Aditya_036_Self Leadership_October 2012

Today we had another memorable and awesome stint with Mr. Anil Sachdev under the ‘Self leadership’ Program. Our session took a start with a brief description about the five layers of ‘Self-realization’ which was discussed in the previous sessions of Self leadership. Today’s session covered the ‘Power of Intellect’ and the related decision making framework. This framework is really helpful as it helps a person to make the right decisions. The research analysis done on this frame work suggests that every individual should follow a certain set of processes while making any decisions. The few of the processes are defined as:

·         What is the most important question?

·         We should collect meaningful and reliable information in the context of question

·          Creative alternatives should be defined

·         Logic for evaluation – Risk and  Returns associated with the decision

·         Values and trade offs

·         Implementation of decision

The above mentioned list of processes would certainly help in evaluating one’s decisions. Anil Sir also mentioned about the Upanishad Ganga which is telecasted by Doordarshan every Sunday. This TV series elaborated on the leadership skills of the inspired leaders of rich Indian culture and her civilization. It also illustrated the sacred relationship between a teacher (Guru) and the student. In the latter half of the session, all the students formed a group and performed an activity in which we had to identify our career objective based on decision framework. The options for career objectives as follows:

·         Take up a lucrative job

·         To become an entrepreneur

·         Hold yourself for sometime

·         Do nothing

In the above mentioned activity we analyzed our course of action and also did a self retrospection in order to acknowledge the goal of our lives. This activity was followed by another group exercise in which a matrix was drawn and each individual were asked to rate themselves. The drawn matrix featured a comparison between the types of education received and kind of upbringing experienced. There was also a discussion on the aspects of creativity, the power of ideation fluency, originality of thinking and associational fluency. Anil Sir also mentioned about a book ‘The Fourth Eye’ by Pradip Khandwallla, this book helps an individual to overcome the fears of life. In another activity, students were asked to realize their own fears.  We had to rate oneself on the scale of 1 to 10 to different questions (which certainly gives us the fear quotient). The learning I took from this exercise was to understand our own fear and the comprehensive techniques to get rid of these unsaid fears. The students also devoted their time to think about their mission and values of their lives with a series of questions that surely helped each one of us to get a better clarity on our future goals & objectives. In the final phase of this wonderful session,  we were extremely delighted to get introduced with the wonderful concept of ‘Ladder of Inference’ based on the Peter Sengi’s work. This concept can help people to create better understanding of thinking process.

In the last and final session of Self Leadership Series by Anil Sir, the students were asked to form teams and perform an activity on discussion about ‘Courage’. On each table we have to cite the real life examples. Few of questions asked among the teams were e.g. how the courage stimulates?  Each team came with their different viewpoints like it courage comes from within our hearts and from the cause we are fighting for, it can also come from the selflessness and courage is not absence of fear but a realization / judgment of cause more important than fear & many more. In the final half of the session, I really got impressed by the video about Matthew Richard view on happiness wherein he talked about attaining happiness. In this video Mr. Matthew mentioned an extremely important point that how the happiness index in US has gone down over the decades though the average family income has soared up. He also mentioned the Gross happiness Index (GHI) which is being followed only in Bhutan.

In the end I would like to mention special thanks to Anil Sir who took out his valuable time for us from his busy schedule. His teaching will take us ahead in our lives not just in corporate part of our life but also in help us in leading a meaningful life.