Creative thinking

Harvest your ideas

An Idea is a byproduct of imagination. The mother of all disruptive technologies is an original idea. How to get an original idea? This is can be a billion dollar question. Easy living is limiting  both physically and mentally. It limits us as an original thinkers.A great idea becomes a recipe for problem solver. An original idea can be realistic or  non realistic until validated. 

Most of us today see world through the conventional ideas already set in society and environment we live in. Not everyone is self aware about the power of ideas he possess. The power gets limited when we converge them to safe mode of our comfort zone. Think two decades back did you ever imagine of IBOTS and Machine learning. It could have been someone's idea to work.

Good ideas are the value investments. It can become your passive source of income and make you rich.Few techniques that act as a catalyst  in idea generation.

Problem solving: Solve problems for self and others. Change your perception of problems. Look at the problem as an resource of opportunities. List the problem you can solve and list the problems your team can solve. When you can deploy the solution with the help of team. You can convert your problem solving idea to an business opportunity. 

Brainstorming: It is an innovators lab that helps evolve, structure and validate an idea for innovation. In a group when an idea sparks a constructive debate, it has potential to answer many unsolved problems. It gives us a sense of being together as a team and solve big challenges. If the problem is big as an elephant then divide it into chunks and allocate each chunk to an expert. This way you can brainstorm, delegate and quickly bring an idea from imagination to action. 

Validation: Most of the businesses do not sustain just because they are not build on validated ideas. From idea to real working, an idea needs continuous evaluation under favourable and unfavourable condition. Validate your ideas through series of tests and simulation. Based on results it is recommended to build a miniature model of your idea for further testing. Once this is over, it should be shared with few prospects for their value feedback. Then, on continuous evaluation based on feedback, you get more ideas and suggestion to improve further. 

Harvest ideas: Most of crop of ideas go waste as we do not connect or save ideas for future development. Identify peak time and techniques that generates more ideas for you. Self awareness can help you to tap the prudence of you genuine ideas. Ideation is the most capable tool that human species possess ,so do not let it go waste and start writing them, anytime you get them.

Creative thinking

How to imagine?

Most of us agree that they need creative thinking  to maintain and excel at what they do. Ask yourself and " How many of us think they are creative thinkers?"

Creative thinking is a big game changer in society. Most of us consider it to be talent one is born with. Good! if you are born with it but what if you are not. Can you still become creative if your job demands so? The answer is "YES". To answer this, I thought of investigating what triggers creative thinking and found some useful common facts.

Imagination: It is the most powerful tool that makes human species far superior to other living beings. It is seed of disruptive technologies in future. Most successful people imagine where they want to go and they start acting like an actor. All discoveries and inventions were made and evolved with imagination. All future disruptions will first take their place in imagination.

Act the role you want to see your self and journey starts now. Child has beautiful imagination and it eventually fades as he grows Mostly imagination is used to harbour trouble scenes and problems which in itself is quite negative.Imaginative child in schools is often taken as not paying attention and daydreamer. The technology that I am using to interact with you all is first built in imagination.

Only two to three percent of whole population knows to use it. An average person is in rat race to make their life safe until death. In fact everyone is creative and no one is more creative than other. The key differentiation that exist in some who have chosen to exercise their creative faculty to a greater degree than others.

Visualise your dreams to program your mind to think out of the box in the world of divergent ideas. Build beautiful images in your mind, the life you wish to live and just anchor these pictures there in your imagination and act on them. Keep your imagination alive and you are going to live your best life.

Creativity is infinite only when you realise it. Act now to change the way to see the future.

Training Recipe- Consultative Selling

Consultative Selling

Sales plays pivotal role in demand and supply framework. A typical sales happen when customer received what he pays for. However consultative selling is more of understanding customer issues before tailoring solution. Think how patient consults doctor for any health related issue. It works in the same way. Here salesman act more of consultant than normal salesman. He solves customer problems and create delight. Consultative approach is very focused and result oriented. They can be trained to improve the financial health of the organisation. Don’t get surprised as they are long term value builder. Play them as commando’s of sale when organisation need sales badly.

Definition Consultative Sales: “Consultative sales is a selling method in which the salesperson spends time with the customer to understand the problem the customer is trying to solve and then recommends a solution.

Tools of consultant

Problem detector: Probing questions are problem detecting tool for sales consultant They put customer through some question till they understand customer context and requirement.

Customised solution: All customers needs are not alike so why do we offer same solutions to all customers. Most of salesman play robotic sales script even before listening customer. Instead sales consultant offer solutions after understanding customer need.

Insights: Sales consultant offers valuable insights for the benefit of customers and organisations. They are very focused and result oriented.

Empathy:It is always a good practice to put themselves in customer shoes. This make their body language more positive and assertive . 

"So the real art and craft of sales lies in consultative selling"

Self-Image

Self-image

Is it critical ?

Self image is a picture of your thoughts about self. As seeing is believing, your beliefs are what you see yourself as.Ask these questions to yourself and check your state of mind

if you ask yourself that "How do I look like?" then all your happiness fades away(Check)

If you ask yourself that "How do I feel about myself" then confidence fades away(Check)

Imagine you are among audience and anchor call you on stage? and voices in your head says what if people started laughing at you.

I can impress many if I look like him/her. It shows discontentment with your present state.

Now start questioning your inner voice.

1. a)  Why do I believe in the stories that has not happened yet?
2. b)   Do I have battles in mind frequently?

Start questioning your inner voice and mind. You may love to connect with the people but it is more important to connect to self.There is a well known thought " If you want to correct others then correct yourself first".I was determined to do self improvement. Like others I was too blind towards my error spots.

So I decided to take feedback which undoubtedly helped me overcome my self gaps. I learned to magnify my strengths, incredibly this broke my limited self belief system. I gained inner peace and motivation.

During my dialogue with self, I started liking the other you in me. I gave him freedom from past traumas and healed his deep emotional scars.

I started sending him to places where I wish to see myself. I saw people applauding him. My tattered inner image was healed and repaired, I see myself as trustworthy. My insight and intuition eventually helped me gain new heights.

Mind shift happens when you start believing. If someone shares an idea with you and you do not wish to see yourself in that idea, you simply nod or agree but not start believing, but if you surrender and start believing the mind shift happens. Our goal is to strengthen self belief system.

Positive self image is an asset and it can get you what want. We see our self image in mirror, right? Mirror inside our mindset is even more powerful. You can command it to see anything you wish. You just need to learn how to harness its potential by programming it right.

Few interesting and abstract ideas of how mind actually feeds the information Our mind is good enough to understand visuals of all events. We create our picture in mind and call it self image. Our brain has two important parts 1) conscious part 2) sub conscious part

conscious or the subconscious mind does not know the difference between positive and negative energy. Conscious and subconscious brain acts on master-slave pattern. It is just like Mahout controlling elephant. Elephant is mightier than the Mahout. Still Mahout commands the animal. Visualising success helps in achieving success. This is key to mind programming.

This is how conscious part of  brain can tame subconscious one. Once the CEO of the anonymous company gathered all executives in big hall and announced that he has found the enemy responsible for company's losses. Since this enemy is responsible for all chaos and distress. If anyone wishes to see the enemy,he needs to visit room no. 208. Don't worry this enemy is so well trapped that he cannot run, assured the CEO. But he also cautioned everyone, not to share the enemy’s name to other people.

In utter suspense, when people started visiting room no 208, they saw nothing but a bright self image in the mirror. "When biggest enemy is within us." Most of the self created problems are deep rooted in self image. Diagnosing is critical in treating diseases likewise understanding problem is important before you solve it. Meet yourself. Most of us feel ashamed to share truths about their lives. Ask yourself, " How honest am I with myself." Why do I lie, why do I want to be like others and if I am not then I feel jealous.Have you ever seen the other you in you? He is good at many thingswhich you never seen as proud. Our self evaluation is just based on our thoughts. So connect with self to raise your self awareness. Visualizing thoughts: Mind understands language of visuals. When you have a positive thought increase the image size and in case of negative thought reduce the size to nought. Spend time with the people who make you feel good. Add your favourite colors, sound and fragrances to your best memories.

Enlarge the canvas of your imagination and paint good events with bright colors. Erase your bad memories. Observe our mind is in better state now.

You may attend some good training program to increase your self awareness and gain some experiential learning. Now, write 10 things about yourself that you admire the most. Say those goods things to yourself in form of positive affirmation. Repeat when you find appropriate space and time. 

When you start learning about self then you can defeat the stubborn negative voices in your head. Conquering negative voices in your head will embark you to victory.

Training Recipe-Effective Communication Skills

Communication in Prehistoric ages

During the prehistoric ages when the languages were not so perfect communication happened between human and environment. The origin of speech was dated back 500,000 years ago approximately. Man used symbols on wall of caves, used fire & smoke, drum beats etc to communicate.

With the advent of languages and telecom, there was a paradigm shift as tools of communication improved manifolds.

Define Communication

Communication is the exchange of information between source and destination. The source and destination can be speaker and listener or sender and receiver. It is both way process or duplex in nature.

Communication is the key

" Why Leaders lead.?"

The prowess of communication is so much that makes an ordinary team member - a leader. A leader is so adept in communication that he binds all his team members personally as well as professionally. The art of effective communication is quite subtle. An effective leader maintain the balance between his statements and execution.

Eight traits of a good communicator

Connect with the source: A good communicator knows many verbal and non verbal ways to welcome audience. Such a welcome note please the audience. it also helps in

building rapport. Such an initiative in communication melts the ice and create warmth.

Listener first:: Always a good practice to implement. Listeners do most of their speaking job by lending their ears to speakers. This is appreciated by universal creator, this is why we all have two ears and one mouth. This is how nature validates the rule of speaking.

Understands first: Understand your audience before you make them understand.

Body language: Expert communicator are always a great face reader. Practicing face reading one can easily identify the acceptance level of one's thought among audience.

Judging acceptance: When audience do not respond but react to speaker's note, acceptance become low. Speaker conversation could be annoying as it can be one way such a communication is usually called monologue.

Pacing:Speaker should pace suitably according to level of audience. As an example a speaker elaborating on some advanced topics in field of engineering with fifth grade students is not an efficient communication. The message will bounce back as student can not assimilate such information. Instead such information would be gem for the Doctorate level students. So pacing is the ability of a speaker to match the understanding of audience.

Simplify your message: The wise men believe" It is difficult to be simple and it is easy to be difficult". Avoid jargons, mnemonics and abbreviation until it is absolutely necessary. Speak to express not to impress. Folks started using jargons to impress audience thereby losing direction and communication path.

Story telling :Story helps audience to build relevance and correlation with their own lives. Stories delivers the message powerfully yet beautifully. Stories can inspire and create more values than monotonous lectures. A good story always carries some message for everyone.

Training Recipe - Team work

Team Work

Authority- Biased: Now days organisation are plagued with Authority-Biased  team work. In such team upper strata of work force creates unusual work pressure on their juniors.

Such a phenomenon leads to unequal distribution of work. To many employees work means bearing burden of their seniors colleagues. Fig(A) depicts how person of high authority sits on the talent and aspiration of his juniors.

Frustration and stress due to work pressure leads to high attrition. Authority- biased in upper strata of workforce creates divide in the organisation.

Favouritism and lack of transparency are most nurtured parasites of such team work.

An Ideal team Fig(B)

Authority- Unbiased: Here the captain of the event participate with fellow members. Apart from doing their designated job, the upper strata of work force involves themselves with ground workforce. With high intuition and rich proactive behaviour they earn respect rather than commanding respect. Authority-Unbiased is framework of winning teams. 

A conflict in team Fig(C)

Team Conflict: Growth declines when team develops cracks. Most of the friction happens due to egocentric behaviour of employees. Attitudinal issues in employees, cultivate behaviour imbalances that further negate any positive development.

Fig(C) depicts how constructive work in an
organisation is nullified with negative or destructive workforce. In such a situation although lot of work is visible but no growth is attained.

Ref Fig(C) how could a car  move forward if team is not unified in principle. A union in an organisation goes on strike due to friction of behaviour or processes. 

Pin pricking some one else inflated balloon filled with ego is never been a good idea. Instead prick your own balloon.

Stagnant Growth: Think if all managers in organisation start competing to show their supremacy over others. In doing so the processes are ripped apart and individualism arises. Instead anyone who tries to bind people together to achieve one goal is no other than true leader. For all leaders this is worth emulating.

Enlightening Mind with Yoga Fig(D)

Reflection: The successful leaders  have knack of identifying their blind spots. They are always open to feedback and criticism. 

Keeping calm always leads to good decision making. A man in Fig(D) is in fact reflecting before going to sleep. This practice prepare him to stay mindful and stable for next day.

His work life balance also improves with practice. During regular introspection at the end of the day, a man develops habit to identifying and correcting his blind spots.  He see himself as more proactive and responsive than ever.

Under the guidance of an expert if a team member start using Reflection as a tool for growth. His blind spots starts becoming his strength spots and he starts transforming.

We all have blind spots and realising them is the prerequisite stage for correction. Unfortunately culture of blaming others prevails in most societies. If leaders cultivate this habit of reflection they can kill almost all of their personal and professional
blind spots. They, thus becomes the path breaker for their team
members. Self correction helps correcting others.