Serendipity and Learning

My year end reflection - on AI.  Proceed with caution: To be fair, I don't know much about AI. I know ChatGPT (I mean, who doesnt. Even my cat does). I have used it and found myself alternating between being blown away and feeling meh.  I have seen midjourney images (never tried) and AI driven story lines and plot lines. Quite impressive really. And apparently it has won a creativity contest as well.  And at a conference recently someone said, AI will be like electricity in future - that was a different way of looking at it. It could become as ubiquitous as electricity, but like anything these days will have a steep tab attached to it. And the moment that happens, it will be preserve of a few who can afford it.  Organizations will have (many already have) co-pilots enabled - and beautiful mails will be read and replied to by AI. (Human communication hopefully will keep pace.) But keeping all that aside, can AI really replace L&D professionals? Let us look at the points of engag

This year was a bad book year. The year I suffered from readers block . So, taking stock of what I read this year.  Five Seats of Power by Raghu Ananthanarayan Invaders and Infidels by Sandeep Balakrishna Hindu Rashtra by Anand Ranganathan Humble Inquiry by Edgar Schein (re-read) Navigating Polarities by Brian Emerson and Kelly Lewis Trust and Inspire Stephen Covey The Wisdom of the Bullfrog by Admiral William Mc Raven The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd Night sky tells the time by Prof V Krishnamurthy From Manjunath to Manjamma by Harsha Bhatt Four thousand weeks by Oliver Burkeman Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows Seeing Systems by Barry Oshry The Darkening age: Christian destruction of the classical world by Catherine Nixey Build by Tony Fadell I have more books in my to-read list than ever before A translation of the Kumarasambhava by MR Kale Shankaras translation of the Viveka Chudamani Upanishads by Dr. Radhakrishnan The systems thinker by Albert Rutherford The Bhagavad Gita b

Continuing on my insights from the design conference- followed by an L&D meetup.   What I realise is that,  pretty much everything one learns has to be learnt by doing. Almost everything I learnt has followed the same mode.  I invested time in a Theatre workshop many years ago. The entire exercise was learning by doing. Learn, fall, receive feedback, try again, fall, receive feedback and so on.  And about perhaps 10 years later I signed up for ISABS ODCP. The entire exercise of making an OD professional out of you is filled with these learning cycles. Try, receive feedback, reflect, act, rinse, repeat.  And while these are relatively short cycle learning projects, the story is the same for anything in the longer term as well.  What I learnt I learnt by doing.  (Failing, Fallling, Learning again, Seeking Feedback, Reflecting, Trying again, Failing again, Receiving mild applause, Trying again, Failing again, Working hard, Getting it right and so on. It is a messy process and you cant

One of the things we often tell newbies in HR is to know the business. Know the customers. Look beyond HR. (Ditto for those in L&D or TA) And I heard this being repeated in the Design conference. As a designer, you need to be  aware. You need to know the business. Know the customers. Go beyond the stated problem. Dont fix what has been told to you. Investigate further. And so on. The common factor here apart from the fact that as much as you gain expertise, you cannot be a one trick pony or that you require T shaped skills. But what resonated with me more was the fact that you cannot afford to be insular and inward looking regardless in your field.

 In these days of app driven pleasures, somewhere the younger one discovered the pleasure of the crossword. I think it is serendipity because the crossword appears on the page that she tries her hand at other puzzles and one fine day, she decided to tackle the crossword. And I was called to help.  I am an old lover of the crossword. I never quite figured the cryptic crossword beyond a few clues despite my best efforts, but a typical word crossword is something I absolutely adore.  The joy of finding a word in bits and pieces, trying out a word, swapping something - it is fun - plus it increases general knowledge  and vocabulary. Though those are side benefits - the sheer joy of words is what the crossword enables.  Plus nowadays, google helps if we get a little stuck. So, there we are the two of us, pondering over, a word for the crowd with pitchforks or a sailors cry for help or a sanctuary for lions and absolutely enjoying every moment of solving the crossword.  And now inspired, we

When was the last time you did something for the first time. I did yesterday. I attended a design conference. For various reasons which included learning about a field that has held me in thrall for a long long time. And it did not disappoint. Met some folks with whom I only had telephonic conversations, some long lost contacts rejuvenated and meeting some old friends in a different setting. Design conferences are surely creative. And highly educational. And I highly recommend visiting a different conference than your profession... some problems are the same and some are different. Gives a great perspective. As an L&D professional...my takeaway...deepen your practice else AI is waiting. Rewrite the rules!

At the end of any premier event, there is a rash of posts on Linked in. And therefore,  I dread Linkedin the day after the world cup. Leadership lessons from Rohit. Coaching fundamentals by Rahul. How to hold your head under pressure despite being a star on Virat. How to work the team on the Netherlands captain. How to play in adversity on the Afghanistan wicketkeeper. How to serve like the 12th man selflessly. Pages upon pages from people who may have last bowled in kindergarten (or 7th grade). In their gully. With a plastic ball. Underam. In a 5 over match. With one bounce out. Nothing might be factually wrong, but a lot of it is hearsay. The same thing happened with Chandrayaan. Everybody who had thrown a paper plane in the air was suddenly giving gyan about the work culture at ISRO and the humility of the scientists there. (Again, nothing factually wrong there) The same thing happened a few years back with the pandemic. And still happening with AI. Now, note, I absolutely love some

 This book has been on my mind for a while. I was a little sceptical about it - thinking that "I know the Mahabharata (as most of us do), so what new thing will I learn". The reason i share this is it is possible that this is the reason many might have to not read this book.  But as I read the book, I was pleasantly surprised. The author has drawn on the Mahabharata to create an elaborate leadership archetype - and there were many aspects I did not know about. In the story of the Mahabharata Arjuna and Bheema have been in the centre, Yudhisthira as well but the role of Nakula and Sahadeva have been minimal - almost like background figures. Duryodhana, Bheeshma, Karna and others also have a lot of space as compared to Nakula and Sahadeva. So that comes in the way of looking at 5 archetypes. And the author ties it all together as leadership archetypes.  The Mahabharata is one of the Indias foremost epics. And it is one of those stories that lend itself to so many retellings and

This is a very inspiring video - the story of Indias first autonomous boat - Matangi.  It is inspiring for many reasons. For reasons as diverse as seeing Indian taking leaps in technology that we never thought possible. For seeing an enterpreneurs commitment for 11 years to work on a "never done before" project. For seeing the passion - bringing our sailors home. And being able to see great Indian hi-tech products.  Read this in conjunction with the previous post. This meeting would have started as a dream in someones mind - so much of it vague, unknown issues, unforeseen circumstances, unproven technology, unknown enetities and like any project it would have hit so many hurdles that the team would have struggled to overcome. And all of this would have been one (or a few) persons dream.  What a joy it is to see such initiatives succeed!   

 When was the last time you sat in a meeting that had vague objectives? The speaker started. The group nodded expecting it to go "never attend boring meetings". But the leader took a different direction.  He said, the Indian space program, missile program, IT industry - many such initiatives that are big toda started with an unclear objective, but the group worked through the vague objectives, sculpted them and worked on it bit and bit and then it became an overnight success.  Behind that overnight success is a lot of effort, but everything began with that single thought, that single meeting.  And therefore, as leaders your job is think long term. Go after those vague initiatives. Sure out of them some will succeed, some will fail, but never fail to dream big.  Personally this resonated a lot with me - having been part of a few projects that started with a vague idea...

I was watching a few people play these games like Ludo and Candy Crush and I wondered exactly why people play them.  When you play Ludo IRL there is some element of strategy. And humans. And some interaction apart from the dice throw and the coin selection.  When you play Ludo online, all you do is click for the dice throw and click on which coin you want to move. The similarity ends there. There are no humans, no emotion - but yet why do people play? People play it only for a dopamine rush? And here is a theory ! And a better one .

The brilliant jerk is of many types. Sometimes it is someone who is insanely brilliant. Sometimes, it is someone who is very good at relationship building. Sometimes it is someone who just delivers.  But the effect the brilliant jerk has is always the same.  They seem to leave a trail of destruction - sometimes attrition, discontent many a time. They seem to always be insecure about "something". If could be a customer, an important project or their own skill or their prized relationship.  The area that they own gets significantly good results (often way ahead of the pack) that the leader is forced to accommodate all their shenanigans. (This is not entirely true, the leader makes a choice to accommodate.) Word spreads very quickly about the "bad" culture in the team. People do not want to work with this brilliant jerk.  Certain decisions are taken which end up being regretted.  Everyone has to watch their back.  But what intrigues me, how much companies, teams and se

Recently Swiggy came up with a run collection scheme on their app. Orders above a particular amount automatically get "runs" assigned. And you score runs to be considered for some reward. The first order happened because of a necessity. But the simplicity of the game and the apparent need to "score" made me make a few more orders - I created a few "needs".  This is exactly what the app wants - but on the other hand, I have industriously tried to accumulate points on Gpay for some reward (it was a game connected to cities and a few more).  That is how addictive a game is.  (Well, I lost in the gpay game after some time because one or two of the cities seemed to beyond reach and it felt pointless. The Swiggy one, I am still in it - I lost 2 runs because the order was a rupee lesser than what the app wanted.) The trick, like all good games is to keep it at the point where it is enticing and just out of reach. Too difficult and interest drops.  Modified versio

 I was working with a senior leader on a presentation for a leadership meeting. As he walked us through it, I asked a few questions on the story arc, how the dots join as per the story and shared a few suggestions. Now all of these were very obvious, but it was not obvious for the leader.  And the same thing happened with me a few weeks back when I had put together a proposal for an initiative and a colleague asked me a few questions that in hindsight was very obvious.  To me the learning from this is that as leaders we always have blindspots, so it is a good idea to check with a few peers for contrarian views - something that is missing.  Blindspots are bound to be there, how to ensure that as a leader you eliminate them as much as possible? 

How to sell a product 101 Send email: I'm P and I work with Q. I interact with visionary HR Leaders about their strategies for constantly changing business needs with technology. Would love to make your acquaintance.  The receiver (me) thinks, that wow, I am a visionary HR leader and instanty responds to the mail. Except that I am not a visionary HR leader. And even if I am, why would I respond to spam like this?  Strategy fail I get a few of these each week. Clearly some sales strategist has figured that young female profile -praise talent and pitch some product is the right way to do it. And they are all following it.  This is one example, I get some with slightly varying degrees of sophistication. One of them cleverly hid the fact that it was a sales pitch and presented themself as an L&D lead somewhere. Another invited to a non-existent conference/roundtable - you name it.  But - a note to those who sell. This wont work. 

Recently we were showcasing some of our work to a couple of "famous" personalities. And somehow, a few of them wanted to find things that were wrong rather than look at what we have created and appreciate the effort, the creativity and the audacity. At the level of accomplishment of these people, all they had to do was to be an encouraging voice.  On the other side, at work, we initiated a small initiative and just as we sent it across, there was an encouraging voice from one of the recipients about how this initiative reminded him of something else and so on. This was the second time this individual had been a encouraging voice.  And very often, thats all we want - an encouraging voice. Think about this the next time you are asked to give feedback on a new initiative. The encouraging voice can include suggestions and tips and tricks btw, doesnt have to be all pink eyed optimism. 

 I was travelling in a bus and the ticket dispenser failed - low battery. And whoever designed this system had no plan B. The conductor had no spare battery, no charging point or even manual tickets to give. So, he closed the bus doors and told the driver, we cant take any more passengers and sped to our destination.  Whoever thought of this wonderful tech did not think of a plan B in case it fails. Aside, the electronic ticket dispenser is slower than the manual ticket and at peak hours, it is quite an effort for the conductor to keep up. And most of them hate electronic payment at peak hours - simply because it is way too slow for them.  This is similar to toll boths in India (some of the high through put ones) which are faster than fast-tag (yet).  This does not mean that tech is bad or tech is too slow - it just means, it needs to designed and thought through better. 

Up until now, I was of the firm belief that AI wont be able to beat human creativity soon (or never). But seeing results of AI based Chatgpt scores in TTCT makes me rethink.  The Torrance test measures, in its own words, fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration.  Fluency stands for number of relevant responses. Flexibility is number of categories of shifts or ideas.  Originality is number of unusual ideas determined by statistical infrequency Elaboration is ideas beyond the usual necessary for the responses Yes, on the face of it, seems like a brute force AI will work well. Plus we may be tempted to question the test itself which was developed in the 50s.  But to me this is a first breach in the wall that is humans versus artificial intel in a manner of speaking. \ PS: I still feel an AI is no match for a creative human, but who knows

 This is the first generation AI (ok, maybe more, but leave the technicalities aside for the moment). As on date, you can create perfect emails, documents, powerpoint slides and do a lot of things with basic AI. It will only get better as time progresses.  Now for the moment, it is argued that AI will improve productivity - which it might, if you see the copious new emails that will be created and exchanged with attachment runnings into reams.  One person makes the email with AI, another replies, so the human sitting there is just pushing buttons. I am almost reminded of the 90s Ramayana television where the battle between Rama and Ravana was depicted as an "arrow vs arrow" battle. It is hard to explain it - but IYKYK.  So, point being (and this is the continuation of the earlier post in a different manner) - we can create great emails, but we need to learn basic human etiquette. And we are great with words, but miss the comprehension and originality of thought.  We live in i

 Recently, I was in the unenvious position of having to ferry around a few kids to and from classes. And these are very articulate kids. They can all talk very well - like digital natives, these people are almost - English natives. That means, English is their primary language of communication - perhaps at home, surely at school and with friends.  Now this set of kids can talk very well and it sometimes gets mistaken for knowledge. Articulation is not knowledge - not by a long margin.  A little about a similar experience from a few years back .  We often miss this in the fog of communication. Recently, I interviewed someone who was extremely articulate - but that just translated as words and more words. I missed this persons ability to abstract, condense and summarise. 

Visited a friends home recently. Among other things, the door had a video cam that shows who is standing outside the door, so that you can check and open the door.  Only problem - the video camera does not have a fish eye lens, so unless the person stands smack in front of the camera, nothing can be seen. The peep hole with its fish eye lens had solved this problem without technology already.  And then there were the movement sensing light in the washroom. So, when you walk in the lights turn on. So far so good. And then you stay immobile for a few seconds thinking of something deep (yes, exact situation that is coming to your mind) - lights out.  All you need are switches right inside or just outside near the door. And the fans now have a remote control - the switches for the fans are inoperative or something like that. And the remote being those tiny remotes, they disappear exactly when you want them. Switches at the right place solve for most fan needs.  Three instances where techno

A few years back, I had two reportees working with me in a team. Both were hi-potential and had reached this level with good feedback. This was the time they could both have scaled to head the team - because the team was under me for a short duration - almost as a transition, until one of them could take over. But the catch was that only one could lead the team. It was difficult. A was very good with data, made zero mistakes at work and was very reliable. B was equally good with data, very diligent and reliable. On the face of it very little to choose from.  But over a few interactions, I realised one big difference.  Whenever I went to A with a situation and a possible solution - A only saw constraints. Why something cannot be done, why something had to be done only in one particular way or why this was something we had to live it. All in all a pretty draining conversation - filled with "no, but".  Whenever I went to B with a situation and a possible solution - B saw possibi

Chandrayaan 3 has caught the imagination of Indian people. The power of the big idea. And not just that, even the Vande Bharat - has caught the imagination of the people. I can only imagine when the first RRTS and HSR are launched.  It is said that in 1962, when JFK made his speech about going to the moon , it fired the imagination of the country.  In India Chandrayaan 3 has caught the imagination of children - I remember how I used to be fascinated by NASA during the 80s. Imagine a whole generation of children growing up fascinated by space and dreaming great dreams. And this in our own country.  We have atleast 15 start ups working on space - this was unthinkable. I SRO is licensing its small satellite technology to the private sector.  I hope that the big idea inspires more people to take up STEM courses and advance the frontiers of science.  The last gap that needs to be filled is for the academic sector in India to get into research. We have done that in bits and pieces, but t

The number of people giving in gyan on ISRO on a particular social media platform is more than the number of employees at ISRO itself.  Some of these worthies have the distinction of passing by ISRO (I also do), of giving a speech at ISRO, spotting a satellite in the sky or just the liberty of a platform to post whatever they feel like. So there are now leadershp principles of ISRO (not documented by ISRO) or how it is the second string of colleges that send people to ISRO (they have their own exam to enter - it is not random - it is that tier 1 students choose other opportunities). Many of these are surmises and guesswork and have much more to it than meets the eye.  One of my problems with sharing examples like this during training is that this is not a first hand experience. It is a view post event with the clarity of being disconnected. And this is true for both successes and failures. Hindsight is 20-20. And sitting outside it is easy to comment - they should have tried X instead

 The larger question is about gamifying learning. And at one point, everyone was gamifying everything . That was a prescient 9 years ago, but even today that ideas lives on.  Gamifying as a decorative piece is passe. Please do not do it. It demeans both your audience and your learning intent (and content). Do not strap on gamification to your learning just for the sake of it.  If your learning intent - the reason you want people to get into the learning - is strong - there is no need to gamify it.  If your leadership believes it and supports it - there is no need to gamify it.  If you want to gamify to complete some artificial target set by your boss and your think your audience is not gullible enough to see through it - still do not do it.  So when should you gamify?  When you have a multi-dimensional score. When the badges have application in real life (like stackoverflow) or salesforce trailhead.  Or the badges have benefit in real life (no, not your R&R where they get a voucher

Whenever you read articles on the future of L&D, there is a sense of deja vu. You know you have read it somewhere else. That's because we have been talking about the same things year on year.  But at the root of L&D what is it? L&D is only and only about behaviour change. As you move up the corporate ladder, this is the only thing you will be working on is to work on yourself.  There might be skill components in L&D where you learn frameworks on strategy or new theories on management, but that will boil down to practice. And practice in most contexts will require you to change behaviour (else why be trained in the first place), be vulnerable and be a role model. Now, regardless of your position on the ladder, you have to do this.  You learn new skills  The process of learning is fraught with vulnerability Then you learn to apply those skills Then those skills become second nature Somewhere along the way, you also train others So, you learn to coach. Which in turn re

Incident 1: I was talking to someone who is an expert in psychology and he told me about the way he remembers certain things. And I asked him, how does he remember so many things about so many people? And he said, it just happens.  Incident 2: I am in the process of learning the basics of Upanishads from someone who is an expert on the topic and he said there is a certain way of how certain things come to him in the middle of a lecture. He would have prepared, but there is always a something special.  That is intuition.  When your brain spends time with something - whether you are a psychology expert or Upanishad Vidwan or you are a faclitator or a coach, the information is stored by your brain and at the right moment, that information is retreived - the information which you dont know you need at that moment, but it presents itself. It is not information. Sometimes it is information, sometimes it is an idea, sometimes it is two dots that were always there, but never joined that sparks

Pathless Path by Paul Millerd is a book that, as the title suggests encourages you to get off the beaten path.  What worked for me? The break down of the journey, what might one encounter, what are the freedoms one experiences and how to make the most it. What I liked about it was that I have experienced almost everything the author talks about during the time I pursued the pathless path. My frustrations, my coming to terms with it, my realising that I need to change my success parameters and finally to the point when I realised what I could do with it. Every single experience of mine resonated - and I feel proud in some way to have undertaken the journey, continue to undertake in some shape or form. This breakdown is something I have not seen anywhere else.  What did not work for me? It is a bit too self indulgent - the author talks a lot about himself and moving from a developed country to Asia is well, not exactly off the beaten path considering the hippies did it decades ago. The s

 Seth Godin nails it.    Lets call soft skills, real skills he says.  We give too little respect to the other skills  when we call them “soft”  and imply that they’re optional.  What actually separates thriving organizations from struggling ones are the difficult-to-measure attitudes, processes and perceptions of the people who do the work. Vocational skills can be taught: You’re not born knowing engineering or copywriting or even graphic design, therefore they must be something we can teach. But we let ourselves off the hook when it comes to decision-making, eager participation, dancing with fear, speaking with authority,  working in teams , seeing the truth, speaking the truth, inspiring others, doing more than we’re asked, caring and being willing to change things. We underinvest in this training, fearful that these things are innate and can’t be taught. Perhaps they’re talents. And so we downplay them, calling them soft skills, making it easy for us to move on to something seemingl

Perhaps too early to say, but curated content for which you have to pay through your nose is probably dead.  For one, most content creators have bloated content. A typical course is broken into so many videos (yes, in theory, all are short), but there is still too much noise. Getting to the core of the course is difficult.  Second, most course creators create their own framework - and with good reason because it is their brain at work and is based off their experience (and sometimes, common frameworks are probably copyrighted or just too common). As a company, those frameworks may not work for you because you may not like that framework or you may have an alternate framework in use.  Third, people (atleast in startups) and leaders (everywhere) have no time, so the overall usage of this content is quite low.  Fourth, for the most part, searching for good content is like searching for something to watch on Netflix - impossible to know if any course is good, unless you actually go through

 The Indian YouTuber meme is famous and if that is an indicator, looks like Indian YouTube is supporting faltering education systems the world over. I chanced upon this article about it is enabling engineering students in, hold your breath, Nigeria .  And this is something I have wondered. Why isn't YouTube eating other content providers for lunch? It can.  There are crazy niche courses/channels on YouTube that make tons of money by finding the right niche of customers. Competitive exams is an ever giving machine. 

Continuing from the previous series  How does all this translate into a corporate learning scenario? Does online work?  Short answer yes, if your participants are motivated enough and the technology infrastructure is good. If they are not motivated (My boss asked me to attend- I am not here of my own volition), this will be a painful experience regardless of technology.  If your participants are not motivated, as a facilitator you can move heaven and earth, nothing will work. They will get sucked into work - all if requires is one email ping and they will disappear.  And if they dont turn on video, then rest assured, you are screaming at a screen (honourable exceptions will remain) And so, we have completely stopped virtual trainings unless there is no other way to do it.  Second, we conduct trainings only when there is a need and the manager and their employees are bought into it.  What about Hybrid trainings? Hybrid trainings require good digital infrastructure. Even in classrooms, t

Continuing from the previous post on online learning education Without human (or a future ai-human-ish) interaction for doubt resolution, questions, clarifications, the online learning experience breaks down. There are good games - dragonbox is a good example - am sure there are others, but the only way you will finally learn maths is by practicing more and more complex problems that are based on your thorough understanding of the subject. Various parts of this can be moved online or be made asynchronous. But at a fundamental level, when you work together as a motivated set of students with a teacher, the learning is faster and often more meaningful. For instance, you realise that the other students are often struggling like you are. A doubt asked by one student, often clarifies something for another. The magic of interaction and facilitation (by the teacher) is yet to be cracked online.  Yes, online is a supplement. And must be. But to expect that everything can be taught online is no

A few years ago, maybe 5-6 years ago, I was approached by an upcoming ed-tech start up. The salesperson was aggressively trying to sell us a bundled course of 3 odd years complete with a free tab thrown in.  As someone in L&D (and this was pre covid), I was not a great believer in online learning when depth and understanding is required. So, I asked, "What is so special about this" and the answer "We teach physics using zombies (as an example)". That statement completely put me off.  This is a decoration versus construction fallacy. Zombies on physics are a decoration at best. There are many other, better, intuitive ways to learn physics. And there are many videos of professors teaching physics using various concepts, contraptions, demonstrations and stories.  So, we said no, we are keen on a more classroom model for learning. And went ahead with it. For the most part, it worked for us.  Then covid happened. I learnt the skills of virtual facilitation - delivere

For the last few months, AI has been the rage. Yet, if you saw the future of work predictions from the recent past, you would never see it as a threat. It was barely visible. But now with some new products being launched, it suddenly seems inevitable.  And thats why prediction is difficult. It is easy to go along with the herd and agree to what people are saying and have common ground - it is difficult to really think ahead.  And that is why as much as one can plan 5 years ahead, it is not of much use, unless one has a contigency plan for every plan and then some. 

I am suffering from readers block - yes you read that right; I have readers block. I am unable to bring myself to read anything. Ok, thats not entirely true - I do read and doom scroll on twitter and instagram and I did manage to read half a book, but  to sit and read a book - somehow I am unable to do that.  Partly it is because of the phone, but there are other factors too I suppose! Another thing to think about. 

 Yes, the headline is supposed to say Future. But what happens when those who divine the future have no clue about the future? Well, actually most of us don't - but we claim to have clairvoyance.  Every now and then you hear about future of work predictions. Until the last few months none of them had AI anywhere on their list.  And then Chatgpt happened and Bard and Co-pilot demo - and now everybody is singing AI is the future.  Sometimes, it is better to keep your mouth shut rather than open it and remove everyones doubts. 

 Many of us receive unwanted notifications from the apps on our phone. And some of them take the cake.  Until recently, it was limited to mail and gmails spam filter neatly took care of it.  But now every app has 5 classifications (or more of notifications). Each of them wants you to see their app - probably some metric on the lines of "times app opened" is being tracked. So, obviously the geniuses who design the app have come up with downright stupid and irritating ways to make the user open the app.  Sample a few - most are real - a few are parody Connect with your latest corporate connect. (Why?) A year of being in touch with X (again, corporate networking site, god why?) Happy hours on spectacles (huh?) Three days since you purchased coriander (cringe) Credit card rewards app wants me to login everyday and has gamified it to a Pavlovian level.  Flight booking app of airline wants me to fly to random locations Travel site wants me to travel here and there There are so man

 Yes, digitization has made our life easier (refer to the previous post), but we are facing a few issue. Filling digital application forms.  1. For one, it is not intuitive. It takes a lot of user effort to get it right. Mostly they are digital replicas of physical artefacts, so it is painful. 2. Scanning every document and uploading (there is no standard size, dimension, format) - so it is a circus getting it right for every form. In the physical world, it was simple, photocopy, staple and boom.  3. The servers aren't always available, so you have keep on trying.  Thoughts as we fill out form after form for college application! How to make the user journey easy? The forms aren't made on any user journey - they are made purely from a bureaucractic lens and user is an afterthought. 

 I happened to pass by a railway booking counter - the likes of which were abundant some years ago. Indian railway ticket booking is a good example of how technology changes how work gets done.  In the olden days (before 90s) one would have to go overnight, 90 days before journey, be perfect with the train number, fill out a form and present it at the counter. My father would go sleep in front the counter the previous night (like many others), rush when the gates opened at 7, only to find the first 4-5 places on each counter occupied every single time (touts/agents), some how get a ticket and ensure our travel tickets are "booked". And there were limited counters.  Post 90s, this became a little better as more and more counters opened - at one point erstwhile VT station had 100 counters for booking tickets. The forms were the same, but the process was faster. Agents still got tickets faster than ordinary people. But the overnight waiting was eliminated. And counters were open

 Recently, I have faced this phenomenon of top rated cab aggregator drivers requesting a switch to cash after getting to the point of pick up. Ostensibly, because of high commissions and because of delayed payments.  And it left me thinking - imagine a situation where your best employees dont like you. And as an org, you seem to be either unwilling or callous to do anything about it.  Now, isnt that a market gap waiting to be filled?

As the sessions progressed and we spoke about appreciation, we asked the group - so what exactly are you appreciating someone for? And came the reply: Ownership Responsbility Accountability Problem Solving Planning Prioritizing Focus and so on. If the behaviour is identified correctly, the person might go back with a feeling, "this is what I need to repeat" or "this is my strength" and so on.  And we also heard - Communication, Collaboration, Helping and Timely Delivery. What is the problem with these 4 words? Communication and Collaboration are too vague and dont leave the person with something tangible.  Helping, unless it can be measured and quantified is often a lazy term to be used when appreciating or justifying your time.  And Timely Delivery is almost always an outcome - it is never the cause of appreciation. So, the next time you catch yourself using these vague words, pause and think, exactly what are you appreciating?

 Worked with a bunch of talented technologists over the last few days. And gave them an exercise "Appreciate an intern" The majority of the responses were along the lines of "great job, good job". Some of them were "good job, great job" with a disclaimer. Some found it difficult to appreciate (is there any reason to appreciate?). Fairly common - I have written about this in my book as well - but what is funny is that they are saying this because they have received appreciation in much the same way.  So, we worked from there and asked - what is wrong with this? And they all got it right.  What is the purpose of appreciation - and they got that right as well.  If you know that this sort of vague appreciation is not helping the team, why are you not doing it the right way? And. how are you appreciating your team?

 The previous post did not have any reference to Artificial Intelligence or Metaverse or AR or Gaming. Why? Because much of behaviour change is about focused skill building. And you can get the bells and whistles via Gaming or metaverse or AR. But you need an assessor, who is giving you real time feedback when you practice those skills with "Conscious competence". As far I know it there is no AI assessor that can do it - but this is a space an AI skills coach can be useful - who understands the candidate and works with the candidate to give very specific feedback.  Until then, it is back to basics. Practice, apply, learn, unlearn, relearn, apply till you get it somewhat right. 

These are the 4 broad shifts I have seen in the L&D landscape over the last few years (this is a slightly elaborated post from the year end update ). These are not shifts - these are more my learnings and you can classify these as my approach to L&D more than anything else.  The death of inspirational training. A few years ago, this was the norm. Inspiration driven training with quotes, examples, visuals was supposed to move the audience into taking action. I have written about it here . Bordering on motivational talk, it exhorted the audience to "change". Net result - zero. Smiley sheets full marks.  There are still occasions where you might want to use it sparingly, but well not so much. The death of day long trainings. Earlier trainings ran for 4 days like a test match and then came down to 1 day (8 hours). Post pandemic, I have found it useful to keep trainings to 2 hours max. What that also means is cut down on the inspiration talk and all that dive into the topi

  As a facilitator, preparation is very important for me. I create checklists, notes, timings for every work I do. Even if it is something I have done many times, I always ensure I go through it once before we get started.  I never try to wing it. The one time in my career I tried to wing it, it resulted in a not so great experience, so for me it has been a learning. As a consultant (when I was one), we get that one chance in front of the client. And if they have to call us again, we have to get it right every single time, therefore we cannot wing it.  And when I am the client, I see consultants wing it - I dont realise why they dont realise this. Maybe overconfidence, maybe casual, maybe it is not important, but why wing it? Why not give every client the best you have got? Isnt that why they have employed you? 

As I near 500 odd coaching hours, one of the things I am struggling with is the struggle between process and intuition.  As a coach, we have to trust our intuition and stay with the client. But there is also a process we have to follow. I am not arguing that the process is not good or the process is insufficient, but there are times when a process step might be skipped due to the intuition that you have acquired while talking to the client. But I have seen expert coaches be able to do both effortlessly. So, clearly, I am at conscious competence and I need to move to unconscious competence.  Thoughts as I am trying to internalise the coaching process. 

 IRCTC is a monopoly, yet it has irritating ads on its platform. Exactly why? Sure, source of revenue. And oh, the IRCTC captcha I am sure is designed by a teacher. Almost feels like imposition.  And whoever designed the chat interface in IRCTC is a genius. Dilbertian genius.  But on a larger point, monopolies have no incentive to get better. So they continue to live on, as dinosaurs, until a meteor strikes them. 

Why has IVR technology still not gone obsolete? And why is it so painful? Some of the newer companies have invested in chatbots and auto resolution - but these IVRs remain as irritating as ever.  Ok, IVR cannot be changed, can it be made better? At the point when your customer is (most likely), upset do you really want to spam them ads? And irritating music? And make them wait for ever with a mourning tone of "Your call is important to us, yet, all our customer services executives are busy" or something like that? But more importantly, why is this technology still around? Resistance to change? Who cares? Low on priority? 

 Not sure if this is a generalization, but quite a few designers I have worked with have difficulties with English spelling. I have often thought that they are so visual that they have never bothered with getting spelling right at any point in their career. Also doesnt help that most design software doesnt exactly do spellchecks.  But I was reminded of it when yet another designer I was working with made quite a few basic spelling errors.  Strengths and weaknesses, plus these are strengths they hone so well and are used to someone else always come around and correct the spellings!

 I like to write approximately 30-40 posts a year on this blog. Some years are more, but most of the years are in this range. At about December, I realise that I need a few more posts to reach this target and I crank my brain. As the thinking process evolves, as usual, it is difficult initially, but once it begins to move, post ideas start churning out - either via books, organization thoughts, some reflections from work or some observations.  What I have observed is that as the ideas gather momentum the flywheel continues to churn out ideas and hence on the blog, you will usually see a flurry of activity in December and January.  So, in Dec 22, I started writing a few posts and left a few as drafts and in Jan 23, many of those drafts will be published (not this one).  This is true for most ideation process as well, once you overcome the block, there is a flood of ideas.