Learning and development represents billions of dollars in investments for businesses – yet every time, I start a learning and development workshop by asking the audience a version of “Who resents being here today?” and with some encouragement, I get to meet a whole new community of peers who are able to list a long number of logical and tangible reasons as to why they dislike corporate trainings. Continue reading the original article here on Forbes.

Read More

For years, we have described culture as something separate from us. “It is just a toxic environment,” we say. “The competition is going to crush us,” “The management is so bad!,” “Why is it so hard to be nice to one another?” We have used the iceberg model for years now to make the argument that the parts of our cultures that can be seen above the water are a reflection of isolated behaviors and outliers. We have made the case that the submerged part – the invisible continues to shape our experiences and we are unsure how to get…

Read More

Do you ever wonder why leaders have such a varying level of accomplishment and followership over time? I did for years and thought I had the perfect answer, too. I thought it was a matter of hard work. My thinking was, “If only I work harder, deepen my skills and run faster than everyone else, with the combination of my cognitive capacity and work ethic, I can reach a level of mastery that offers success and influence in no time.” I believed in that and acted towards it for years until one morning I woke up and discovered I no…

Read More

Over the course of my lifetime, I have come to know a lot of pain and suffering. Being a byproduct of multi-cultural, multi-religious parents, who were suffering from an identity crisis, I have come very early to learn about the struggle for one’s belonging. Growing up in poverty, having to share what one has and not having any luxury to hold new curiosities, I have come to understand the struggle for one’s security. When I lost one of my parents in an unexpected traffic accident as a teenager and fell into a deep state of confusion, I have come to…

Read More

Have you ever come across someone who possesses an impressive quality of inner cohesion? The kind that made you want to be around them for longer than you had intended to. Their crawling energy and the healing impact on your soul made you wonder who is this person, what do they do, how do I become more like them? These are the kind of wise hearts that give many close and far the breath of life every day. These are the kind of wise hearts I aspire my heart to become a future leader… Wisdom is the sixth quality of…

Read More

I keep a number of quotes in my work office wall for a routine reading throughout my days. One of them is by 92 years’ young Benedictine monk David Steindl Rast. It says, “Today is a wonderful new day, I have never seen it before.” We live in a sea of complex and contradictory messages concerning the nature of our value and standards in this day of age. There are constant tensions we are being asked to manage between the agendas of the individual and the collective, the organization and the constituents, the government and the society, etc. Whether we are…

Read More

During a genuine conversation reviewing an organization’s philosophy to talent management last week, one leader asked the difference between “having healthy tension” and “toxic tension” in the environment. That’s a brilliant question I thought may benefit many of us… As human beings, we do require and thrive on some healthy tension. Specifically, our performance can improve in snip bits when challenged with a specific end in mind. In that scenario, stress is our friend. It is an innate protective mechanism that intends to serve us – for our safety and wellbeing. When used at the right time with the right…

Read More

The aim of future organizations is to cultivate an environment, where the majority of its constituents (if not all) can thrive through unleashing of potential and the aim of leadership is to grow independent artists that can effectively participate in the process of recreation. There is one major roadblock to the acclaimed mission – the condition of our human spirits. Majority of us start our adult working lives on a condition of dependency. Similar to an experience in childhood, we have a need to gain new knowledge, to develop skills through application and to grow a sense of intuitive intelligence…

Read More

In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman refers to the parts of our brain, where he suggests there are two competing intelligence at play. He specifies one area affiliated to “system 1” which is known to be an area relying on speed in decision making and on emotion in information perceiving. System 1 is based largely on our instinct and intuition unconsciously stored by past experiences that are often rapidly available to memory. The second area is affiliated to “system 2” which is known to be an area for slow and deliberate decision making and more rational in information…

Read More

Someone filing their nails in a public place. Someone walking rather quickly behind us on a dark night. Watching an act of violence on TV. We all have events we can picture those trigger physiological reactions in us and make the hair on the back of our neck stand up! Human feelings and thoughts – though they originate in the brain – have a strong connection to our bodies. Philosophers have argued this for years and more recently neuroscience has shown that emotions and thoughts infuse both the mind and the body. While thinking negative thoughts or feeling negative emotions…

Read More