Serendipity and Learning

Yes, why do people scooters on the flyover? We have all seen it. Rental scooters are left on the flyovers. Actually they are left on many random places - on the footpath, in alleys, fallen on the side and I have often wondered, as have you, that, why are people so irresponsible? Few days back my kids asked me; when people leave the scooter in the middle of a flyover, where do they go after that? We made a few wild guesses, we laughed and then we forgot about it. Today evening, I had the pleasure of talking to Keerthi, a cab driver who drove us from the airport to home. And as the conversation progressed, we noticed a bunch of scooters parked in odd places like this and then he asked, "Sir, why do people leave scooters on the flyover?" "And I see a few scooters even in the middle of the airport flyovers. The others I can understand - it is a 200 hundred metres walk, but what about the airport flyover? Something must be there. Is there an incentive to leave it on th...

2 years ago, I had started this project. It had no name. It was an Excel sheet with rows and columns. It  was a product of my frustration with not having a single tool that was Indian for my upcoming creativity workshop. Finally for the workshop, I purchased a couple of well known tools. And went on with it. But this idea did not die down. I worked with an illustrator and came up with a few concepts and then shared it with two others. They loved the concept, but told me that I was getting something wrong and offered to work with me on it. The idea became a collaboration and led into something slightly bigger than what I had in mind and evolved into a partnership and I am happy to have been part of the effort of making an Indian creativity toolset - using what is Indian. I wish I could say more, but wait for the official word on it... My views on creativity and innovation

Non Violent Communication - Rosenberg. I dipped into this book and dipped out of it. But is a promising read for sure, coming from a communicating with empathy standpoint. Trillion Dollar Coach - Eric Schmidt. A breezy read -the story of Bill Campbell who has mentored many in Silicon valley. Read it to know more about different coaching styles. Alchemy - Rory Sutherland This is a great read on market and customer insights and how much of customer behaviour is psychological. The Era of Baji Rao - Uday Kulkarni. A historical read on one of the lesser told and known stories of India. And of course, leadership. Banaras- City of Light by Diane Eck. This one is the best written book on one of the worlds oldest living cities. Written lovingly - I have never read any book on any city in India with such a comprehensive history. Blitzscaling - Reid Hoffmann. I picked this up with great expectations, but I did not find anything that stood out in particular. Atomic Habits - James Clear. Thi...

This year with an exploration in new games. Azul -a very different tile mechanism - yet entertaining, fast and competitive (without being in your face). It was a runaway hit at home. Hive - a fast paced insect chess - if I had to give it a metaphor - really caught on. The game mechanics seemed simple to begin with but then we realised that it has a lot of dimensions and strategies. Its a game I dont win much, but each time it intrigues me. A pocket sized dynamo. 7 wonders - reviewers had warned that it was complex to begin with, but dont be put off by it - it is worth the persistence. And yes. The game is very simple -it just feels complicated. And to pack so many ways of winning technically using card randomization and yet leave space for strategy - we love this one. Usually, whenever a shorter version of a game is built, there is significant loss in game mechanics. Somehow, 7 wonders Duel has figured this out. How to make a good game better - making if faster, more dynamic, in...

Kids learn by themselves. Especially when there is youtube. Earlier, we used to learn a board games instructions by reading through the instruction manual, playing and by trial and error. It was a little difficult and took us quite a few tries. Nowadays, the kids teach us the rules. They watch youtube where a gamer duly takes us through the rules and often addresses "between the lines" doubts. And what is surprising is that this is a way faster process. Welcome to the age of the autodidact... Recent skills learnt - Coding in python, decoupage, Arduino, Making slime etc etc. Earlier posts on Autodidacts: Here , here and here . 

Recently, I was part of a program where people had to choose time slots. Initially the off-take was low and people refused to sign up. After a few tries however, the slots magically began to get filled. The secret? It was transparent, visible. The more people saw that others had signed up, the sooner the rest signed up. So, as people signed up and saw the slots getting filled - there was both a 'sense of urgency' as well as 'social acceptance' - that I dont want to be the outlier. There was another thing that we did - every single person who was in this cohort, was spoken to by the Learning Head - individually. We believe this also contributed to the stickiness.

When we get trained on coaching, conversations veer towards emotions. The assumption being that there is a significant emotion driving the person. The assumption is valid, but the reality is that a lot of corporate coaching is still at a cognitive level and a coach, one has to see it from this practical lens. Therefore, the job of the coach may not (always) be to get to the emotional level, but to watch out for patterns, ask questions that provoke deep thought, encourage the coachee to see and acknowledge blind spots, and move them toward action, expand their own identity by getting to step out of comfort zones and in all this, ensure that they are still focused on their strengths and remain authentic... As I wrapped the year with a few of my coachees, here is what they typically said: Sounding board Enable me to see blind spots Keep me honest Push me to go beyond comfort zone Identify patterns Support Systems [Initial thoughts...need to expand]

Recently, we introduced a board game at our induction. The question was - 'How to give the new joinees an experiential immersion into the business'. The answer was to learn by doing - there is no other way that people can learn. As we searched for data that would enable us to create this 'game', we chanced upon a team that was running a similar digital challenge. And we used the basic structure of this game and made it into a board game. Predictably during the trial, the question came up - why dont you make it digital. Well for one, digital adds to costs, but more importantly, in the many weeks that we have trialled the game, it leads to greater interactions among the team that is playing it. There is debate, there is competition and there is also an element of surprise as they have to get the results from the facilitator each round (it has been configured this way). The idea is not to give a full fledged idea of the business (no simulation ever can), but to gi...

We were listening to Girish Kulkarni, award winning actor/director and he said something that most of the audience pause and reflect. He said, cinema is all about moments. As the storyline goes on, there are points when the cinema captures a "moment" and those are "moments" that stay with you. And that set me thinking...what moments do we create in learning engagements? And having personally watched those aha moments - both personally and others getting them, I couldnt agree more. Though, I must admit, I never thought of them as moments. And what if we were to architect such moments...What if we planned learning journeys around it...

I love goofball ideas. I think I love most ideas. Though it has often gotten me into trouble - because chasing every random idea means a loss of focus somewhere else. But there are times it has really helped.

Recently, I was talking about Learning journeys and I realised that learning journeys are like a glider. Take off a cliff and then it goes down until it hits an updraft. And in learning journeys those periodic updrafts are necessary to be provided so that the journey is in place till the landing... Passing thought....