AjaySingh_BLP018_About Me_Oct’11

We started the day with reviewing our learning so far. One conversation led to another and soon we were on a conference call with Prasad Kaipa, one of Steve jobs close associates. It was wonderful to know about the other side of Steve jobs from a person who had worked with him so closely. Mr. Kaipa shared a number of stories about who Steve jobs was, how focused was he on innovation and how determined was he to get what he dreamt of.

Later on the day we were asked to answer some questions about one self and make a presentation. Below are my responses for the given questions:

Who am I?

I am a self motivated individual who love to learn new things and who is always open to ideas from people around.

What am I here for?

I want to be happy in whatever I do throughout my life and also want to spread this happiness among people around me.

Where am I going?

I have justified mine and my parents expectations till now and would want to work further towards my cause in near future.

Why is it important?

For me being happy is the most important part of everyone’s life. Whatever everyone aims in his life finally ends up in getting happy. The ultimate solution for everyone’s need ends up in happiness.

How will I leverage my abilities to reach this goal?

I am very friendly to people and try to help them in whatever ways I can. Other people also feel some sense of happiness and some kind of connect develops between us 

AjaySIngh_BLP018_Self Leadership_10Jan’12

I believe the main aim of this exercise is to realize my shortcomings and work towards it not just for the remaining time in Soil, but for the entire life. As of now, my main improvement areas are Risk-taking Ability & Urgency. These are low as per my Caliper Report & I started working on them soon after my first ILP session in Term 1. Over the period of time I have been able to overcome these to some extent but I believe it should gradually become as a part of my habit. Instead of keeping my ideas to myself, which I usually do, I will make an attempt to share the points with like-minded people and seek their opinion. Being flexible will help me mold my thoughts according to relevant inputs received and in this process build comradeship and good relations. I have started taking initiatives in various group activities I have been part of.

I have also decided to read as much as possible.  These readings would help me to learn from the experiences of great people.

It is never too late & I think I still have time to work on these before the Placement Season starts (again). I look forward to get regular feedback from my peers, faculty & mentor & overcome these shortcomings soon.

AjaySingh_BLP018_Consulting_03Jan’12

Our class started with Proposal Writing. Proposal Writing is amazingly the application of ‘significance of understanding the context’ in real life is as high as significance of consuming water. Every situation, moment, problem, relationship, challenge or subject needs through understanding of the context of the matter being looked upon.

We were also asked to read and come prepared with chapter 9 and 10 of the book “Flawless Consulting”.

Chapter 9 talks about how to deal with resistance in a consulting assignment. It emphasis that whenever a consultant comes across a resistance with the client, the basic strategy should be to help resistance blow out and not to fight against it head on. One should ask client that what he feels about the situation and ask the client to be authentic and share whatever he experiences about the situation. So getting the client to talk more about the concerns is helping the storm to pass and defending one’s own point of view keeps the storm alive. It also taks about basic steps for dealing with resistence.Three Steps in Dealing with resistance are

1.  Pick up the cues

2.  Understand Resistance & Name the Resistance
3.  Wait for Client to Respond

Chapter 10 deals with moving on to the discovery phase. It states that after handling the resistance, problem moves into discovery phase. Here root cause of the issue should be identified. Often it happens that there are underlying problem to the apparent one. It should be properly identified and then communicated to the manager.

Ajay Singh_BLP018_Self Leadership_Sep'11

Self-Leadership: Leading Yourself to Personal Excellence

There is a person with whom you spend more time than any other, a person who has more influence over you, and more ability to interfere with or to support your growth than anyone else. This ever-present companion is your own self. 

-Dr. Pamela Butler, Clinical Psychologist

Self leadership is not about the leadership of others but it is about something more fundamental and more powerful. It is about the leadership that we exercise over ourselves. In fact, we argue that if we ever hope to be effective leaders of others, we must first be effective leaders of ourselves. This is one of the very important concept that most of the organizations are looking these days in their future Managers and SOIL as a B-school is primarily focussed in this aspect by transforming students into Leaders but not just managers. Recently we had a very wonderful session with Mr. Anil Sachdev where he covered some very important things that one need to consider and practice to become a good leader.

The very first session started with one very simple question which was “How to learn”. The answer to this simple question can actually help us realize how successful we are in our process of learning. Answer to this question can be given by again answering some basic questions which were:

·         Do I have the right attitude to learn?

·         How mindful I am while my process of learning?

·         Am I putting my best effort to learn?

While answering to these questions, I realized that how powerful these are and how can they help me to improve my learning process.

The next session dealt with INTROSPECTION. By definition, Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious mental and usually purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one’s own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one’s soul. It can also be called contemplation of one’s self. Introspection may be used synonymously with self-reflection and used in a similar way. We were told to introspect ourselves by answering some questions and when I was done with answering them, I actually did introspect a lot but also got to know that I need to do this exercise on a more regular basis to get proper benefit from it. The questions were:

·         Who are the people that matter to you most in your life?

·         What are their needs that you are moved to serve?

·         How can you leverage your values and gifts to serve their needs?

The second half of day dealt with a very important concept developed by Dr. Robert Kegan.It was about “Immunity to change”. Immunity to Change is a wonderfully original approach to a familiar problem: why many crucial change efforts fail. It shows how the core problems of resistance to change stem from the critical gaps between what is required and a leader's own level of development.The process involves people answering to a series of questions and answer to each questions help them to know about the actual reasons behind the failure of their efforts to change. Some of the questions were:

·         One aspect that you wish to change that you are struggling with?

·         What do you do instead of doing that?

·         What prevents you from doing that thing?

·         What are the assumptions that are giving you the reason for this hidden competency?

·         What are your strengths to overcome these assumptions?

There were some more questions presented by Mr. Anil Sachdev which would probably help us in improving our learning. Some the notable ones which I could remember are:

·         If you want to improve a habit, whom do you think among your friend circle has already that habit?

·         What are the kinds of things I read and watch?

·         Who are the people I will consciously spent my time with them?

At the end of day, a large number of questions were put in front of us. And we were made to think for the answers which would probably help us in our process of learning. I am yet not sure of most of the answers but I am continuously looking for the appropriate answers for each of the questions so that I could judge myself and my progress in my learning journey.