Serendipity and Learning

  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? 

When I was in school, I recall my mother telling me how she hardly knew to cook when she had just got married. I found it impossible to believe because she was such a fabulous cook. And she said no, I knew very basic things when I started off, so I had to ask people, try out things and slowly work on it until I got really good at it.  Today some 25 years after that she has added more skills and cuisines to her repertoire. Almost all mothers around are good cooks. This might seem obvious - all mothers are usually good cooks (add a few more skills) - but what is not obvious is that they get good at something over time.  I started making chutneys a few years ago - mainly to escape the boring routine of having to eat idlis in the morning. Now about 3 years into the process - I am actually very good at it. Indeed I made a chutney infographic (see the picture) - and have tried more varieties post that.  And India has humongous varieties of chutneys - with their local varia...

After so many years, Ask versus Tell still remains my favourite conversation skill moment (Thanks Balaji for putting this in my head). Each time , each audience, each industry whereever we have gone over this, Ask versus Tell almost always creates a moment of pause from the audience. We all know this intuitively, but the fact that it highlights is that it is a difficult skill to build. Actually all skills are difficult to build. It takes time, deliberate practice and faltering before it becomes second nature...

A few weeks ago, I got an innocuous request. Can you help a small team frame conversations with their stakeholders. I spoke with a couple of the stakeholders and heard them out in terms of the way the problem was framed. I was lost after the initial framing. This was a topic that they had dealt with in depth through two frameworks in 6 months and I was wondering how to take them through this. This was my uncertain territory where there is a search for a solution. I usually like this uncertainty because it results in some insight sooner or later. And sure enough thats what happened. I was able to break conversation skills into a few distinct parts, break it into what they are doing now (stakeholder inputs) and in doing so, what are they missing out on. The breaking in the parts was not a surprise for them or for me. The what they are doing now was also not a surprise. What was not obvious was the final framing of what are they really supposed to do (as opposed to what they are do...

It is a pleasure to see a master at work. Years ago, I was in my coaching program and there was a master coach who was there to train us. I was the coach who was practicing. My 'client' came with an innocuous question - which I attempted to wrestle into a coaching style conversation. And in a few questions, I was lost. I had tied up myself in knots and raised my hands to ask the master coach to come in. The master coach started talking. She asked 2 questions and by the 4th question, my 'client' was in tears. I learnt Transactional Analysis with this master coach for 2 years and I saw her in action many a time during our sessions. Her ability to connect with people is just incredible. And some months later, I was in conversation with a senior executive with another person who I respect for such skills and as we walked outside, he was able to flip the conversation in a different frame  - only because he was alert to the possibility. As coaches, as learning profes...