Everyday we face different situations in life, both at work and at home, that may not match our expectations. There are times we feel overwhelmed by some of these situations. What we experience as a result may be termed as stress.

There could be numerous reasons why stress occurs. However, there are definitely ways to beat the stress as well. This is what we mean by managing stress.

There is a story about a carpenter who used to work very well. He was efficient in his work, and customers liked him for his positive and happy nature. It happened once that a customer decided to pick the carpenter from his home and drop him back again at the end of the day. When he went to pick up the carpenter, he saw the carpenter stopping infront of a tree near his house. He said something and then walked up to the waiting car of the customer. When he was dropped back home that evening, he again stopped infront of the tree and then walked towards his house.

The customer was not sure what the carpenter did infront of the tree, so the next morning he asked the customer, “If you don’t mind my inquisitiveness, I wonder what you do infront of that tree every morning and evening.”

The carpenter smiled and replied, “Oh, that’s my trouble tree.” He explained that everyday when he went back home he “hung” his troubles of work on that tree, and every morning when he left home for work, he picked those troubles again from the tree. “Interestingly”, he said, “the troubles seem to disappear every morning when I go to pick them up!”

This story is about the “mind” of a human being. The first and best method to manage stress is to be able to manage our thoughts. A positive mind would be able to manage stress very well. Most of the times we tend to worry about numerous things, mostly about the consequences of actions, and what may happen in the future. The results in the future may be good or bad, but we mostly think about the worst, and what we worry about does not happen most of the times.

Another thought process that hampers our mind is dwelling on the problems. A good way out is to first change our thinking from “problems” to “challenges.” A problem seems to be negative, a challenge on the other hand is positive and needs action. So if we concentrate on the solutions, we tend to be more optimistic, and therefore, less stressed.
Another exercise related to the mind that helps us cope with stress is “Visualisation.” Its about closing your eyes, and while you take slow, deep breathes, you visualize positive events that have happened in your life. It gives you more confidence, and makes you happy. You feel relaxed.

There are also many other activities that helps us manage stress. For example, physical exercise and going to the gym to workout, or even yoga is a good way. Keeping yourself involved with a pet is another method.

Eating chocolates (don’t eat too much though) helps, as well as relaxation exercises, or even going for a holiday, or taking some time out to spend it on your own, away from the busy humdrum of life.

Whichever way you look at it, stress begins and ends with the mind. So the best possible exercise that helps you to manage stress is the exercise of the mind. Be positive, stay cheerful and happy, and keep stress away!

From the Industrial Age we have now entered the Information Age. Education is very important today, but is the education given in school adequate to face the real world and its challenges? The job requirements today actually demand much more than just textbook knowledge.

A few decades back one could get school education and maybe a college degree and get a secure job and work in the same company throughout life. After retirement there was pension to take care of old age. While entering a job one knew exactly what benefits one would get for the whole job tenure and after retirement.

Today it is altogether a different story. The phrase ‘job security’ no longer exists. Formal education is not enough. Job switching is a continuous process. Companies are no more responsible for providing retirement benefits. Let me rather put it this way; you’d have to find how you will sustain yourself throughout life.

In short, good grades no more guarantee good jobs. Therefore it is time to realize this fact and take active steps. The problem does have a solution.

The solution can definitely be applied at all levels, but it would have maximum effect if begun at a very low level. Let me explain. What I mean by levels is mental maturity, or to simplify it I would consider age groups. It is easier to apply the grooming process at a younger age than an older age. This does not take away anything from the older people, but we will definitely agree that the older we get the more difficult it gets to change our beliefs and our way of thinking. Younger minds can be moulded better and easier.

Although the employment scenario is changing fast, our education system has still remained with old ideas and patterns. We know about educational breakthroughs and required changes, but for some reason or the other innovation in formal education does not seem to take place. Moreover I believe there are three types of teachers in our system. One teaches diligently and takes care of students and tries to bring about positive changes, one works diligently against any kind of change, and the third one does not bother about anything other than their own job security and money. The first type of teacher has now become as rare as precious gems.

So what do we do now? Should we lose all hope of any improvement and let pressure and stress engulf us? Should we just watch more and more students committing suicide as they are unable to keep up to expectations? I don’t think we can afford to give up. We absolutely should not give up. There is always a solution to every problem. First we need to study the problem thoroughly and the solution will automatically appear.

For example, we might be worried about not finding diligent, caring teachers. But then I have always believed that parents are the most important teachers. Children learn most by observing their parents.

Coming back to the problem of education not being adequate we will find that the solution lies in the mind. That is the most powerful thing God has given us. If we look into the word ‘education’ we will see that it comes from a Latin word ‘educare’, which means ‘to draw out’. But our system of ‘education’ believes in putting knowledge ‘in’. What we rather need to do is draw the genius ‘out’ of the mind for utilization. Now the question arises, “How do we do that?” I would again say, the answer lies in the mind itself!

Let us see how the education system affects the students. I am not talking about the details, I am concerned with the basics. Teachers punish pupils for making mistakes. Now, if you are afraid of making mistakes you will not want to do anything for fear of getting punished. There is too much emphasis on the importance of being right and the fear of being wrong. This fear prevents people from taking active steps. Here is where we begin with our solution. Parents play a big role in encouraging their children and prevent this unwanted fear to creep in. we need to inculcate a positive attitude towards education. This is the first step towards improvement.

It is my personal belief that there are two important factors in becoming successful. Human Relations Skills and Communication Skills give the winning edge to each individual. There are very few people who actually realise the importance of these two skills, let alone possess them!

The solution that we were discussing lies in these two skills – Human Relations Skills and Communication Skills. These give us the ‘right attitude’. Let me elaborate. With a positive attitude we can work our minds in the right direction which in turn will carve the way to success and happiness. On the same lines, communicating with people and building human relations skills gets incorporated into our positive attitude. So, how do we build a positive attitude?

Let us first study the prevalent ‘negativeness’ and why it is absolutely necessary to get rid of all ‘minuses’ and fill in all the ‘pluses’.

How often do we hear comments such as ‘I can’t do it’, ‘That’s impossible!’, ‘You have to kill yourself to do that’, ‘Forget it, its not my cup of tea’, ‘I can’t afford that car’? Very often indeed! Even these are familiar comments, ‘If you don’t study you will fail’, ‘Its going to rain today, the day will be a waste’, ‘I am not good enough’, ‘I am too poor!’

People spend too much time in speaking negative statements. Their self-perception is that of a weak, incapable, good-for-nothing person. This is where the downfall begins. But let’s cut the negative. What is most important to get rid of such negative thinking? Just one thing – BELIEF, belief in yourself, and belief in your Creator.

The power of belief is tremendous. When we believe we cannot, we are unable, just because we don’t try when we believe we cannot. On the other hand, if we use the power of ‘I Can!’ we try to find possibilities to do it. I will give you an example. I am a person who belongs to a middle-class family. I look at a small family car and I want to buy it. I realise I do not have the financial strength to buy the car. What do I immediately say to myself? I say ‘I can’t afford it’. This is what all of us say, no matter what the product is. If we don’t have the money we simply put it off by saying, ‘I can’t afford it’. This is the magic of words. The moment you say ‘I can’t’ you have a resigned feeling and drop the idea, but deep within you regret, and this regret causes that little invisible sorrow and pain and stress. Enough of this!

Let us use the magic of words differently. Let us try. The same person looks at the same car and realises that he does not have the money to buy it. But instead of resigning to the problem he tries to find a solution. So he asks himself, ‘How can I afford it?’ Think about this for a moment. You look at a product you want to buy and you don’t have the money, and ask yourself the question, ‘How can I afford it?’

What happens? The mind starts working, trying to find out possibilities. This is the difference between negative and positive. The results are contrasting. This is where we need to begin. We need to change our self-perception and start believing that we can achieve what we want, and with God by our side we can only win!

Before I move on, I must mention that school and college education is important. This is the basic need. The fundamental learning skills have to be built. But in order to succeed in life today the other piece of the puzzle is required. Education needs to be complete.

The missing piece of the puzzle that I am talking about is within us. Galileo had remarked, “You cannot teach a person anything, you can only help him find it within himself”. That is ‘educare’, as in Latin, which, as I have mentioned previously, means ‘to draw out’. Developing attitude is all about polishing and fine tuning the skills which are already present within us. Courage, confidence, kindness, empathy, belief, faith, name it and you have it within you. You only have to draw it out and then you will be able to utilize these qualities to achieve the highest in life.

Communications Today

Communications is a beautiful art which man has been able to develop with the brilliant assistance of his reasoning faculty. Man has been able to put words to what earlier used to be purely signs and sounds. Today it is a combination of all of these. It has unlimited scope and is a field in itself. It has taken different forms and have been given different names, but ultimately it remains the same.

From the time a baby is born it begins to communicate. I know it sounds pretty odd when reading about a just-born child communicating - but it is a fact. A mother understands the baby's needs and wants very well and most often they are best of friends. Yes, communications begin from the moment a life steps into this world. It continues throughout childhood, teenage years, adulthood, till death. Life is nothing but a span of time spent in communicating. Death? How do we understand when a person is dead. Do you realise that we communicate till death? When the body does not move, there is no breathe, the brain and/or the heart stops functioning, we consider the person to be dead - the final communication through body language.

Although the normal communication process is there in every human being, today's world demands more than just that. Those who have realised that life is all about rising high and making a mark have also considered the fact that it is very important to be able to place forward and also understand different ideas and concepts. The intelligence that is present with every human mind needs to be applied in order to rise above the common mass. This is where communications plays a vital role. If you think about getting a job the need to prepare for interview would arise. Once you get a job the need to present yourself well arises to secure promotions. But once you reach higher posts the need to interact with individuals of different levels arises. Nothing can be done without communications. No business would survive without it. If INTELLIGENCE is the brain, COMMUNICATIONS is the heart. The realisation of this, the development of understanding, the application of intelligence, creative communications alongwith hard work, commitment, determination, desire and perseverance can definitely help to attain success.

Corporate Training Essentials - A 7 Step Process

Education and Training has been an area of great interest to me for quite some time now. And as I started looking at how corporates approach Training & Development, I felt there is a lot to be done to improve. The fundamentals could be implemented to improve the training standards in most companies.

Any training should atleast start with a simple TNI/TNA (Training Needs Identification / Analysis) process. I would always recommend a thorough analysis to get the best results. I have seen how when this is not done, it affects the faith and trust of employees on the training department of an organization. The employees are the customers for the training department, and as such for good customer service here, the training department must understand the needs of their customers in the first place.

I tried a simple method once of meeting a couple of teams in an organization to do an analysis of their needs. There were 7 steps followed here:

Step 1

A detailed discussion with each individual in the team, including the manager of the team, on their work tasks and the skills required for each task. Personal development needs were also listed by each individual.

Step 2

A Subject wise list of Trainings was listed (some common topics and those based on the skills listed by them in Step 1) and each individual rated their need for each of the listed items. They could also add to this list at this stage.

Step 3

Analysis by the Training Consultant on the Top 5 Training Needs of the Team.

Step 4

Discussion with the Manager of the team to select and prioritise the Top 5 training topics. Here the Manager’s suggestions and advice were taken regarding specific issues listed by each individual on those topics in Step 1. This is a comprehensive stage of discussions to get as much information and as many solutions possible which are related to the work areas of the team on those topics. Other seniors and stakeholders could also be consulted at this stage.

Step 5

Design and Development of Training Program. Relevant examples, activities and role-plays/simulations are essential ingredients for the training program.

Step 6

Delivery of the Training Program. Special care needs to be taken by the trainer to answer all questions of the participants. The trainer needs to be fully aware about the work areas of the team, and if required, the manager of the team could also be present during the training, or atleast during the question answer session at the end of the training program.

Step 7

Post Training Evaluation – Kirkpatrick’s 4 Stage Evaluation method could be used here.

If, and only if, this process of starting with analyzing specific training needs and ending with Post Training Evaluation is followed, that we would be able to see visible results of training. The Training Consultant here should also learn from the process and improve and customize every step as required by the organization and its needs. It would be a good idea to analyse individual needs, team needs, manager’s perception and organizational needs. Together these would give us a common ground and tell us which areas of skills development would benefit all and would result in better performance of all.

I wish we could do this at every level of education and training, starting from schools to every other level. Life skills and work skills required by the industries could be a good starting point for analysis of needs for education in schools and colleges. However, it would be a little easier to implement this process in companies for corporate training.