key to everything you want in today’s world.

Personally and professionally it is an extremely important tool if used with the right skills sets. Communication Skills training has hence gained a lot of popularity and is at the top of every corporate training calendar.

Lets understand how communication skills can bridge the gaps and achieve common goals by some common examples.

Example 1: Sudhir is a Manager in an MNC and has been working with them in the capacity of a manager since a long time. He is extremely good at his work and has been given targets by his boss, which he wants to achieve to ensure that his promotion comes through this time, as he now really wants to go to the next level.

He however is a very closed person and has never shared the targets openly with his team. He is an extremely pushy and demanding boss and keeps telling his team members what to do. They in turn just follow his instructions blindly without ever raising their voice. They are in fact afraid to talk to him and don’t enjoy working with him.This has led to high attrition in his team. It is due to his closed and aggressive communication style that he has not able to achieve his team goals and has been stuck in his position as a manager for years.

Example 2: Young and dynamic, Roy is a manager at the same level as Sudhir in another team. He has similar targets and a similar team size and has been working with this MNC since the past 1 year. Unlike Sudhir, he is not very hard working and even has less experience as compared to Sudhir.

He on the other hand has a very different approach towards his team members. He shares the targets with his team openly and brings them togetherto discuss how they plan to achieve the targets. Every morning he invites team members to discuss the challenges they are facing and takes team huddles. They then work together towards solving the problems being faced.

He knows each member personally and professionally and supports him or her wherever they require help. He questions team members in a way that helps them find their own answers rather than him telling them.

The team discusses their conflicts openly and is very well bonded. This open communication has helped the team achieve their targets before time and Roy is due for a promotion any time.

So what’s the difference in the two examples? While Sudhir had better skills, abilities and experience over Roy; his communication style was very closed and attitude quite negative. Hence he always faced difficulties with his team and was not able to grow. Roy on the other hand was open and approachable. He realised that the only way for him to grow was through the growth of his team. This was possible only by having a cohesive team, which had good communication amongst its members, the example being set by him, their leader. This was the power of exercising and learning effective communication skills.

Today we work in an environment where we deal with all kinds of people right from an office boy to the CEO of the company. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether we want to have results like Sudhir or like Roy.

We can’t change people however we can change their response to us by changing our own skills. We have to understand that each person is different and has a different personality type. If we are able to identify the persons personality type and adapt our communication as per their style, our association with them improves and we can get better results.

Effective communication begins with assessing our self first. We need to find out how our communication is with ourselves as well as some of our behaviors, which we display very often. We need to inquire and find out what kind of thoughts we keep getting, are these positive or negative, supportive or destructive. These will give us clues on our typical patterns.

The best time to identify how we think is to observe ourselves during difficult situations, how we behave and think during present difficult situations as well as how we dealt with one in the past. We can also ask others around us for feedback as that may open up a perspective we were unaware of. We can also spend time ‘doing nothing’ as that gives us the space to understand what we do when we are doing something! These open our ‘blind areas’ to and this awareness gives us the power to change. By observing ourselves our thoughts start changing and eventually our entire outlook towards life starts changing. Our beliefs, motivation, attitude change and in turn change our behavior. As our behavior changes, the response of those around us automatically starts changing.

 Our Communication Skills Training focuses on changing your Inner Landscape

It is however important to remember that along with awareness, self-acceptance also plays a vital role. While it is easy to accept our good side with pride we also have to learn to accept our dark side with love. If we keep beating ourselves for the not so good, we get stuck in a negative loop and keep running the same old patterns. Acceptance is essential, as what we reject comes back again and again till we accept it. So also, our dark side keeps coming back until we accept it and let go of it.

Which all goes to say that all results finally depends upon us. We are the originator and hence what has to change to create the difference. When we change our communication the world around us changes. If you want to be a part of this change, visit us at http://www.theyellowspot.com/

Using Emotional Intelligence Training in daily life

Have you ever been for a Personal Effectiveness or Personality Development Training before? If you go to any good institute, you will realize that a large portion of developing your personality actually boils down to how you handle your emotions, in other words, Emotional Intelligence Training.

For all those of you who keep reading our posts, you will realize that this is one of our favourite topics. Why, because we ourselves have been and are continuously going through the grind of training our own emotions. Yes I used the word training, which goes to say that emotions are not something that we need to suppress or fall prey to. We can actually tune them to ensure that we can make the best use of them and that is exactly what we teach you to do in our Emotional Intelligence Training.

So what are emotions?

Handling our Emotions

Energy in motion, yes, or you can simply take them as your minds way of communicating with you in a language other than words. So it’s like our minds have two ways of communicating with us really. One is through words which go down well with the intellectuals whilst the other is emotions, which go well with, well the emotional guys. Logical wasn’t that! So although we have both forms of communication running through all of us, we understand one of the forms a little better. So while some of us have the capability to develop a great IQ, that’s the intellectual guys, the rest of us can have the best EQ. So there’s really something for all of us to look forward toJ

So I fall into the emotional category as most of you would be knowing and like most of you, have always been asked to suppress the emotional bag that I carry around as nobody wants to see a cry baby! Sounds familiar? Am sure it does. However I now realize that suppression is most definitely not the way to go about it and the emotions we push under the carpet don’t get lost in oblivion but actually come out at rather distressing times and with double the force when you really don’t need them. That sounds familiar too, am pretty sure it does!

So what’s the way out, or should I ask is there any way out? Yes all my emotional friends there is and if you can master that way, your emotions will soon turn into your friend rather than an embarrassing foe! They will in fact tell you things about yourself that are stored deep into your subconscious that you would probably never have decoded through logical thinking. That in turn will give you the power to change, to change even all those things that you struggled at changing about yourself and were just not able to.

I sound like I’ve just come out from a fairytale, haven’t I! So let me make it sound a little more real by giving you an example.

So this was yesterday’s scene. I woke up in the morning and started thinking about all the things I had to do that day. I had a Doctor’s appointment in the afternoon and before that I had to check on my Boss’ cat as he was away on holiday on the cat was not used to being alone.  I calculated that overall that was going to take up around 4 hours of my time. On top of that we were going to start some carpentry and painting work in my house, I was overhauling our entire Knowledge Management system and I also had to get our database in place before the end of the month before our software expired. So I had a lot to do and as usual the more I thought about it the more I landed up getting stressed about how I would manage everything. I could just see myself going ballistic and getting frantic.

So what did I do to keep my emotions in place? Nothing. I just got in touch with them. No I havn’t completely lost my mind as you would think I have! That is the trick I’m talking about. You just have to stop what you are doing and allow yourself to feel your emotions rather than running away from them. So I ensured I did not carry my laptop to my Boss’ place. I could have easily sat there and completed some work but I realized that would have been escapism in that moment. So I went there and just sat with the stress I was feeling. I allowed myself to completely immerse in it, although frankly it felt horrible. Guess what, I came out of the stress pretty soon. I was up and about all ready to get back to completing the tasks I had. How, just by paying attention to my emotions and hearing what they had to say. The emotions told me how taking stress had become a habit and how I tend to fall into the stress cycle as soon as the number of tasks I have to complete increase. They also made me realize that I had no external pressure in this case but was unnecessarily putting pressure on myself, something which I have always done and something that was directly coming from my subconscious. This awareness actually gave me the power to recognize what was happening in me, stop and pay attention to it and then move on with renewed energy without suppressing the emotion. What was the result, I was relaxed and could do the assigned tasks without having my emotions running up and down. Now isn’t that great?

Want to learn how to do that? Come join our Personality Development Training and Emotional Intelligence Training sessions and we will show you how.

For more details about our Personal Effectiveness Training sessions and our other favourite sessions, please visit us at http://www.theyellowspot.com/

Leading Corporate Training Companies in India

Last night we had a very interesting discussion. It was on, you guessed it, why are we one of the top 10 corporate training companies in India.

It all started with a session that was being conducted by us for one of our clients. It was on my all time favourite topic, Emotional Intelligence. This session was being held in a different format as it was a senior audience we were catering to and felt that we wanted to give them something that goes down a lot deeper. We didn’t want to make it a session typically run by corporate training companies in Mumbai or as a matter of fact corporate training companies in India. We wanted to do something different, something that would rattle the very core of every participant and make him or her think whether they were really doing justice to the emotions that keep bubbling up inside them.

I find it astonishing that pretty much all of us are at such a loss when it comes to dealing with our emotions. It doesn’t matter what position you are at in your organisation, what qualification you have or how much money you have in your bank account. When it comes to emotions, even the most intelligent of us (needless to say that the more intelligent you are the greater your loss in this department) fail miserably!

I too have been part of this clan all my life. In fact it’s only of late that I got some respite from being such an integral part of it. I was always the emotional fool who just had too much of sentiment and emotion. The worst part was that it would always come out at the wrong times and I really didn’t know how to control it.

As I kid I had realized that the only way to keep it under check was to keep it suppressed. Sounds familiar? That’s the strategy that we have all been using, isn’t it? It was only when I got introduced to Mindfulness that I realised that I was doing the exact opposite of what I should be doing!

Like the rest of my emotional brothers and sisters, I too ran to some top training institutes in India as well as some corporate trainers in Mumbai to find my answer. However I always came back with a void, with a question still answered. It always felt like there was something more which everybody was missing out. I had tried out so many of the things they had recommended but all of them had a very short term impact. None of them had the permanency that I was looking for.

This desperate desire and relentless effort finally led me to the answer that I had been searching for all my life. In fact this long drawn search is the very reason that sets us apart from many other training and consulting companies in India.

The difference comes from the experiences you go through life and how you deal with the pain that comes along with them. It made us search until we found something that really worked for us and in the bargain go through a range of techniques that are currently in the training market. It eventually landed us with something that had the power to transform our entire being and connect us to the superpower that we were. That something, that had the power to give us back the power that we have given off to our minds and allowed it to rule over us and make us miserable. That something, that took us deep and allowed us to connect with and understand all those around us. So what made the difference? Having lived through the grilling experiences of life, learning from them and then standing up strong to be able to help not only ourselves but also all those around us.

So now you know our secret of being one of the top 10 corporate training companies in India. We are truly the horses and what you hear from us is coming directly from the horse’s mouth!

In case you want to explore some of our ‘straight from our heart’ sessions, you are most welcome to. The Yellow Spot is one of the top corporate training institutes in Mumbai and has successfully trained more that 50,000 participants on various soft and behavioural skills. For more information about The Yellow Spot, you can visit us at http://www.theyellowspot.com/

Change Management Training and Tomorrowland?

Guess which movie I saw yesterday? Tomorrowland. Seen it? It’s one of those movies which has a deep meaning to it but the meaning can get lost in the Sci-fi action that is shown. Now you must be wondering what this movie has to do with change management training right? Well let me explain.

Movies are a great way of learning. They give you a visual experience and some of them have enough juice in them to allow you to mull over them for hours and sometimes even days together! I still remember when I first saw the Matrix. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for so many days!

Well this movie, Tomorrowland seems to have had a similar effect on me! I saw it last night and am somehow still under its influence! So what was so special about this movie? The foundation of it. For most of the movie, it was rockets flying around and people roaming around in flying machines in a visually appealing location filled with high risers and flyovers. In fact I spent a major portion of time actually wondering what the movie was trying to show and whether it was really going to go anywhere or not!

The Tomorrowland Movie

It was the end of the movie which had its soul, a dialogue given by the 'so-called' villain which explained exactly why he was doing what he was doing. This in turn was followed by some other good dialogues on human behaviour. The whole message was very beautiful and it really struck me as it was so true.

What the movie talked about was as I said human behaviour. It spoke about the feedback loop and how we tend to get stuck in it. So in the movie they had this large monitor which was sending out signals of doom to the people on earth. The villain had intended that these signals would actually scare people and they would wake up and do something about the doom that the earth was heading towards. However, instead of taking action on it, people latched on to the negative thought. Instead of fighting against the negative, they now fed into the negative, creating a negative feedback loop which created more negativity. In this manner the negativity just continued and nobody made the effort of breaking out of it! This was until there were some people who were aware of the negativity and still had hope rose up. They realized that feeding negativity would lead to more negativity as what you feed grows. They stood up and fought to save the world with all their positivity and hope. This in turn inspired others and earth was saved.

The Wolf Story from Tomorrowland

This story is actually the story of our minds. What we focus on grows. If we focus on the negative, the negative grows. Of we focus on the positive, positive grows. Its up to us what we want to focus on. The world is going to keep throwing negative on us as it is what is currently there in the collective consciousness. However if we can stay focused on our path and bring ourselves back to the positive even when we stray, then we will turn out to be the winners.

Another interesting aspect that I found here was the negative monitor which throws negativity. The monitor is definitely out there in the world. The politics, famine, murders, hate and resentment being proof of it. However there is a monitor in our minds too. It’s the tape that keep running in our minds and telling us how pathetic we are. Even if we do something good, this tape tells us that it’s not good enough and makes us feel like losers. It somehow always tells us that we are not good enough no matter what we do!

 It is actually this tape that is responsible for stopping our progress. If we can learn to question the tape and only listen to those things that are true, we can actually make the changes that we want to make in life.

Seeing the link now, the link between this movie and change management training?

So this brings me back to my most favourite model, the model of change.

The Change Model

This model has the following three steps:

1. Awareness
2. Acceptance
3. Action

So what do we have to do to  change? Go step by step. If you directly jump to the third step action then you could be setting yourself up for failure. Why? Haven’t you seen when you try to exercise to lose weight what happens. Most of us are motivated for about a fortnight and then it slowly wanes off! So why does this happen? It is because of the little tape in our minds. It says things to us which make us lode the motivation that we need to go on. It actually resists the forward movement, a sort of anti gravity I would say! So the more you try to move forward the more your mind will pull you back. This makes your chances of being successful at your endeavor very bleak.

So what should you do? Go step by step. First get aware of what your tape is saying. If it’s telling you that you are a lazy person and you will never be able to lose weight then be aware of it. After you have heard it out now accept that it is saying that. What happens with most of us is that we start an internal conflict as soon as we get aware of things. We start fighting with our minds and all our energy gets wasted in fighting rather than moving to the next step. So what we have to do here is to accept what our mind is saying. Tell it that yes we have been lazy in the past but let’s see what happens this time. This will create a certain kind of peace inside which will give you enough energy, clarity and direction to move to the next step of action. Then you can finally take the third step and create the change that you want in your life.

Getting aware of and accepting our minds can be quite a task and takes a lot of practice and motivation. If you want to create a change in your life and need some help with it, we’re always there to assist you. Join us in our change management training where we help in mastering our change management model. Do also visit our website http://www.theyellowspot.com/ to have a look at the areas where you would want to create a change in your life.

One of the Best Corporate Training Companies in Mumbai

Being one of the best Corporate Training Companies in Mumbai, the most common question our business development team is asked is, “What does your training company specialize in?” I couldn't agree less with all our Clients! There are dozen's of Corporate Training Companies in India which provide the entire gamut of soft skills training and choosing one from so many can be a really tough task. Understanding which domain each company specialises in, what the consultant’s core strength is and whether that core strength is something that the client organisation requires is absolutely essential. Training companies really need to answer the question that pops up in every client's mind, ‘Does this company specialize in what I am looking for?.'

In today’s article, I shall answer this very question by telling you a bit about what ‘The Yellow Spot’ offers and what we specialize in. So let's get going..

‘The Yellow Spot’ offerings are categorically divided into four clusters as seen in the figure below:

The Four Clusters of our Offerings

Now, each of these clusters is an umbrella under which we have a host of related workshops.

So let's have a look at each of the four clusters in a little morer detail.

Cluster 1: Personal Effectiveness

Improving Personal Effectiveness

• Personal development is the first and the most important step to success and in fact determines an individual's success in all other domains
• Hence for personal development we have an entirely different cluster, our Personal Effectiveness Cluster
• This cluster consists of workshops that are helpful for an individual’s personal efficacy and helps the individual become strong on all fronts so that he can be more effective while working in teams and as a part of the organisation on the whole
• Some of the workshops that come under this particular cluster are Personality Development, Communication Skills, Stress Management, Time Management, etc.

Cluster 2: Team Effectiveness

An Effective Team

• When people have to work together, it is important for them to come together as a team and work effectively
• Once one has developed himself or herself on the personal effectiveness front, the next step is to be a team player and contribute effectively to the team
• The Team Effectiveness cluster consists of workshops that help in building effective and efficient teams
• Some of the workshops that come under this umbrella are Interpersonal Communication Skills, Team Building and Team Bonding, Conflict Management, etc.

Cluster 3: Competency Based Effectiveness

Developing Competencies

• For an individual to grow and climb up the career ladder, it is very important to be competent and proficient
• Our Competency Based Effectiveness cluster consists of workshops that help in developing various  competencies
• Some of the workshops that come under this cluster are  Lateral Thinking, Creativity and Innovation, Problem Solving and Decision Making, Sales Effectiveness, Interviewing Skills, etc.

Cluster 4: Organisational Effectiveness

A Growing Organisation

• Organisational Effectiveness is about how effectively the organisation is achieving its goals
• For achieving these goals the organisation needs to keep developing itself and adapting to the rapidly changing  environment
• Hence our Organisation Effectiveness cluster helps organisations bring in the required development and change through various Organisational Development interventions, Assessment Centres/Development Centres, Coaching, etc.

As you can see, these four clusters cover just about anything that an individual, team or organisation requires or can require! If you would like to know more about the workshops that come under each of these clusters you can visit the various pages under our ‘service offerings tab’ on our website. Here's a link to get you started http://www.theyellowspot.com/

So when it comes to corporate training companies in Mumbai, we are pretty much a ‘One-Stop-Shop’. You name it and we have it! So whether you are looking at personal development for individuals, team development or something to help your organisation move forward, we have it all.

Now coming to what 'The Yellow Spot' specialises in amongst these four clusters, its currently the first two clusters i.e. Personal effectiveness and the Team effectiveness. We have a buffet of offerings in personal and team effectiveness which are really effective and can help individuals and their teams develop and to go to the next level.

Now does that mean we lack experience in the competency based effectiveness and organisational effectiveness clusters? No, it doesn't! Its just that we get more opportunities in the first two clusters as there is a larger audience for them. Competency Based and Organisational effectiveness workshops are typically more in demand for people who are higher up in the corporate rungs. So do we have the ability to deliver good workshops and interventions in the Competency and Organisational Effectiveness clusters? Yes, we most definitely do and we have some very experienced consultants with us who can successfully do them.

So if you are searching for Corporate Training Companies in Mumbai or in fact anywhere else in India also (I forgot to mention another one of our specialities, our PAN India Presence!), you can visit  our website at http://www.theyellowspot.info/index.php to help us understand how we can help you.

Is your Organisation a Learning Organisation?

Honestly speaking, a Learning Organisation as a concept is very complex. However, if I were to put it simply, a learning organisation is one which continuously transforms itself through learning. So it is one where people in the organisation look forward to increasing their capability to gain better outcomes in order to achieve what they truly desire. It is therefore the process of overall development of the people, culture, processes and technology of an organisation and also it's ability to deal with the external environment.

For an organisation to be a learning organisation, it has to work as a team on a whole. It has to be one solid unit. Why as a team, because when you truly work as a team, you learn a lot from each other and develop at a much faster rate.

We all know the three pillars of a team right? Openness, inclusiveness and control. Since a learning organisation is made up of one big team, these pillars are also essential to a learning organisation.

A learning organization has to have an open environment where people are open with and to each other, open to suggestions, open to discussions and most importantly open to learning. It has to look at inclusiveness, which is about people feeling included, the feeling of belongingness. Lastly, it also needs to consider the control factor, which talks about trusting people to do what they have to without too much control, yet keeping enough to maintain the required order. It therefore believes in letting people work on their own by giving them the power to make decisions as and when required.

Typically which kind of organisations is this seen in more? Flat organisations where each person is responsible, teams are very well connected and everyone knows what’s happening, not just internally but also externally i.e. technologically, politically, socially, with competitors, etc. That is when an organisation truly learns and eventually develops itself.

Transforming from a Traditional to a Learning Organisation

Well, if you ask me, the best example of a learning organisation for me is ‘The Yellow Spot’ itself. At The Yellow Spot, we truly believe in practising what we preach. So when we go around telling our clients to build a learning organisation, we ensure ours is one too! So we have a flat structure with an open culture where employees are more like partners. We don't believe in hierarchies and work as a team; deal with & solve problems, discuss, suggest and learn together. All these are of prime importance to us and are the main reason for making us reach where we have. So every new programme we deliver, we learn something new from it and ensure we use the learning to take future programmes to the next level. Apart from this, we also spend time in reading, reflecting, experimenting, attending other sessions, etc. to ensure that we are updated and well versed to deal with the current needs of  our client organisations and their people. That is how we are a learning organisation ourselves.

Now coming back, why do learning organisations play such an important role? Primarily because they focus on both individual and organisational development, which are highly interrelated and cannot be treated separately. They focus on the total quality of the organisation by developing the individuals, teams, leaders and the company on the whole; to be able to sustain themselves in the ever changing environment and move ahead to create a difference.

They foster an environment of team learning which helps in thinking together to manage the complexities to take the business to the next level. They offer an open culture and emphasize on a readiness to unlearn things in order to learn new things and develop oneself. The people oriented approach they follow always pays off, as the human resource is the only resource that actually appreciates with time!

Learning in an organisation is a continuous process and when implemented appropriately, it positively reflects across levels and helps in managing change, creating a competitive advantage and developing and engaging all the stakeholders taking into consideration their collective aspirations. It thus brings in the feeling of togetherness in the organisation and builds a cohesive team which helps take it through to the next level.

Having realised the importance of a learning organisation, organisations today are investing heavily on their developmental activities. They are empowering their employees and giving them opportunities to develop and go to the next level. This in turn is increasing employee motivation, engagement and the feeling of ownership and loyalty that they have towards their company.

As one of the top corporate training companies in India, we help organisations step into such a learning environment and help them grow. Our developmental programs help organisations adapt to change and deal with challenges in the rapidly changing environment. We help them become self sufficient and capable of sustaining growth. Learning is an on-going process for transformation and learning encourages innovation, which further encourages sustainability in this highly competitive world. Hence learning and developing with time is important and essential.

So when are you planning to become a learning organisation? If you need help in your learning journey, you can always let us know. Visit our website http://www.theyellowspot.com/ and let us know how we can assist you.

Sales Training - To Sell or not to Sell

Sales Training is extremely important as the number one focus of any company post coming up with a unique product or service is to sell it.

If you can't sell your product you will perish.  The market either has a need for your product or else you have to create it.

When Steve jobs was about to introduce the touch pad phone in the market, he said something very interesting to his friend who said that this was not going to work in a market that was used to key pad phones.

Steve Jobs explaining...

Steve Jobs' answer was that the buyer does not know what he wants and he was going to put in every effort to make the buyer learn to adapt to it. We all know now what happened post that in the cell phone industry with Apple being a pioneer in the touch pad technology and being followed by so many others!

The same funda applies to sales.

You either fulfil an existing need or you create something so radical that your buyers have no option but to get hooked to it and get so used to using it that that it actually turns from being a want to a need!

So what are some of the rules of successful selling? The number one rule of successful sales is that the point of focus is the customer. The number two rule is, well, that you focus on the number one rule!

Most of the companies inadvertently focus on their product and services and then try to match it with the customer needs. However this is where they fail or they struggle.

Successful companies always focus on the customer and their needs and then check out if the product or the service matches this need. An interesting question that arises then, is if their product is not fulfilling the need of the customer, can they come back without selling it to them? After all, leaving the sale for the good of the customer itself is an indirect sale. The same prospect will go and tell ten different people around him about how genuine your intentions were and it will automatically lead other customers towards you. This word of mouth will really give your sales a shot in the arm.

An effective sales training will always teach you this. Selling skills training is not about hooking the customer and getting him to buy your product. It is about how to be genuine, how to focus on customer needs, how to create an impact by fulfilling the promises given, how to establish a rapport and how to learn to let go and how to stay in touch with the customer even post your role being over.

If your sales team learns this and imbibes this in their daily behaviour, then success is bound to happen. However it must be remembered that this attitude cannot be imbibed into the sales team until the top management is also aligned to this philosophy as it is only possible as a top down approach. The management has to eat, drink, sleep and talk this at all points of time and any one not aligned to it has to be questioned.

Are you willing to take this stand !!!!

If you would like to know more about the Sales Training we conduct, please visit our website at http://www.theyellowspot.com/

Happy Selling:)