Inner Sun

The Night of the Jitters

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Leticia Ramos-Shahani

I was once invited to compére a dinner function where there were several speakers. The chief amongst them was a lady Philippine presidential candidate. My job was to stay within the theme of the evening, introduce the speakers, and keep the transitions lively, entertaining and contextual.

Easy? Yes, if not for an audience of over a 400 people!

Weeks and days before the event, I gathered the material, read the resumes of the luminaries, prepared my lines and timing. On the day before the event, I had everything down to a pat. But at night in bed, the next day seemed bigger and scarier than most other days.

I tossed and turned restlessly until late into the night. Finally, when I did sleep, I had a nightmare. In the nightmare, I was up on the stage next to all the speakers. The lights were strong on my face. Awed by the crowd, I was in a state of shock. Suddenly, from nowhere the lady chief guest walked up to me, handed me the microphone and said, “Raju, it is your turn! ”

My turn! I grappled with the dozen or so pages in my hands and walked up to the lectern. At the lectern, my papers flew from my hand and circled around me in slow motion. The microphone turned into a cobra and stared me down. And, when I looked down at my finely dressed audience they had changed. In their place were people of all kinds. I saw fishermen, street hawkers, and gaunt-faced ladies with cigarettes dangling from their lips. On the floor there were hundreds of crawling babies screaming at their mothers to stop smoking and pay attention to them. My wife was in the crowd begging everyone to calm down and listen to me, the speaker!

The back of the hall had somehow changed into a railway compartment with dozens of big, African-American men playing basketball in it. Big, burly men with beer mugs in their hands were watching the game while the train of my speaking moment was hurtling away towards nowhere!

In the nightmare, I heard someone knock at the door of the railway compartment. Covered in cold sweat, I woke up with a scream in my throat! As I sat up in bed, I recognized the absurdity of  the whole situation. The demons of anxiety and fear were playing games    with my mind.

The knocking on my bedroom door was real, and I walked up to it and opened it. There stood my little 7-year-old daughter, crying for her mother. I picked her up and held her against me. My fears subsided and a smile took over my jitters and doubts.

I was overcome by an inner peace and calm. I went to sleep assured that tomorrow, I was going to perform for a crowd not go to war with the world. My fears were gone and the material that I had been working upon became mine. The next day I dazzled the crowd and the lady chief guest at the dinner  function.

 

Note: I post this in honor and the love I, like, many have for the late Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani of the Philippines who just passed away this morning of 20th March, 2017.

Emotionally Intelligent Facilitating

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Out there, there are shiploads of ideas, opinions and practices about being Emotionally Intelligent at everything. Here’s hoping that what I say stands out and answers the needs of trainers and learning facilitators like myself.

Scores of times, I have seen trainers and speakers turn red in embarrassment or anger when faced with tricky interactions during training or facilitating a class. My most painful memory was that of sitting in the back of class where a young lady trainer, with deep knowledge about the subject matter and great presentation skills was head-locked into a semantic argument with an elderly gentleman over the English language.

The young lady was my friend and protégé. During her anguish her eyes connected with mine looking for compassion, strength  and support. For a minute I was tempted to respond to the appeal for help in her eyes but I stood my ground. Seeing her anxious my heart was pounding but I had faith in her good intentions and her abilities. Soon, she was able to pacify the man and continue creating value for the rest of the class.

We never spoke about the incident but every time we meet the story resurfaces in our eyes.

Now for myself and for scores of trainer-speaker, facilitators like me here are a few ideas and insights on how to be emotionally intelligent about facilitating high-intensity, purpose-driven conversations.

Know Yourself Well

Oh, you’ve heard this a thousand times! It’s also the very first paragraph in my first book, the HeART of Public Speaking. Plato, Shakespeare and even Johnny Carson might have said it many more creative ways.

Know what you value. Know what is important to you. Know what your task objectives are. Know your audience-learner needs are. Know your subject and strategies to facilitate.Yet, be open and flexible. A learning interaction or facilitating group think is a co-creation and a co-production.  The bottom line is that the Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal (BHAG) of the interaction must be easily and harmoniously met. All players must walk away happy, healthy after digesting a hearty feast of new principles and practices.

Assess Others, Not Judge Them

Never address them as “the trouble-making elderly gentleman,” as I have done above. Stephen Covey said it rightly, “seek to understand, before beating them down to prove yourself right!” Well, that’s not exactly what he said but it just sounds so much better this way.

Assess them. That is after you observe, listen, observe, feel then you must ask and explore them with caution and care to understand. Being emotionally intelligent is being able to see their world from their viewpoint and then, if necessary, with compassion show them a different view. If you get hard about your opinion of them then you will not be able to help, teach, train, lead or let them evolve.

Manage Your State and Stress Levels Smartly

Working a room drains the brain like very few other activities. Talking, teasing and then training a large group is like doing a triathlon, Zumba and meditation at the same time. It is very fulfilling and, yet, very exhausting. For decades now, and I can’t change this, after every focused group discussion, every workshop and every speaking engagement I need to rest and recover. The ratio of work to rest is usually 1:1.

So while in a learning session know that your state needs to cool, calm and collected. You need to manage and be selective about what your brain processes throughout the day. Tiny hindrances like an “elderly man not agreeing with you,” needs to be gotten over and trashed from your mind right away.

Your breathing, your heart rate and your body temperature always reflect how much stress you are building up. If you feel your pulse picking up then it is time for 10-15 minute break and get back to optimum performance levels.

Lighten Up!

Just because you are center stage does not mean that the show has to be a one-woman show. The burden rests on you but you don’t have to carry it all and, especially not carry it while puffed with self-importance. There are millions of trainers, speakers and facilitators doing almost the very same thing that you might be doing then. You are not alone.

So, take it easy. Good facilitation skills are quite like good sportsmanship skills. Pass the ball! Make it a team thing to carry the ball, the burden or the BHAG, as we call it.

What you do and what you create is important but that must not stuff you with self-importance. So lower those mustaches and let down your long hair a bit. Have fun. Laugh. Laugh, mostly, at yourself and you will find that the learning audience will help you at fulfilling the meeting objectives and also laughing at yourself. That is the HeART of HUMOR in communications.

Morph your Thoughts Correctly and Creatively

Beyond managing your attitude and behavior there, usually, comes a time where you need to speak up. You will need to air your ideas opinions, either in alignment with what is on the table or against what is being offered.

It is time to choose your words well. It is time to dissect the objective from the personal and then state it in the best possible way.

So think through what you have to say not just once but, maybe twice or thrice. A wise old tailor that I grew up with used to say, “Son, measure twice and cut once!”  I have never been more thankful to Dad for sewing that up in my neural pathways for life.

Say what you say to say in the shortest, sweetest and the simplest possible way and then let it play out as it will.

 Say what you Must, Assertively

I was partly playing with you when I said that you don’t have to carry the ball all the way to the basket yourself. You may not carry the ball physically and, even, mentally but you must carry the ball and the whole team spiritually.

Thus, there will come times when if not an elderly gentleman but a wayward teeny-bopper, or a teeny-bopper minded person may constantly be disrupting the procedures. That is the time to flex your muscles and use the “I” word and the use “I think,” or “I feel,”  and “I prefer” words. Yes, asserting yourself is about expressing what you think is right. It is in very rare cases, during facilitating, that you need stand on a firm, chosen ground.

When you assert yourself with firm words and preference, make sure to keep you voice warm and supportive. As a facilitator, small assertions can be made about achieving process objectives and playing by agreed rules of engagement. Warmth and compassion are, usually, about keeping the team together towards the bigger objectives.

 Seek Acknowledgement of Understanding / Repeat Creatively

Oh, this doesn’t mean, “I hope you got it, nitwit!”

No, never!

Instead, say, “I hope that answers your need.”

Say, “Those are my thoughts and I am open to hear yours.”

Say, “Is there any part that I need to elaborate?”

If such probing doesn’t get you what you want or doesn’t get you any confirmation, it is okay to repeat the point, differently, a few more times through the process.

The best way of course is to cite an example or tell a story. My bias is to tell a story. Read, the HeART of STORY.”

It is Okay to be Angry

Learning, training and facilitating a group discussion are all processes and processes fail or do not meet the mark. Sometimes, if our efforts or our participative work doesn’t meet the mark and if that annoys or upsets you, that is okay.

We are humans, flesh and blood, before we are teachers, trainers or facilitators. Acknowledging this fact and then recognizing what is irking is the first giant steps towards growing into being an emancipated facilitator.

Being angry and being stressed about the fact that we are angry is a double disaster. Acknowledge annoyance, locate cause, check your perspective, express your views and then change your view. “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change,” said the late Dr. Wayne Dyer.

Anger is okay. It means you are involved, you have a stake in the process and you care.

Learn to Let Go!

Okay, I am sure you’ve heard this one many times too. It’s been said by great personalities like Plato, Shakespeare and Elsa from the movie, Frozen. It is also the core idea in my book, the HeART of HUMOR.

Success at a project and failure of a process are both events. They are the two sides of a coin called life. The work we do is part abstract and part dynamic and there are no guarantees. “If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster” said Clint Eastwood once.

If your efforts at driving learning and creating value for others don’t succeed by your measures then recognize and appreciate the fact that you had good intentions, you made all the efforts, people turned up and probably took away something from the efforts made and from coming together as a group.

Most all the pioneers and leaders of the world go through multiple failures but they keep coming back, again and again. The world, the marketplace and the training room appreciate their dedication and perseverance towards creating value and, overtime, value does get created.

To Let Go is to recognize the power lies in churning up a storm, seeking synergies and being surprised with the results. Storming, forming, norming and acceptance are the essentials of life and learning.

Thus to be an emotionally intelligent facilitator-leader know yourself, appreciate others, acknowledge your feelings, express yourself, measure results objectively and learn to live with failure and celebrate all successes.

Oh, and yes, have fun!  Read again 🙂

The Sensitive Speaker

It doesn’t matter whether I do basic presentation skills or advanced executive presence training, one question that constantly pops us is “How do I convert my being sensitive of others into confidence in self?”

My experience and beliefs tell me being highly sensitive of others’ presence, their thoughts, and their opinion isn’t a shortcoming but an advantage.

Think of this, that while conversing, when you mind and monitor what feelings run through their minds is inside information. It is unspoken feedback and you’ve gotten access to it. Isn’t that an advantage?

Decades ago, a stern face or a disengaged audience member would scare and disrupt my chain of thoughts. And, when I’d approach them later, I’d be able to assess that most often than not there were other things on their minds and not just my performance. Soon, I began to challenge my own assumptions about their state of mind. Very soon I began to convert my being disturbed and disrupted into a turnaround in the conversation by creatively engaging the person that scared me by a quick question or by pausing and smiling at them. It was, for me, putting the NLP principle of “the map is not the reality,” principle into practice.

My thoughts and actions gave me an inside view of their state and my state changed for the better.  Not only did the technique change our state but also gave a power boost to whole performance with the larger audience in the loop. My being sensitive of others wasn’t and isn’t a disadvantage anymore but is an ace in my hand.

Being sensitive towards others isn’t a weakness.

To see, hear and feel acutely is the trademark of the alive and compassionate leader-speaker.

Raju Mandhyan

From the HeART series available at Amazon

On Higher Ground

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Years ago when my friend, Adrian Martinez, had shared this story with me it got stuck and has stayed until now. I know not the author but here it is the way I heard it and I hope you like it.

A traveler came upon an old farmer hoeing in his field beside the road. Eager to rest his feet, the wanderer hailed the countryman, who seemed happy enough to straighten his back and talk for a moment.

“What sort of people live in the next town?” asked the stranger.

“What were the people like where you’ve come from?” replied the farmer, answering the question with another question.

“They were a bad lot. They were all trouble-makers and lazy too. They were the most selfish people in the world, and not a one of them to be trusted. I’m happy to be leaving the scoundrels.”

“Is that so?” replied the old farmer. “Well, I’m afraid that you’ll find the same sort in the next town.

Disappointed, the traveler trudged on his way, and the farmer returned to his work.

Sometime later another stranger, coming from the same direction, hailed the farmer, and they stopped to talk. “What sort of people live in the next town?” he asked.

“What were the people like where you’ve come from?” replied the farmer once again.

“They were the best people in the world. They were hard-working, honest, and friendly. I’m sorry to be leaving them.”

“Fear not,” said the farmer. “You’ll find the same sort in the next town.”

Today, every time I work with people in my coaching sessions, I refer it to as “the eye cannot see the eye,” and our job as leaders and change drivers, every one of us, is to constantly and consistently work at shedding our, conscious and unconscious, biases.  Not that we can totally do away with biases and not that we do not need many of them for survival, for navigating our lives into safety and then growth but to be able get closer and closer to the objective truth.

The objective truth as we must understand is an ideal to be achieved. And it can only be achieved when we look in, look out, look in again and look out again as frequently as possible and as rapidly as possible. It’s called being agile. It’s called being resilient and it gives us a handle on our views, on our knee-jerk reactions. It helps us make better, empathetic and, even, holistic decisions in life and at work.

Thus, when faced with a new environment, with diversity or with what you might think others are obstructing your progress, ask yourself these questions:

  1. How much of my past experience is wrongly being projected on current reality?
  2. What if I was wrong about everything I perceive to be true?
  3. How open and flexible am I to new ideas, to diversity?
  4. How much of it is hard data which can be endorsed to be factual by a third party.
  5. After I speak up or act, will I be okay with what I have done and said? Will I have remorse?

There is never an end to this sort of reflection but yet, there can be always be a kinder, gentler and an all-around win-win way out.

When Adrian Martinez had shared this story with me he had begun by saying, “Wherever you go you carry your land with you Raju.”

I’d agreed as I agree today. And, I’d like to add is that you can place your land down and use it as a stepping stone to get to a higher ground.

[More on Appreciative Leadership]

Raju Mandhyan

Speaker, Coach & Learning Facilitator

www.mandhyan.com  
A World of Clear, Creative & Conscientious Leaders! 

My books also available on Amazon

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Strive or Surrender in 2017?

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On my mind always has been the question “how much should we strive and how much should we surrender?” The world is filled with free-flowing advice on how to “never, never, never give up!” or how to “let the storm rage on and let it go, let it go!”

Yet the wisdom and ability to choose and then draw a line between the two extremes has never been an easy one. Faith, beliefs, values, culture, habits and personal desires always get in the way. In fact, the biggest struggle is not what to never give up or what to let go but the struggle to find that wisdom, courage and ability to make and act out our choice.

Strive or Surrender?

The simple rule of thumb that I follow is that I give my choice-making efforts maximum intellectual, emotional and social impact thought and then I act upon that choice. You might say, “Hey that really is no different from what everyone does, how is your strategy any different?”  My strategy is different because I put in the measure immediately after the first few action steps I take.  If the action steps stir up any toxicity, negativity, fear, doubt or guilt right after then I withdraw and take up plan B. I carry no shame in saying I was wrong. I carry no shame in giving credence to the opinion of others when it is better and will bring better, holistic results. I listen in and tune in to my emotions acutely and “let go of ego and authorship of the initial idea.” What I never, never, never give up on is the wisdom and ability of making another choice, as soon as possible, after the lack of success of any and all previous ones.

I believe in living out the moment to the best of my ability and that of staying in motion for the immediate future.

At the end of this 2016, I intend to exercise this personal competency of mine less for material, measurable goals and more for the not so easily measurable ones like kindness, compassion and big-picture achievements for and towards others.  My belief is that my world changes as I do. When I warm up, it warms up. When I soften towards it, it softens back at me and when I treat it with love then it pours back love onto me. The struggle between striving and surrendering ceases to take any credence.

 

Raju Mandhyan

Speaker, Coach & Learning Facilitator

www.mandhyan.com              A World of Clear, Creative & Conscientious Leaders! 

http://twitter.com/RajuMandhyan

http://www.youtube.com/user/RajuMandhyan

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Upcoming Events

 

“You Never Really Forget What You See!”

IAF Philippines

January 28th from  3:30PM to 7:00PM

Inspire Learning Hub, Alveoland Building,

28th Street corner Lane O, Fort Bonifacio, Taguig

 

Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/you-never-really-forget-what-you-see-iaf-learning-session-no8-tickets-18817224826

 

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Anecdote, Learning and Application-ALA

She wasn’t asking or saying much at one of the many workshops I was running on Corporate Storytelling across India. Though the program was generic in design, and was targeted towards organizational development consultants, employee engagement enhancers and brand builders, the room that day had quite a few attendees from the financial industry. They were in the room to take away lessons on how to use storytelling for increasing sales.

As a facilitator I’d stirred up the room with philosophies, principles and practices to source, structure and serve all kinds of stories.

Anecdote, Learning and Application

Anecdote, Learning and Application

To the sales-minded people in the room, I offered ALA-Anecdote, Learning and Application/Action as a framework to use for using stories and storytelling for sales.

Arzoo, as she was called, was a content writer for one of the largest event management companies in India hesitantly stood up to take a shot at the storytelling model for driving sales. Now, most all of the times it is the learning facilitator that finds fulfilment when participants absorb, accept and apply ideas shared in class but, this time, I must confess I was bowled over with Arzoo’s touch of class and creativity in using the format ALA.

She began by talking about how elegant, suave and brilliant Audi the car was and how over the years it had evolved and adapted itself to changing times and technologies. She then went on by saying that when she wrote, she thought of Audi as a living, talking and a thinking person. And how, as when she did that, the content that she created for Audi and her clients was usually beyond brilliant and most always picked up a lot of brand traction.  After she had done that, she slowly slid into how creative content writers immerse themselves into the persona of a product or a process and then personify it. Give it a human touch, they do, she said. She eventually transitioned into how most brands and businesses can benefit from good content creation.

It was a pitch, yes but, boy was it the classiest one I’d ever heard. The anecdotal part was more like a little chat about a car with a personality; the learning part was more like a realization on the part of a content writer and the call to action absolutely subtle and sublime. The whole delivery had zero hard edges to it and none of the sides were coarse but the traction the performance got was phenomenal.

My thrust in all I do and say about storytelling is that our approaches, our proposals must be structured and served such that they may be smoother than and sweeter than any smoothest and the sweetest of wines our client-partners may have ever had. At the end of conversations with our clients as and when they do acquire our services they must walk away with the feeling that they were not “sold to,” but it was them who struck a deal of a lifetime. Happy, for ever after they should be about the whole interaction.

Drawn from my book, the HeART of STORY, I still have one more open to public workshop in Bangalore on Corporate Storytelling on December 07, 2016. Catch me if you can. I shall be more than pleased to have you there.

 

Here’s what Ms. Arzoo Singh of SaltXP Events and others had to say about the workshop:

“It was very engaging and has surely added to my skills.” Arzoo Singh, Salt XP Events, India.

“It was fine with good learnings…looking forward to more like this.”  Devrath Singh Raghav, Birla Sun Life, India.

A very good session!” Karan Khanna, New Delhi

Amazing session! Great learning and practical, doable, valuable inputs from Raju Mandhyan.” Swapnil Parlikar, Mumbai, India.

Kinesthetic Charisma

Scores of times in my workshop InSpire Like a CEO, I have been asked the question, “At work and in life, how do you make an impact and sustain it?”

I have always answered that there are many ways, and many of them are being and doing things in a way that your presence and power is felt rather than forced upon others.

Then there is that usual question about “what about body language?”

Be, Do, Have.

Be, Do, Have.

I must confess that for both these questions the answer is not a simple one and it just can’t be a list of bullet points to follow. A few years ago I wrote an article Authentic  Impact, that will help but, well, here’s an expanded list of bullet points to back it up.

Yet before you scroll down, I want you to ponder and munch upon a thought that claims, “You are almost always communicating,” or differently stated “You are never not communicating.” What this implies is that your posture, your motions, your expressions, your eyes and the way you breathe all, always are making some kind of a statement.

The other thing that I need you to ponder and munch upon is the fact, that the first impressions you make can be lasting impressions and first impression are made in less than seven seconds. Well, that used to be the truth until the digital and the mobile world hit us. Nowadays, I hear first impressions, at least the online ones, are made in less than three seconds.

Well, in any case back onto real world impact here are my eleven secrets to building and possessing a powerful Kinesthetic Charisma.

 

  1. Trust Yourself

This is tantamount to ‘know thyself’ and ‘like thyself’ the way you are, whatever that way be. You see if you don’t like yourself then your discontentment with yourself oozes out of you like foul body odor. Yes, it does!

Thus, spend time with yourself. Talk to yourself. Accept things about yourself. Change things you can and learn to live with things you cannot change. The easiest thing to change about yourself is how you dress and the toughest thing to change about yourself, no not your height, is your worldview. In all cases accept and trust yourself as you are.

  1. When you Walk into a Room, Walk Right in

If you have chosen to be somewhere, with some people then be there a 100%. Don’t dilly-dally at the door or by the window. Walk right in and physically announce yourself. Your hesitations, your inhibitions will be construed as lack of confidence, lack of trust in yourself.

  1. Stand Tall before you Sit

Spend a little time spending standing tall and letting people size in and absorb your newly ironed suit and the length, or lack, of your physicality. Stand as if you are wearing a light, crisply ironed suit and you are unworried about the suit picking up creases. Stand tall, relax your shoulders, hang your arms by your side or hold a glass of wine, breathe normally and keep your chin slightly tilted up. Think Clint Eastwood even though you might be Danny de Vito.

  1. When you Shake hands, Shake Them Well

Oh no, that doesn’t mean squeeze, crush or pump. It means when shaking hands with a person of the same sex place your hand all in, wrap the thumb around and give it a reassuring squeeze. In your mind say to them that you like them and they will read your mind through the process of conduction. When shaking hands with a female, that is if you are male, offer an open hand and let them shove their hand all in. You just wrap around gently and close. Tell them with your eyes that you like meeting with them. Mentally announce, “Mucho gusto!”

  1. Sit Upright and Cool before You Talk

When you sit, find a good spot from where you can see everyone and everyone can see you too. Don’t hunch, don’t slouch, and don’t sink into the sofa. Push your butt deep into the chair, straighten your lower back, drop your shoulders and let your chest breathe normally. Yes, keep the chin tilted slightly. Look around as if to survey, to measure. Smile as you do it.

  1. Mind your Micro Expressions

If you haven’t yet, then please read up Dr. Mehrebian’s  55+38+7 rule and remember that it is only valid in certain laboratory conditions. But, yes, it does help to get the point through for many aspects of people interactions. Yes, of course, remember that you are almost always communicating. So if you see something or someone that you do not like then do not grimace or pout.  Hear yourself say it to yourself in your head that you don’t like something or someone in the room but don’t let your mind tell it to your face. Stick a smiley on your face and let it stay there.

  1. Talk only When you Know they want to Hear you

Talk when there is pause in the noise the world of business meetings usually puts. Talk when the cacophony levels drop. Talk when people are getting edgy because you haven’t added to the noise yet. Speak out your words softly, but let them carry a big stick. Speak up, enunciate and, for heaven’s sake, think it out before you spew it out. Read my book, the HeART of Public Speaking, to learn how to think on your feet.

  1. Speak from the Gut, Throw your Voice

Power up your voice and pitch it far and strong by backing it up with the air from your diaphragm. Don’t speak through nose, don’t mumble. Stand up, sit up, chin up and then speak up nice and slow. Raise up the decibels high enough for your words to be heard by the person most distant from you in the room. Speak as if you are speaking to that last person in the room. Speak…do not shout.

  1. Pause Between Thoughts, Examples

If you have done your thinking before speaking;  If you are composing, editing and structuring your thoughts well and if you are sitting up and speaking from the gut then your pauses and your pausing will be a but natural outcome of your powerful performance. Your pauses will allow you to think through the next bunch of thoughts, ideas and examples. Your pausing will allow time for your audience to digest and appreciate your proposals.

  1. Let your Eyes listen

You know I am teasing you with that one, don’t you? What I mean is watch people understanding, absorbing and accepting your ideas and examples. They will be nodding, smiling and turning towards you when you talk. That is listening to them while you are doing the talking. If you see less of nodding, smiling and people turning towards then it is time to change pace, change style, change content off your conversations.

  1. Stay Open

Just because you now know how to trust yourself, walk into a room well, shake hands properly, hold your chin up and enunciate well does not make you an Einstein, a Drucker or the Dalai Lama!

The whole process of “doing” things to become charismatic kinesthetically has an underlying promise by you to stay open, stay flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances and what is being co-created in good conversations.

There you go! Eleven bullet points to acquiring Kinesthetic Charisma as a leader, as a CEO who would like to Inspire and influence his world.

Wanna’ become a Good Storyteller?

Wanna’ become a good storyteller? Here, five quick steps. Catch!humor-launch-20062

First memorize it like crazy, then forget it for a while. It will have found a hiding place for itself in your deeper brain.

Second make attempts to tell it from memory in your own words, like a casual chat. You will feel like and become OWNER of the new version.

Third, tell it from the perspective of one of the characters in the story. If there are no characters other than you then let any inanimate object, say a chair, from the story tell the story. It’ll help you enhance the drama when you really tell the story next time.

Four, have someone else tell you or read the original or your new script. You will discover new areas where impact and engagement can be increased.

Five, go all out when you tell it. Live your dream-delivery, model your storytelling hero. Enjoy. Unleash yourself unashamedly. Stories are meant to be told so they inspire and motivate others so why hold yourself back? Go! Fly! Shine!

Five point five, buy the HeART of the STORY from Amazon.

Or, catch me here at the Dubai, HR Summit

 

Five Philosophies of Appreciative Leadership

Most individual and organizations go around carrying a cudgel of “what is wrong and who is to blame,” in all the businesses and the organizations we lead.

This approach of looking for problems may work for complex machinery and systems but fails drastically when it comes to human groups because human relationships are not just complex but are complicated.

Thus, a mechanical+rational+cognitive approach to resolving issues rarely work and barely sustainable. Over the decades, a new strengths-based, affirmative approach, a way of life has been delivering brilliant and beautiful results.

What will work better is “what’s working, what strengths can we employ and who is passionate about taking the lead?”

And, it takes five beliefs that can come handy in driving productive change:

  1. Every individual and organization is a beautiful mystery to be unfolded and unleashed.
  2. In life, and at work there are multiple realities and these realities construct according to how we perceive them collectively.
  3. The strengths and the resources that we most focus upon will grow magnificently.
  4. Every positive, empowering question we ask will simultaneously give rise to affirmative thought followed by action.
  5. When we filter, choose and select every grain, every word in our conversations for success and strengths, we build a beautiful world.

Appreciative Leadership is a personal and organizational leadership program influenced by Appreciative Inquiry, a holistic method and a process to initiate, drive and succeed affirmatively and sustainably all change programs.

Right after the Hospital Management Awards on September 7-8 in Vietnam, on September 09, 2016 sign up for a whole day workshop on Appreciative Leadership organized by the Vietnam Marketing Association.

Should you wish to sponsor, help promote this please call or send an email to Ms. Mai Nguyen (Ms.) | Workshop Project Manager of VMI at

P: +(848) 3507 3575  |  HP: +(848) 908 863 118  /  Email:mainh@vmi.edu.vn  to confirm. Website: www.VMI.edu.vn

Appreciative Leadership

Appreciative Leadership & Ha Long Bay

Individuals and Organizations are Mysteries to be Explored and Uncovered.

Individuals and Organizations are Mysteries to be Explored and Uncovered.

A few years ago, on a cruise, at early dawn we sailed into Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay. Not just the moment but the whole morning was nothing but magical, majestic.

The dark, dense water seemed to caress and draw the ship deeper into the bay. The giant rocks, strewn with shrubs, seemed to gently glide, bend and bow down inviting us to feel free and awed by the beauty. The sights were amazingly beautiful. The murmuring water was love-giving and the scents from the shrubs nourished our souls.

Today, as I relive the memory, part of me wonders why I didn’t find the dull darkness to be scary. Why didn’t the deep, dense water strike fear into my heart and why didn’t the jagged rocks remind me of the Titanic’s fate? I guess the answer to this mystery might lay in the fact that a part of me was expecting and looking forward to the sights, sounds and the smells of Ha Long Bay being beautiful and awesome. I also suspect that, over the years, the millions who visit and capture this beauty also undergo the same magic and majesty. They all come filled with a sense of wonder and an expectancy to witness the beautiful.

In a similar way, the underlying philosophies of ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ urge us to approach individual systems and organizations in a similar way, with the same wonder and a similar sense of being greeted by majestic beauty.  Appreciative Inquiry, a method of facilitation and developing organizations was first conceptualized by Dr. David Cooperrider of Case Western University in the 80s.

It claims, our default approach in looking at people, looking at teams and organizations made of people is to try and zero in on what is wrong with them and how do I, as a leader, fix that problem. It questions, what if we were to simply flip that first, defaulting assumption of ours and look for strengths, for resources, for successes? Wouldn’t that change our approach, our mind-sets and thus our behavior towards these entities, these systems and these living organizations?

Over the years, across the globe several leaders and change agents have discovered this secret and used it powerfully and fruitfully to turn individuals and organizations from good to great. It’s an approach, a way of life that adds power, beauty and strength into our initiatives to change and innovate.  The philosophical presumption is “individuals and organizations are mysteries to be explored and uncovered.”

On September 09, 2016 in Vietnam, in association with Vietnam Marketing and Management, I will be conducting a whole day, interactive workshop on Appreciative Leadership.  This follows the Hospital Management Awards being held in Ho Chi Minh City on September 7 & 8, 2016. On that day not only will I accompany you on this journey but also guide you into being able navigate your own ships into magic and majestic landscapes like Ha Long Bay.

Vietnam Marketing:  http://www.vmi.edu.vn/

Appreciative Leadership: http://www.vmi.edu.vn/news/pid/49/search/page/1/id/4544

My upcoming public workshops:http://www.informa-mea.com/hrsummit

Advanced Selling Skills in Vietnam: http://www.hospitalmanagementasia.com/cacnhadienthuyet?page=5

InSpire Like a CEO: http://www.genesistrainingevents.com/Raju/inspire.html

Appreciative Leadership: http://www.genesistrainingevents.com/Raju/AL.html

Corporate Storytelling in Dubai:http://www.hrsummitexpo.com/

Posts on Facebook: https://goo.gl/MXQEqU

Talks on You Tube: https://goo.gl/dVclfm

Choice Clips from the TV Show, ExPat InSights :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjf3sHaZBSo

Raju Mandhyan

www.mandhyan.com