Take Away My Pain

Dear Reader,

I'm on the treadmill called 'Time',
It has a speed and a rhyme.
Unable to control neither, I am,
I run, run until my legs drain.

Awaiting my fall to endure the pain,
I cry, cry for help and vociferously complain.
And then I hear "The Voice",
It tells me "Run, run, you don't have a choice".

And then I fail, I fall and I crumble,
O my Lord, the Pain,
I endure it again,
Making me helpless under its reign.

I thought I had a choice, I thought I made it right,
The outcomes were beyond my sight.
The thought kills me.
Time failed me.

O my Lord, the Pain,
Bringing with it, the wounds and stain.
"Hope", give me strength to fight,
Fight, fight with all my might.

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Om Namah Shivaya

Dear Reader,

Today is Maha Shivaratri. It is celebrated by holding an all-day long fast and an all-night vigil. It is believed that all prayers will be granted by Shiva on this day.

I asked my mother, "what is the significance of the all-night long vigil?" and she narrated a story to me.

Once upon a time lived a poor tribal man. He would wander in the forest and hunt for survival. One day he went deep inside the forest and was not able to return before nightfall. To worsen his anguish, he was chased by wolves and he ran to save his life. Terrified, he climbed the nearby tree while the pack of wolves lied in wait under the tree. Perched against the tree, as darkness fell, he was afraid of falling asleep and dropping off the tree.

To keep himself awake, he decided to pluck one leaf from the tree and dropping it to the ground while chanting the name of Shiva. At dawn, the wolves left and the hunter realized that he has dropped those leaves onto a Linga under the tree. The tree happened to be a Bilva (wood apple) tree. The unwitting all-night long worship pleased Shiva and the hunter was rewarded by divine bliss.

I was absolutely fascinated by this story. While I heard my mother out, I was reminded of "The Immortals of Meluha". I loved this book and finished it in 2 days. Authored by Amish Tripathi, it is based on the principle that most Indian Gods were human beings once upon a time. So the book does take you through some of the legendary facts about Shiva and leaves you craving for more with the last chapter ending to be continued in Part II of the Trilogy.

Anyway, my objective was not to provide a book review in this post. May be, I'll keep that for another time!!

Om Namah Shivaya
 

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The Need of the Hour - Innovation

Dear Reader,

A couple of days ago I helped one of my colleagues to "learn". So that you do not assume that it was a classroom training that I conducted, let me tell you that it was the most informal way of training someone on how to make a presentation. Right from what goes into a presentation (the content) to designing the slides!! I recounted my experience as a facilitator, a number of times, before I got on to penning down my thoughts for this post.

We've all been in a classroom to learn a new skill, a new behavior sometime or the other in our lives, however if you ask people when is it that they have had a "learning", 8 out of 10 will say it was outside the classroom.

Two things that I want to deduce from this response:

1. "Training" does not necessarily mean "Learning" - Here's how I look at it, training is something that is owned by the trainer while learning is controlled by the learner. In a class of 20, there is always that one student who learns better than the others, under the same circumstances that is offered to the remaining 19 students too.
   
2. We learn better outside of the classroom, call it by any name, On-the-Job, Experiential or informal learning.

However, with all these being facts, do we really see the transformation within the Training Function in our organisations? Is the function still investing money (may be, a lot of money) in organising class-room training programs that do not guarantee learning?

Here's the results of a survey that I came across a few hours ago. The key point to note is

"Although 64% of Learning Executives believe Informal Learning approaches have higher impact, more than 2/3rds of corporate training budgets are spent on traditional formal training."

Why should this be the case?

Well, here are some reasons off the top of my head:

1. When there is a training budget that is allotted to the function, the managers are expected to establish controls over how the money is spent. This could only be done if training is organized in traditional methodologies. Level I (Reaction) of Kirkpatrick model, to evaluate training effectiveness, forms a part of this control.
   
2. Trainers / training managers have been confined to their worlds and adopting (or even ideating) alternate methods of training is making them step out of their comfort zone.

Bottom line: It is time for us to conceptualize alternate methods of facilitation to aid learning. Innovation is the need of the hour.

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Recipe

Dear Reader,

I've been a facing some writer's block lately. And hence I was determined to write today!! This post has been way, way, waaaaayyyyy too painstaking.

It’s been one of those weeks when writing is like mowing the backyard by hand in the hot sun with a plastic spoon. Or something folksy like that.

I have felt thick as a brick all week, but I keep squeezing that noggin of mine, trying to get the words to come out, coming up with nothing but brick juice at times.

So here's some part of my brick juice!!

A recipe to make a good writer:

Loads of knowledge and a point of view
Patience and perseverance to pursue
A bag full of words to articulate
An eye for detail and some perspective

A thought that ignites the fire in you
A dash of humor to make your day when you are blue
Some creativity to add those twists and turns
To keep you reading, to make you yearn

Edit the work with a magnifying glass
Eliminate the crass and give it some class
A proof-reader, a critique and a mentor
And most of all, a dedicated and an honest reader

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