Regenerate!

More and more senior corporate executives are undergoing Learning Leadership programs. Every program involves a set of well structured workouts.

A senior executive said that “The workouts seemed to be simple at first. But as I started putting down my answers, I realized that I need to think more. They turned out to be more difficult than I thought.”

That is true. Most executives say that. The Learning Leadership workouts seem to be simple because they avoid jargon and the questions are straightforward. But the questions also make one think about fundamental aspects of the way one interacts, deals with values and feelings, handles work processes, and many more aspects of work & life.

By doing workouts one ’sees’ and ‘examines’ what one has thought. This makes one think deeper. That’s why the workouts seem difficult.

The Learning Leadership’s executive coach can also ’see’ and ‘examine’ one’s thinking. The coach can then ask more questions or suggest different approaches to thinking. This is really invaluable but requires further efforts.

There is one more reason why the seemingly easy workouts turn out to be difficult -one is required to come up specific action items (own agenda) to deal with the situations captured in the workouts. Change is possible only through actions. Bringing about change is leadership, is it not? Learning Leadership is not easy, but it is worthwhile.

Your executive coach is there to see you through.

Sign up now if you haven’t done it yet and see for yourself the how much you learn and directly use it when you lead.

Learning Leadership skills or improving them requires important changes in the ‘wiring’ of our brains. Thinking like walking style  is driven by habits formed.

Some of the important changes required in thinking of leaders are:

-capturing reality comprehensively and  while avoiding various biases and pre-conceived notions. By habit we take a very narrow and biased view.

-zero based thinking or thinking based on first principles. But we find it easier start with some ‘known’ base and come to conclusions fast.

-developing clarity and conviction about values. We are in agreement with values in general but we are used to applying them real situations.

-being in touch with own and others feelings and generating energy from them. Our education (most of it) is heavily biased towards left brain thinking. Our right brains need to be wired in!

-ability to dream big

-communicate and communicate. We always underestimate this need.

-bias for action.

These thinking habits can be formed by ‘thinking’ in above ways in relation to own work.

Miskin sent me an intersting article on unlearning & learning

This article says that generally unlearning (not really unlearning) happens through non-use and for this new thinking habits need to be formed and practiced. Very relevant.

Learning Leadership programs and coaching help learners in all this. Coaching is particularly useful since only a neutral and knowledgeable person can help one with observing and correcting thinking habits.

Take a look.

Many thanks Miskin for a nice article.

Yesterday I met a bright young man. He is remarkable in many ways. An NID (National Institute of Design) alumnus,  he runs a small outfit for conducting research in customer experiences. He has as his mentor (sort of) a senior business leader. This mentor of his had asked him to get in touch with me regarding some business idea that he had. ” Meet Hemant, he has done some very intersting work in user interfaces design ..”, his mentor had told him.

The young man said that he was approached by a reputed and well established company (not in customer research space) for setting up their customer research group. “should I take this up?”, he asked me.

Before this, he had told me his story. He wanted to be an artist, but his parents ‘pushed’ him into NID. As if that can be done! Any ways, once out of NID, he discovered that ‘design’ is subjective and clients put up only that much money as much they can without worrying about returns. He found that while many design firms talk about ‘researching customers’ mostly the design that they like are back fitted into the ‘research’.

He said that clients treat research as real and are willing to pay for it if done properly. That is the reason he focused on research.

Now about his proposal. I told him, ’since you believe in research and clients pay for it, the proposal should be pursued. ‘However, ‘ I cautioned him, ‘It will be good idea to decide what all you will not do and that can include design itself…. Also please find out whether the company is serious about it and that it is not just someone’s whim.’

He nodded.

You would have noticed many remarkable things about this young man. Remarkable indeed.

Think of the company which approached him. Isn’t the company also remarkable?

That is the point.  People like this young man and the company which approached him embody the changes.