Change Management

“People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they don’t find them, they make them!”
These words of George Bearnard Shaw are more relevant today than ever before. In the continuous changing society, it is imperative to rely on knowledge, process and technology – all three to keep pace with the change. Leaders must keep in mind the following aspects for effectively ensuring and properly implementing change in the organisations they lead. These are:

1. Innovation: The leader should have the the ability to innovate. This requires imagination, knowledge and perspective, and a thorough understanding of the organisation he leads.

Classifications of Personal Involvement – DH101: Fall 2014

2. Personal Involvement: It is necessary for the leader to be personally involved for the efficacy of the strategy to bring about change. He can not carry out the same by proxy.

3. The Leader should know what needs to be done in general, though not in detail. This should be true at every stage of change management.

4. The Leader must be able to deal with ambiguity and be willing to take the required risks. Not taking any risks is the biggest risk.

5. Above all, the leader must understand and correctly assess how much the organisation can change and at what speed.
Satish Kakri, Director – Nimble Foundation

Seven Secrets of Sensational Success

Before talking about the secret to sensational success or even outlining a formula, it’s important to define success and just what it means to you. Everyone has their own individual definition of success. But there’s absolutely no way we can talk about the secret to success without first creating some definition of what success actually means to us.

Success in life has nothing to do with where you start. Sure, people who start advantageously in one area or another might have a leg up, but it has almost nothing to do with where they end up in life. Sensational success transcends circumstances.

Many people talk about success. They say they want to be successful at something. But, when prodded, they don’t provide specifics because they haven’t really created those specifics in their minds. Sure, they might want to earn more money, drive a nicer car, get a better job, or travel to some far-off destination, but they haven’t set specific and measurable goals that are written down on paper.

Secret No.1


Habits become hard to break to because they are deeply wired by constant repetition into our brains. Bad habits interrupt your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. They jeopardize your health — both mentally and physically. And they waste your time and energy. But habits are also patterns of behavior and it is the breaking of patterns that are the key to breaking the habits themselves. Usually there is a clear trigger to starts the pattern. Sometimes the triggers are emotional — the wanting a drink or cigarette or nail-biting driven by stress. Other times the trigger is more simply situational and environmental: You see the TV and couch as soon as you hit the front door, and now your brain connects the dots, and eating dinner in front of the TV on the couch is not far behind. More often it is a combination of both — the mix of social anxiety and the party environment leads to your heavier drinking.       

Choose a habit you care about doing regularly. Don’t worry about whether other people think it’s important. For instance, don’t try to exercise every day because you think you should. It won’t be long before your motivation for doing that habit will wane and you’ll be relying on willpower alone to get you through (not a great idea—we only have so much willpower, so you want to find a way to build habits without relying on it too much).                 

If you choose, on the other hand, to walk your dog every day or to play outside with your kids, those habits might come with a lot more motivation for your personally than going to the gym. And yet, they happen to include some exercise. See how that works?                      

 Find something you’re motivated to do. You’ll need that motivation to keep you going, since habits can be an uphill battle until they become ingrained.           

 The more often you do your habit, the stronger it will become. Each repetition enforces it as a behavior and strengthens the pathways in your brain related to it. Eventually, all that repetition makes the behavior automatic, something you do without thinking about it, which is when we call it a habit.                   

 If you’re only doing something once or twice a week, it’s going to take a long time for that behavior to develop into a habit. You’re spending more of your week not doing it.                

 Try to find a habit you can track every day, or every weekday at least. The more you do it, the faster you’ll develop it into a real habit.                 

If you aim to run 5km every day after not exercising for the past two years, you probably won’t keep that up for long. To keep on track with your new habit you need to choose something achievable so you’ll always feel that if you make the effort you can do it.

The last thing you want is ability getting in the way when you’re already battling with your willpower.

If you need to choose something tiny to start with, go for it. Better a tiny habit that you do every day than a   huge one you hardly ever complete.

  Secret No.2


Habits can be difficult to change, but it is possible to replace them with new behaviors. When you replace bad habits with activities that focus on that worthwhile 20 percent, you’ll find yourself much more successful in the same amount of–or perhaps even less–time per week.                   


People will always want to schedule meetings. It makes them feel more productive, but if there is nothing to gain, it ends up being just a big fat waste of time. Know what you’re getting into before stepping foot into a meeting before you just waste time talking about what could be or what could have been.               

Getting rid of bad people is probably even more crucial than bringing in great people. If you don’t get the wrong people out quickly, you’re only doing half your job. It might sound like a rationalization, but it is quite likely that you’re doing a favor to this employee if you make that decision sooner, and let them go. It can be beneficial to everyone involved, with no hard feelings.                            

Cut those customers who always want something but don’t pay. The ones that don’t value what you have to offer, and constantly question your prices. If they don’t value you now, they never will, and you’ll constantly be justifying the work you do, no matter how cheap.                         

Cut them loose. Give them the heave-ho. tell them goodbye and never look back. Only work with clients who appreciate your value.                          

We have been trained to look for shortcuts. Copy-pasting, plagiarizing, repurposing, skimming, the list goes on and on. But in my experience, shortcuts always lead to failed projects and unhappy clients.                          

Hopefully, someone will catch the mistakes inherent in shortcuts and make you fix it, or start over from scratch. You spend more time fixing the mistake than you saved by taking the shortcut; if it’s the who client catches these mistakes, not only will it cost you time and money, but also their respect and confidence.                           

Do you come into the office with a plan? Do you have an agenda for that day or week? Do you know what items you need to tackle today and in what order          

If not, then congratulations: you’re “winging it”.                   

To “wing” something means to enter any situation without a plan of action. When you “wing” your day, you get pulled into every meeting, and you usually respond to every call.                       

By starting your day with a plan of your priorities, you don’t waste time, and you know what items take priority; not only do the most important tasks get accomplished first, but you are able to finish more tasks overall because you waste less time leaving items half-finished and coming back to them later.

 Secret No. 3


Sure, tactics like maintaining “to-do” lists (or “done” lists), setting goals, and decreasing the amount and time of meetings can all help. But really, these are all tactics that fall into a strategical category of leveraging our time.

Leverage is an awesome force–it allows us to multiply our abilities by applying a little pressure to something.

What a sharp contrast from our modern day! Now, words are cheap: they are everywhere, constantly bombarding us with useless information and trivial tweets. Heartfelt letters to a lover are rare. More often, we see texts sent with emoticons and mutilated misspellings.

The sad truth is, few of us place value in the words we speak. We open our mouths to hear the music of our own voices, rarely considering the worth of what we are saying.

A man’s reputation can be ruined by loose lips. Just look at politics. The more we say, the more likely we are to say something stupid. The sheer volume of words issuing from our mouths statistically invites idiocy. We all have had moments when we’ve made everyone laugh a few times, but it all stops when we say something off-putting. The humor quickly evaporates, leaving us with reddened faces.

Especially when dealing with our bosses or members of the opposite sex, we can be tempted to avoid awkward silence by filling it with even more awkward chatter. This can inevitably lead to saying something regrettable and possibly offensive.

The less we talk, the more we observe! Our idle words that flow from our mouths with little consequence, are often the outpouring of our minds chattering away. When we stop talking, restraining our words, we will find that that the voice inside also grows silent. This allows us to get out of the world in our heads, and look at the world around us, seeing things that we might not have noticed before.

On the range, inattention to the world around you was dangerous. The very land itself was ready to kill you at any moment. If you were idly talking about nothing with your guard down, you wouldn’t have noticed a hostile enemy creeping up behind you with knife in hand.

While we don’t necessarily need to be worried about being scalped at the office, being absorbed in our world is still dangerous. It can range from not seeing the car pulling out in front of you or failing to observe a girl is interested in you. When we pull ourselves from the constant flow of words in our minds and out of our mouths, it frees us to really see what is going on in our lives.

When speaking to others, it is good to keep what you are saying in the right tone. Telling jokes while attending a funeral isn’t often a great idea.

Is there impact to what you are about to say? When you speak, you should have a better reason for what you say than, “I wanted to.” Ideally, everything you say should have a purpose or reason. Maybe your friend is feeling down and you know that he loves a good joke. Your girlfriend has had a bad day, so you tell her something encouraging that you love about her. The goal is to reduce the amount of unnecessary things you say, because it’s usually the unnecessary words we later regret.

No doubt, at times a cowboy would give someone a piece of his mind, regardless of whether or not it hurt the other’s feelings. This was done with courage because it could easily provoke a gunfight and had more behind it than mere spite. Today, we don’t often come to blows or gunfire over insults, but that doesn’t mean we should weigh the consequences less. Speaking the truth hurts at times. Saying off-handedly to your wife or girlfriend that the dinner she made was OK may not seem harmful; but the comment may hurt them more than you realize.

At the end of the day, we don’t have much more than our reputations. A Cowboy certainly didn’t. We should take care that our words don’t reflect badly on ourselves. The easiest way for a powerful man to seem foolish is to run his mouth off, revealing to all how little control he actually has over himself. What we choose to say often reveals our character.

Secret No.4


The problem with working harder is that it simply doesn’t work. The human brain isn’t designed to operate at full power all day long. Rather than helping you get closer to your goals, trying to focus for extended periods of time can fry your mental circuits, making it impossible to think clearly. As a result, your decision-making and creativity suffer, and your work slows to a crawl. Focus also involves an understanding of what is worthy of your distraction.

Many people wish they had more time to do all they want to do, but they’re ‘just so busy’.

Keeping a time log is a simple and surprisingly effective way to boost your productivity, get what needs to be done actually done, and realize just how ‘busy’ you’ve really been.

In many respects, it’s the first step you need to take because it makes you aware of just how you’re spending your time — the key to managing yourself more effectively.

Just by making the effort to record and analyze how you spend your day will itself raise awareness of your time and how you’re using it.

The time you invest to do it will almost certainly be paid back to you many times over as you become more conscious of how much your time matters?

Keeping a personal time management log helps you identify what you’re spending too long on… or not doing enough!

It’s surprising just how disruptive and destructive a break in focus can be for your productivity.

Often, it’s only when you look back that you can see just how much time was wasted on low value activities that you could easily outsource to others, or not get involved in at all.

Spot patterns that highlight what times of day you’re most likely to be productive, and also when you’re less so. Knowing your patterns of productivity is useful for planning.

Secret No.5


Perspective has many definitions, such as the ability to understand what is important and what isn’t, and the capacity to view things in their true relationship or relative importance. If you are only thinking about problems and sorrows, that’s exactly what are you going to attract in your life. If you change your perspective and start thinking about solutions and opportunities, you are sending vibrations to attract an abundance of them.

Are you having trouble looking for the silver lining? Feeling burned out can negatively affect your life as well as your career.

Try writing a page or two on what you would like to do with the rest of your life. Don’t worry about grammar, practicalities or priorities. Just create that dream list.

Record your thoughts, feelings and hopes, or tell them to a trusted friend. With someone to witness them, you’ll feel responsible for making some changes.

Secret No.6


It’s nice to have goals. The act of setting goals along makes you much more likely to achieve them.

But having goals isn’t enough. It’s far too easy to jot down some goals that make you feel good about yourself, only to then get distracted and forget about them altogether.

The key to achieving your goals is really simple. It comes down to aligning your actions with your goals — every single day.

If you want to lose weight, you need to eat better. If you want to build muscle, you need to lift weights. If you want to write a book, you need to start writing.

And if you want to grow your business, you need to start doing some marketing.

Goals are helpful to direct your steps. But more important than goals is the strong reason “why” you work for those goals.

When you know the deep reason why you seek for them, you’ll be more motivated to push through.

You’ll intentionally seek for opportunities that align with your “why”. You’ll filter your actions that do not support it. You’ll start your day with clarity. It’s never impossible for you to enjoy life and make a living at the same time. You can work hard or do more and still feel fulfilled.

You lose your journey to a fulfilling life when you settle your eyes on the metrics of others.

When you examine yourself, you slowly find out why you do certain actions.

When employees don’t know their company’s mission, vision or core values, they are left with a lack of direction. Instead, they need to be aware of how their projects fit into the overall organizational framework and how their specific contributions impact company strategy.

The key here is alignment. Employees at all levels need to be aligned on their companies’ larger goals, and those goals need to be broken down to a smaller scale to ensure that people remain engaged in day-to-day operations.

Managers who consistently provide feedback can help keep employees focused on their performance. Feedback acts as a reminder. Without it, employees get too caught up in their daily tasks and lose sight of the bigger picture.

Employees see the value in feedback, as well. Work board found that 72 percent of employees surveyed thought their performance would improve with more feedback. Job feedback should focus on growth and forward thinking by and how employees can learn from their mistakes.  

Additionally, employers should seek feedback from their staff. If employees feel that they aren’t informed properly or are missing information, they should be able to speak up.

If, for example, a tenured employee finds new directives to be off track, he or she should be able to express concerns and ask how a particular project contributes to the overall organizational goals.

Employees should know their role in each of their projects. To help them do this, you can use visuals to explain the company’s overall strategy and how each role advances toward its goals. Some project-management platforms provide real-time goal-tracking and present it in charts and graphs to demonstrate individual and group progress.

It’s also important to assign the right tasks to the right people. Use feedback and performance reviews to understand each employee’s level of competency and what his or her strengths are, to maintain and even improve productivity. If particular employees excel at closing sales deals, put them on the front line on client presentations.

Tasks, further, should challenge an employee to grow. Consistent feedback lets employers know their employees’ plan to evolve, which in turn informs the assignment of projects. If, for example, a tenured employee wants to expand his or her skill set and learn more about research and development, the employer can integrate that individual’s role with that department.

Engagement is essential to keep a company growing and reaching for its vision. When employees aren’t recognized, they lose track of their purpose. But in contrast, when wins are celebrated, employees want to win more.  

A simple expression of gratitude, such as a thank-you note or gift, shows employees that management is paying attention and notices that they are consistently working hard and succeeding at their individual goals.

When recognizing top talent, explain how employees’ efforts are pushing the company toward large-scale goals. Show how their performance is meeting and exceeding expectations to encourage more hard work and dedication.

Secret No.7


It’s the easiest thing in the world to give up from a failure. The only way to push on is if you have the true burning desire to succeed, to not be moved or dissuaded from your goals.

What is success to you? How to be successful in life?

To some, when they think of success, they imagine wealth; others want power; some just want to make a positive impact on the world.

All of these are perfectly valid, indeed success is a concept that means different things to different people. Though no matter what success is to you, it almost certainly isn’t something will come easily.

There are countless guides and books to being successful, however, as success is personal and unique to each individual. The advice contained in these books can often not be relevant. Therefore following the advice of a single individual can often be unhelpful.

With this in mind, considering the advice of a great many people, people whose ideas of success were different both to each other, and quite possibly, to you can be a good alternative.

Understand that life is the ultimate video game: It keeps leveling up, and you have to level up with it. Do something well enough that you make it look easy. Even if it takes 10,000 hours to get there, it’ll be worth it in the end. Figure out what your values are and stick with them. Kindness is a scarce and valuable resource. Cherish it.

Fear is the number one thing holding you back from what you want to do. Be brave enough to follow your heart. Not enough people will be.

Perspective comes when you’re not in the middle of the situation. The best view of the NYC skyline is in New Jersey, not on Fifth Avenue.

Trust your gut. When your spidery sense is tingling, pay close attention. Somehow it knows better than you do when something is right or wrong.

You will never know how much space you take up in someone else’s world.

Wounding people binds them to you more deeply than kindness. Just look at the Joker and Harley Quinn.

With that said, try to leave people better off than you found them. Leaving them worse off will have repercussions for them far beyond just you, touching everyone they interact with in the future (i.e., if you’re the first ex-boyfriend who broke her heart, she will be guarded around every man she meets after you. If you’re that first terrible boss at work, he will be jaded for the rest of his career. Just something to think about.)

Try not to use people as a means to an end. They can tell. So can you.

Most of the time, people are not trying to hurt you on purpose. Usually their actions are driven by self-interest, not malice.

Give people a second chance, if they deserve one.

Insecurity is a bitch; it bleeds into everything and can come out in unexpected ways. Be careful with your insecurities and especially careful with those of others.

The easiest way to be happy is to not be outcome-dependent.

The best relationships are like fine wine: They get better and better over time.

Whenever you can, pay it forward.

You have to have a reason for being. If your why is strong enough, then your how will fall into place. You will figure out a way.

If you’re wondering why it’s so important to do what you love, it’s because work takes up so much of your life. The vast majority of your most productive waking hours will be spent at work, so in order to love your life, you have to love what you do for a living.

7 Steps for Self Development!

Why Self-Development is so important today?

In the competitive environment of modern times it’s necessary to continuously enhance your skill. In today’s life the modern man finds himself trapped in a concrete jungle, living a rat race. This is a life full of stress, tensions and anxieties to be the star performer at the workplace, and to be perceived as an ideal son, husband and father at home.
In this continuing madness, he tends to loose his sense of self and finds himself loosing control over his live, powerless as he is to take corrective and remedial action. Such inability to do what is right and bring things back on track is largely caused by the lack of realization of what is wrong and what needs to be done.
The answer to this problem is Self Development.
But what is self-development? As the term suggested it is bringing about all round improvement in one’s own self. A plain dictionary meaning of the term by itself would bring cold comfort to someone who really needs self-development.
We therefore need to understand what self-development is by understanding what it implies. Self-development can be best understood by examining its components. These are enumerated one by one: 

  • Self-awareness
  • Self-knowledge
  • Communication
  • Self potential
  • Health – physical and psychological
  • Social status
  • Social relations
  • Personality

1. Self-awareness: What is self-awareness?
Self awareness is the understanding of where one finds himself. What does he considers as his duty every moment of the day? How is he supposed to utilize each waking moment of his time? What should he say? How and to whom? A high sense of self awareness is seen in person who is proactive in thought, alert in mind and body and energetic in action. Such is person stays ahead in every situation. It’s necessary to improve self-awareness to meet the daily challenges.

2. Self-knowledge:
Self-knowledge flows from self-awareness. Improving self-knowledge should be a continuous activity. It enables a person to truly understand himself – his role and contribution to society. Self-knowledge is also a self-appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the personality and character on an ongoing basis. Self-knowledge is also the knowledge of the inner universe of an individual – the knowledge of which is vital to successfully navigate your life in the society.

3. Communication is of critical importance.
Communication is the vehicle for building social relations. This was true in the days when technology and internet did not exist; but is has become even more true today when we are living in a deeply interconnected world. Communication has various aspects these are:

Thoughts and Ideas: Communication originates in the mind in the form of a thought which is translated into an idea to be expressed. A creative mind is fertile ground for positive expression, whereas a negative mind is minefield of hate filled negative communication.

Voice & Speech: The voice represents the emotion and the level of self-confidence of the individual.  The speech represents the spoken words manifested by the eloquence or lack of it in expressing the ideas of the mind.

Morale, Self-confidence & Self Esteem, These have an impact on your communication.
What is morale? A high morale refers to a very positive state of mind of a person which is ever challenged into seeking increasing difficult tasks to achieve. Low morale represents the opposite where all round pessimism pervades; and where procrastination and dreariness are the norm.
An individual’s morale depends upon his self-confidence. The self-confidence in turn depends upon the self-esteem of the individual. A person with low sense of self-esteem has little self-confidence to do the simplest of tasks, while claiming both ownership and responsibility for the same. On the other hand a person with a high sense of self-esteem always lunges forward, taking bold and calculated risks. Such a person always stretches himself in a quest to continuously improve his productivity, and sense of self-fulfillment in his life and in his work. Building or renewing identity is very important, today.

4. Potential needs to be fully explored. That is the first step for fulfilling aspirations.
Each one of us has a latent, immense and untapped potential which sadly few of us achieve. The main reason for remaining underachievers is equally to lack of self-belief in our potential as also the knowledge that such a potential even exists. Self-development really starts where we become aware of our immense potential and start taking positive steps to tap it and creatively utilize it.

5. Good Health plays an important role in all aspects of life.
Health has two aspects – physical and psychological. Good health commonly is commonly understood only as a state where the body remains free from ailments. There is general ignorance about the impact of an healthy mind (free of negative thoughts and emotions) on the physical health of an individual. It is often said a fit mind in a fit body. However, the reverse is equally true – a fit mind ensures that the body remains fit and free from many ‘lifestyle’ diseases.

6. Social Status and Social Relation:
Development of the social status refers to the upward move of individual on the social ladder. The craving for a high social status is considered the highest of the famous Manslow’s personal self actualization hierarchy. A high social status represents his desire for self actualization. Maslow describes this level as the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can be.
Social relations determine the social status of a person. At the same time the person’s social status also determines his social relations. Development of the ability to develop social relations gives an individual the power to increase his ever widening circle of social contacts. This in turn enhances his power, his prestige, sense of self worth and most importantly his social status.

7. Create a Power Packed Personality: 
Personality Development seems to be the buzz word these days. While everyone likes to talk about it, few seem to truly understand. Development of one’s personality is more than adherence to a mere set of guidelines to be followed in terms of dos and don’ts. Personality has several important components that need to be understood and developed. These include:

Posture: An erect posture signifies confidence, a positive forthright attitude, and a fit body that consciously receives large amount s of life giving oxygen into the lungs.

Body Language: This represents the non verbal communication that translates and conveys more than 80% of the message and is often more important than the spoken words.

Thoughts and self-belief: Each individual creates his own universe through self-belief about himself and thoughts about others. Such thoughts and self beliefs either fashion a mind full of prejudice, hate and envy at the negative level or love, empathy and positivity on the other.

Attitude: It is said our attitude determines our altitude. Development of the attitude involves moving away from being negative about persons, and events and seeing some good in everything perceived as bad.

The above stated aspects of self development are by no means an exhaustive list of what one must do for oneself. At the same, these are not water tight compartments that need to be looked in isolation. Often development of a single area can have greater than proportionate effect in other areas. So what one essentially needs to do it to focus and try to better understand each and consciously inculcate the habit to bring about self improvements howsoever small for the overall objective of self development.
Each of these areas will be covered in detail in forthcoming presentations.

Thanks for reading.

How to become a motivational speaker?

You must have a passion and identify it clearly!

1. Develop your passion by doing all what it takes. Strong Passion alone will make a strong Foundation.

Motivational speakers can deliver presentations and speeches on any topic. However, what counts is your passion for the subject you are addressing. Become a motivational speaker by identifying your message and your audience, brushing up on your public speaking skills and promoting your speaking abilities.
Motivational speakers don’t have to complete a specific degree or training program to prepare for their careers, but they must have a unique perspective to share and a talent for communicating and engaging with an audience. Successful speakers recommend starting out by developing your unique idea or passion. Determine what expertise, experiences, and perspectives you can share, and what type of audience can benefit the most from it. While you may have expertise and experience to share on a specific topic, you may still need to do some independent research or talk with other experts to build a stronger base of knowledge in your field.

2. Content is the King. Never undermine its importance! The internet gives you opportunities to test your content before you get on stage. Most people, however, worry that no one will hire them if they give away their best stuff for free.
But if you inspire thousands–or perhaps even millions–of people online, you’ll attract attention and people will want to hear more from you.

3. Innovation is the key for developing new ideas!

You won’t become a successful public speaker by rehashing old ideas in the same way as everyone else. You need to develop fresh, relevant content that people want to hear.
Invest a lot of time into thinking about your message and how you can deliver it in a way that will inspire, motivate, and captivate an audience.
Identify Your Ideal Audience

It can be tempting to think your message will resonate with everyone. But, the truth is, a message that’s too generic won’t leave a big impact on anyone.
So rather than decide you’re going to speak about sales or that you’re going to motivate all business leaders, narrow down your niche. Identify the types of groups who you really want to reach so you can create content that will resonate with them.
Understand the people you will target as audience members before you get too far into the development of your career. Different groups of people need to be communicated with in different ways.

4. A story which is relavant to your statement adds colour to the picture!

Humans relate to stories. We connect to stories. Funny stories. Sad stories. Inspirational stories. We love stories. So tell them. Lots of them. Stories will keep your audience engaged and are also easier for you to memorize.
Gain Speaking Skills Having good content is only part of the battle. The way you deliver your message is more important than the words you use.
Even if you think you’re a rock star speaker already, there’s a good chance you have some bad habits (from swaying back and forth while you talk to using filler words like “um” more than you know).
Join a public speaking group, take a college communications class, or hire a speaking coach to help you develop better communication habits. A few little tweaks to your delivery can make or break your career as a speaker.
Also, record yourself giving a speech and watch it back. It can be painful to watch yourself but it’s important to learn more about your hand gestures, body language, and speaking habits so you can improve.

5. Humour is the spice of life, but it also plays the role of salt while Speaking in Public!

You don’t have to be a comedian to become a motivational speaker, but humor makes a massive difference. Humor works to endear you to an audience, but it’s also a big differentiating factor in the speaking market. Many of the top speakers in the industry use humor in their talks.

6. Let the audience also participate; Allow the audience a chance to laugh!

When you tell a joke or deliver a punch line, give the audience time to laugh. Sometimes speakers like to rush to the next point, but don’t do that. You need to give the audience a chance to respond to what you just said (in this case to laugh), but also if you rush on to the next though while the room is still laughing, nobody will hear what you’re saying.

7. Create the demand for your niche, if it is not in demand!

Once you feel like you have a talk ready to go, start marketing yourself. Build a website that shows you’re a speaker. Add “speaker” to your social media profiles.
Tell everyone you know that you’re looking for speaking engagements. Word of mouth is often a key factor in getting speaking engagements.
Keep releasing content too. Blog about your ideas, guest post on popular sites, make videos, or write a book. Release your ideas into the world so you can gain credibility as an expert.
Event planners will want to see you in action as they make decisions about who to hire to speak, so at some point, you’ll want to create a demo reel that showcases you as a speaker. It may contain footage of you from several speeches, clips of you in the media, or audience reviews of your performance.

8. Knock many doors and finally you will be welcomed!

Early on in your speaking career, you may need to apply for speaking gigs. Be on the lookout for conferences, conventions, and gigs.
Find other speakers with a similar message and see where they’re speaking. You might reach out to event organizers and ask them to keep you in mind for future events.
The more your speaking career grows, the less you’ll need to apply for speaking opportunities. Eventually, people will seek you out.
And if you’re doing well, speaker bureaus will want to represent you and they’ll proactively market you as a speaker for events. They’ll take a percentage of your fee, but they can help you obtain higher paying gigs.

9. The word FREE has a great pull. Offer to speak for Free!

Once you have your content ready to go and you’re comfortable speaking to an audience, offer to speak for free. Reach out to local organizations who may benefit from your content.
There are many conferences around the country who don’t pay speakers (some of them offer free admission to speakers). Apply to speak for them to help you gain practice speaking to a live audience.
Some people do a handful of free speaking engagements before they feel equipped to look for paid gigs while others speak at a few dozen events before they feel comfortable charging. But be prepared to speak for free until you’re in-demand.

Thanks for reading.

How to be a good learner?

One needs to be a learner throughout his or her life. I suggest the following to be a good learner:

1. Always be curious to know things.

Always be curious to know things, to understand as well as assimilate. This is helpful in your wanting to know more. Curiosity, or the strong desire to learn or know something, originates from the Latin word ‘curious’ – eager to know, inquisitive.  As children, we are born with an almost insatiable curiosity which, according to famous psychologist Jean Piaget, is critical for our cognitive development – for as children almost everything we encounter is a new experience. It is children’s need to make sense of the world that results in their incessant questioning – “why is the sky blue?”, “what makes it rain?” – And it’s their lack of self-consciousness that enables them to admit to their lack of knowledge or understanding.         


2. Be focused.

In order that you enjoy the process of learning, be focused. If you focus you get the best out of your efforts of learning.      Focus can help you accomplish a variety of professional and personal tasks, from studying for a test to finishing your work an hour early. There are various practical steps you can take to help yourself focus better and to stop checking your Facebook or phone every fifteen minutes. To stay focused on the task ahead of you, resist the impulse to give in to distractions, make a to-do list (which has built-in breaks) and resist the temptation to multi-task.

3. Never be afraid of failure. Never be afraid of criticism. It is only this fear that does not allow you to use your mind and soul into what you do. As a learner you have to be totally dedicated to what you want to learn and therefore be fearless.  Fear is something we all experience, especially when setting out on any new undertaking. Failure is one of the most common and most damaging fears that many people struggle with. However, failure is often the first step toward success: highly successful people such as Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson are very vocal about how often they have failed and how that has shaped their success.


4. Learning is a serious matter. Learning is not fun. It’s a serious matter. Give the attention and the required time that the learning deserves. Be patient and try to look for the final details of any process or anything about the subject that you are learning. One of the best things about life is that we never have to stop learning. There are always new skills to learn and techniques for us to adopt. The best entrepreneurs in the world don’t act like they know everything. They all understand the fact that they have to continuously learn to be successful.

5. Whatever you learn you should make it your own.

Whatever you learn you should make it your own. You should not learn only with a short time goal like to pass the exam, the interview et cetera. You should learn with a view to imbibe you’re learning into your personality. What you learn, you must use. When you use what you have learnt. You reinforce your learning. It you have a chance you teach someone what you have learnt .In the process this knowledge becomes your own and you can use it when needed.

6. Question everything for thorough learning. A good learner questions everything. Simple because these are written words or somebody has said it; don’t just accept. Questions that come to your mind need to be answered. Consult your mentor, teacher or your colleague.  Questioning is a revered teaching technique from the days of Socrates, but there are ways, some traditional and some a bit more radical, to increase its impact and better prepare students to move beyond school in a way that provides deeper meaning and encourages greater contribution. Asking a variety of questions and question types is key to student achievement, along with increasing the amount of time allotted for students to think about the questions, but it is also vital that we move away from teachers asking questions as a solution to student learning.

7. Share whatever you have learnt.

You should share whatever you have learnt. If anybody has some different opinion just don’t override with your assumptions. Listen to him or her and check out if they know better. Sharing knowledge, while it is a noble cause, helps you to identify if you have left any missing links. Besides, you may learn more from the person you share with. However, you need to share with the right people or group. For example, if you share any learning about HR on LinkedIn, your connections will very happy.

8. Listen to experts on the subject.

Listen to experts on the subject. Attend a lecture if it is possible or simple go to the YouTube where videos are available on all possible thinkable subjects. Today, we are fortunate. We have Google. We have Quora and a number of other platforms that provide great information on any subject. Above all, we have YouTube. YouTube in the second biggest search en give on the net. It you don’t like to read, you just listen. There are many classroom lectures ever.   


9. Don’t multitask, for better learning.

Always follow the dictum of one thing at a time. Don’t ever do multitasking. That’s not the way a good learner should learn. Always follow the dictum of one thing at a time. Don’t ever do multitasking. That is not a way, a good learner should learn.      You may have heard that multitask is bad for you, but new studies show that it kills your performance and may even damage your brain. Every time you multitask you aren’t just harming your performance in the moment; you may very well be damaging an area of your brain that’s critical to your future success at work.

10. Don’t expect too much for your efforts.

Don’t expect too much of your efforts. Real learning requires persistent efforts and sometimes you need to persevere. Be prepared for that. Why do we expect great things and end up crying over it, people tend to exert too much effort in some things that’s impossible and expect it to turn out in their favor. We must learn that a person can’t have all the things in the world.

11. Develop emotional intelligence.

Develop your emotional intelligence under guidance of a teacher or a mentor. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to tap into your emotions and use them to make your life better. Being in touch with your feelings allows you to manage stress levels and communicate effectively with other people, two skills that enhance your life both personally and professionally. Unlike IQ, which remains constant throughout your life, EQ can be developed and honed over time. Do all that you can to strengthen your emotional intelligence. It in an investment that will help you throughout your life. Daniel Goleman has made a yeoman’s service to the development of the society with his work on emotional intelligence.


If you follow above there is nothing that you can’t learn and you will really enjoy learning and be proud of it.

Thanks for reading!















Lessons that we learn from history.

nepoleon                                                                       Napoleon Bonaparte
In the worst of times, keep your mind cool and composed. After 20 years of ruling France, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by the Allied army. He was forced to abdicate on April 6. 1814. He was exiled to Mediterranean island of Elba. Before leaving, he addressed the remaining officers of France. His address given below gives us a strong lesson that whatever be the circumstance we must maintain our composure of mind. That speaks the strength of one’s character. His address is reproduced below.
“Soldiers of my Old Guard: I bid you farewell. For twenty years I have constantly accompanied you on the road to honor and glory. In these latter times, as in the days of our prosperity, you have invariably been models of courage and fidelity. With men such as you our cause could not be lost; but the war would have been interminable; it would have been civil war, and that would have entailed deeper misfortunes on France.
I have sacrificed all of my interests to those of the country.
I go, but you, my friends, will continue to serve France. Her happiness was my only thought. It will still be the object of my wishes. Do not regret my fate; if I have consented to survive, it is to serve your glory. I intend to write the history of the great achievements we have performed together. Adieu, my friends. Would I could press you all to my heart.”

Thanks for reading

Six Styles of Leadership

Different situations demand application of different styles by the leaders. One size does not fit all. Yet the individual leader may follow broadly one particular mode. The characteristics of a person, his/her experiences and circumstances shape the conduct and behavior. However according to the situation effective leaders overcome the blemishes of their personal characteristics. Following are the 6 different styles of leaders that can be categorized.
1. Pace Setting Leader: When the team members know the job, they have the required skills; the pacesetting leader is able to get the maximum productivity from the team. But if it is continued for a long time with no respite, fatigue sets in. Further it kills innovation. The team members stop applying their mind.
2. Authoritative Leader: These leaders know how to align their team members to the common goals of the organization. These goals are defined broadly by the vision and mission of the company. In this case the means are left to the team members. Leader wants the results.
authoritative leader
3. The Affiliated Leader: They create an emotional bond among the team members and with the organization. The sense of belonging is experienced by the team. This style of leadership works best in the times of stress.
Photo of happy business partners embracing each other over workplace
4. Coaching Leader: Such leaders try to understand individual team members. They train them. They coach them to bring about the desired results. But this style is least effective when the team members are defiant.
5. The Coercive Leader: These leaders demand immediate compliance. The leader would say, “Do what I tell you”. This leadership style is most effective in the time of crisis. Realizing the situation the adaptable leader adopts coercive style to overcome the crisis.
6. Last but not the least, there is the Democratic Leader: These leaders try to build consensus. They invite individual opinions. When the leader wants that the team should take up the ownership of a decision or a plan; this style works. Fresh ideas come into play. But democratic style is not recommended in emergency situations.
democratic leader
Thanks for reading.

Change Management

Satish Kakri, Director – Nimble Foundation