Do take it Personal

Recently, I have attended a training session on Leadership skills. It was a one and a half day training that included communication, delegation, body language, listening skills, conflict resolution techniques, confidence and assertiveness.

Trainer was quite confident and experienced enough to train even executives. 

Just when I entered the class room, one smart man was sitting with his laptop on and asked me, ‘You are for core capabilities?’ I said, ‘Yes’, and thought that he will take the session but after some time the trainer came and introduced himself as Suhail. Then as usual an introduction round. The smart looking man introduced himself Ashish and told that he will help Suhail. 

After almost half day passed and he kept sitting doing nothing. I amazed how can a person sit like that doing nothing for hours and still alert. He didn’t yawn even once!

He was not at all helping Suhail. Suhail though doesn’t seem to need help also. 

Suhail showed some videos of great speeches to make a point and to motivate us. Steve Jobs said, ‘Follow your heart; do what you love to do; stay hungry stay foolish.’ Obama said, ‘Who said – words don’t matter! Opposition says – I talk about false hope. False hope…’, and exaggerated in positive tone. An actor playing role of Nelson Mandela said, ‘you have chosen me your leader now let me lead you!’

The first day passed with such videos and some interesting activities. Ashish didn’t help Suhail neither he needed. 

The second day started with conflict resolution techniques. We were divided in to four groups to demonstrate which technique is best suited in which situation.

Now was the time; Suhail invoked Ashish to talk about confidence and assertiveness. And he didn’t fail to demonstrate the value of his presence there. Suhail pointed out in between that Ashish was a successful entrepreneur before he joined our organization as a trainer.

In response to one of the questions, Ashish told a small tale about his 2.5 year old daughter being labeled as submissive by her teacher. Her teacher explained Ashish that if she distributes candies to all the children and one child takes her candy, she never confronts, neither comes us to complain, nor even cries. She just becomes sad. 

Ashish had a big problem; his daughter is submissive and what is he supposed to do in order to fix this. Is it a problem first of all or just an in-built personality trait? Ashish started researching the topic. He not only managed his daughter to learn being assertive, he also gained command on the subject and became the expert trainer of the topic.

If the illness is chronic and prolonged, attendant or even patient himself becomes half doctor. The key is to take it personal and confront.

- Amit Roop