Thursday 13 March 2014

Knowledge Sharing Sessions

The Learning & Development department of our company organizes short two hour Knowledge sharing sessions (KSS) once or twice in a month for the benefit of employees by inviting both external & internal speakers to share their thoughts. It is purely voluntary and those interested attend with the clearance of their team leaders.Various  subjects  are discussed from the Auto Expo(information on  what transpired in the expo where major car manufacturers exhibit their latest & futuristic products) to leadership to health and personal finance, anything of relevance & interest to employees.
I am sharing here the gist of one such KSS by a reputed trainer Mr T.V.Shivakumar at our L&D center,some time back which  was well appreciated by the participants.

The talk was based on the work of Mr Albert Ellis , the founder of Rational Emotive Behavioural therapy (REBT).According to this concept we all can naturally be happy but for the fact that we sabotage it by wrong thinking patterns/ core beliefs.
These core beliefs generally prevalent in society are:
1) I must
2) You or they must
3) Society must

Such beliefs tend to get converted into statements such as "I must be perfect." "I must always be punctual" "I must get this promotion" "I must get the first rank in SSLC"

" They (My colleagues in office) should be friendly & cooperative"
"They must understand me & my difficulties/priorites"
" You(wife) must serve me bed cofee everyday"

"Society must treat everyone as equal"
"Society must respect me in all social situations"
"Environment should be congenial"
"There should be no pollution on the roads"

The problem with having such core beliefs is that when any of these things do not happen we tend to become upset & unhappy. So if you don't get the first rank you go to pieces; unable to face the comments of others,youcommit suicide.Merely by having a shift in perspective ie by replacing "Must" with "Prefer" you release pressure and regain the opportunity to be happy. Thus I would 'prefer' my subordinates to be punctual but if one of them is regularly irregular I do not allow that to upset my state of happiness.

This approach is releasing in the sense we acknowledge that all of the times others, society or nature cannot be expected to behave the way we want.This gives us a certain flexibility & acceptance of situation & people.
In conclusion, the gist of the KSS was that happiness is our birthright and with a little change in perception we can claim easily what is rightfully ours.
The talk of Mr shivakumar was laced with humorous stories and time (of one and half hours) simply flew for the participants in his presence.

The aim of this post is not only to share with readers an insightful subject but also get them interested in arranging such sessions in their organizations.

6 comments:

  1. Excellent post :-)

    Nice to learn new things in the post.

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  2. Thank you Ankit. A refreshing insight for me from the KSS was that most part of our life is complicated by none other than ourselves by putting so much pressure in terms of expectations(must. should).

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  3. That is a very good initiative...

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  4. Thanks Kiran for giving your feedback.It certainly motivates one to keep writing.

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  5. Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece on KSS..Indeed "prefer' is such a preferred and amiable alternative to "must" or "should". I have really learnt something new today..and wish I had read this piece while in service...Thanks for sharing this great learning, Rajeev. Yes, word needs to be passed around for organizing such sessions...

    Look forward to more such gems from you Rajeev, from your vast repertoire of knowleldge and experience. Thanks again.

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  6. Thank you Padmaja.One can always expect encouraging, motivating & inspiring feedback from your pen!

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