Being Soilite

I sometimes wonder how fast are we learning, things which I came to know in my grads I see small kids knowing it already... Our human brain is constantly evolving into superbrain but one sad part that haunts me.We are progressing at the cost of what...
Cost, what we paying for this progress is dire and would possibly leave us with no more options but to destroy. We are continuously ravaging natures wealth like a breast.
The fact is what we have lost is much more valuable than what we have gained. And who one day will judge which side is more heavier...
India 200 years ago contributed to 60% of world's GDP. When we got independent we were at 2%, now after more than 60 years of our independence we are still at 2% of our GDP.
Now terms like  India Shining and phrases we use to makes it literally sound like vague, just a cheap advertisement and projection to the outer world.
Comparing what we are now and what we were ago makes me realise what we have lost. India land of innovation where people from all over the world wanted to come and settle now just the opposite is happening Indians are looking to travel all over which we term it as brain drain. This goes deeper than what we think...
Fancy is what it looks when we speak about sustainablity doesnt it cannotate to what we have learned already in vedas. Now we attribute this as be western phenomenon.
Amazing but yet curious to know we didn't have any beggars in ancient India now we are known as land of beggars makes me laughs.
I did my post grad from SOIL ( School Of Inspired Leadership ) didnt know much about this institute when I initially joined. Did my majors in marketing is one of the best things that ever happened to me. Learning and awareness which I  had in this 1 years has completely transformed the way I look at things. I know initially term ethics, diversity , mindfulness looked very naive to me. I wont say I have completely practiced 5 pillars of SOIL but I have tried and I'm still trying. As my director Mr Anil Sachdev always said " Being in the process is more important than the end result" I think I'm in the process of transformation and with the blessing of everyone I hope I would be a better person.

Backpacking through lower ranges of Himalayas

Back packing though low ranges of Himalayas experienced an amazing sense of tranquility and divinity. We group of around 12 people went Rishikesh, Haridwar and Mussoorie. For me it was an amazing experience few hours ago I was partying with couple of my best friends and suddenly got a mail from my peers and way my journey started a little high and completely dozed off. Went to Dehradun , handoff to my friends great planing before which I wasn't aware about. Off course management student so took care of every single details of the trip but best thing was even though we planned it to perfection unexpected things happened which made journey more intriguing. Whole experience was so amazing and tantalizing that I almost stood aghast to nature's beauty. Cracking jokes on every single little things and common a thread that joined us together was a sense of compassion and tenderness. As always someone has to be evil in our case it was Cab driver was bugged and nagged most of the times.

Not to forget river rafting in Rishikesh that made us push to limits.

One of the most amazing things were rocks in Ghuchu pani .For thousands of years these monolithic  rock sculptures have been witnessing the variations of weather, but still glowing as smooth as a sculpture curved yesterday. I touched all the beautiful walls of the curving to feel the history of thousand years. An immortal history that will remain be speaking till earth exists as a planet! I was thrilled and speechless imagining the masons who would be shaping the giant rocks at the very dusky hours a thousand years ago. 

The drive from Gurgaon immediately turned out to be worthy in my heart.

Rejoicing as an integer

I fear that I will always be
A lonely number like root three
A three is all that's good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath a vicious square root sign
I wish instead I were a nine
For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic
 I know I'll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality
When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three
Has quietly come waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer
 We break free from our mortal bonds
And with a wave of magic wands
 Our square root signs become unglued
And love for me has been renewed.

NITIE B_plan

Executive Business Summary

Vision Statement: -
“To create learning and add value to lives through sports based innovation”…
Mission Statement: -
To provide holistic view to life in developing Inspired Leaders by enabling people to realize who they are, recognize their purpose and realize their full potential to leverage their strengths and overcome their weaknesses.
Playing Ideas at a glance: -
We at playing Ideas teach leadership skills and team building spirit to students and working professionals through the means of sports, real life problems through simulations and various other outdoor group activities. Our institute will provide one stop facility for leadership development and character building activities to individuals. This is a unique proposition, which will help create Inspired Leaders.
Need In The Market: -
There is an immense need for inspired leaders in today’s world. There is hardly any Institute, which endorses this cause and works towards this goal. The Educational institutes at any level in our country focuses primarily on academics and overlooks the need for strong character development. As a result of which our country is producing managers who are handicapped when it comes to holistic view.
We have identified the following gaps in educational system prevailing in our country: -
1.Lack of self leadership.
2.Lack of team spirit.
3.Poor participation in extracurricular.
4.Lack of holistic view to life
5. Poor approach to stress management.


 Playing Ideas would help an individual display his/her skill sets through on field and off field sporting activities. Through sports we will get a reflection of the personality of an individual which will help us in designing an individual learning plan and coach them accordingly to develop self leadership.




Our Offerings: -
1)    Teaching self leadership through sports and game simulation activities.
2)     To help an individual identify his strengths and gifts through  participating in various group activities and interacting with diverse groups.
3)    Improve the skill to emotionally connect with people through appreciative inquiry and community services.
Market Analysis:-
Every individual needs to develop leadership skills at one point or the other to excel in their lives and create a better world. There is an increase in the realization among people about the importance of sports and extracurricular activities to build a strong character and leadership skills.
Many corporate houses in India are increasingly realizing the importance of sports in bringing out the different skill sets in an individual.
The potential market for Playing ideas is every individual aged 12 and above.
We can potentially divide this market into different categories: -
•    Secondary and Higher secondary students.
•    College going students.
•    Fresh recruits in corporate.
•    Middle and Senior level professionals

Different Phases of our operations:
Phase 1: Tie-ups with premier Schools and colleges in Delhi-NCR region
Phase 2: Spread our operation in other states in India
Phase 3:  Tie up with major corporate houses like TATA, Wipro, Google, Microsoft, and PSUs etc
Phase 4: Spread our operation globally in other developing and underdeveloped countries.

Financial Forecasting:
Playing ideas will achieve its break-even in phase 1.
Competitive Edge:
 It is a unique concept and this industry is in infant stage, which is likely to grow by in time to come.

Billion dollar industry in near future...

1. Cloud resellers. (I borrowed this one from Marc Bennioff of Salesforce, he says there will be “cloud sherpas”)
2. Variants of platform as a service with other models.
3. Mobile payments.
4. Social e-commerce
5. Language & intercultural literacy. (new business models & delivery methods). China, Africa, and India are just the start.
6. Saving.
7. Mobile health care. Both in the developing world & hear at home.
8. Mobile education.
9. Government data transparency to solve waste or fight corruption.
10. Government 2.0 (crowd sourcing, ATM-like transactions modeled on E-choupal experience, data transparency, service delivery, etc..)
11. Green data about the supply chain (major cost cutting & green innovations).
12. Impact assessment for the supply chain (both for corporate social responsibility and for greater efficiency)
13. Filters & silence (solves filter failure & the scarcity of silence).
14. Online delivery (see Amazons entry in this space & it will grow as traffic continues).
15. Making virtual events more like face to face engagement (obviously cutting hotel hosting, air fair, time, and other costs).
16. Self-coaching. Digital lifestyle design. (for goals, education, budget, etc…)
17. Mass automation in human resources.
18. Customized self-publishing (i.e. I have x, y, and z issue….and I need info in 48 hours)
19. Mass customization (by industry segment). CK Prahalad from the University of Michigan wrote a book about this 2 years ago before he passed.
20. Project based education combined with more modular education
21. Entrepreneurship. Business in a box by segment. (or businesses you can run from your mobile or your iPad application–just add salesperson and accounting software)
22. College education changes to lifelong learning (delivery either on campus or via digital platform)
23. Lifestyle health care & nutrition (health care data transparency for individuals to make better decisions)
24. Health Informatics. (data becomes more ubiquitous and more mobile.) Every health care worker will have a mobile phone to do their work.
25. Products & services & business model adjustment for the rise of emerging markets (BRIC countries).
26. Self-driven real estate process. (Red Fin is attempting to do this in the Northwest US)
27. Entirely new models of books beyond the audio book, e-book, or PDF.
28. DIY data. Build your own dashboard. (Zoho I believe already has some of this, but I don’t think its real-time and I’m sure the UI could use work)
29. Process automation + empathy (design thinking + demming, six sigma, or lean)
30. New concern with data forces companies to find hard data to support “soft” results and “soft” functions. (other forms of ratings & certifications to help fill the gaps in information) Professional service firms and educational institutions may have to focus more on these issues.
31. Outsourcing innovation. Not the typical discussion of outsourcing, but rather the ability to get innovation done on the cheap, effectively, quickly, for a particular target market, or with fewer failures along the way. Most companies aren’t geared to do this, but there will be an increasing number of services around this area. They may even be brought in to help create a culture of change around innovation or to support internal company incubators, or 20% time type initiatives.
32. Support services and products for mobile workers (for community, accountability, or training in adopting a new lifestyle).

Pakhi I love you... Muaaahhh

I'm so intrigued by this relationship...
like, i'm legitimately excited to see how it turns out.
I feel like it's growing everyday.
I want to see what we can harvest.
its an incredible feeling, that potential.
but no expectations even.
just an interest in the progression.
and all I can do at night is lie in bed and wonder.
what will happen?
but knowing, somewhere out there is you.
doing the things you like to do.
living.
breathing.
ah.
and glad that I'm living and breathing too.
thats a wonderful thing, right there.

Consultancy Skills

Consultancy Skills Day 2 & 3

As the 2nd day approached we got more insights about consultancy. Consultancy is not only required in professional but also for personal life. How to help somebody with advice how to discover the true problem? However during our whole three session I had one doubt lingering on my head, we dealt with all aspects of client consultant relationship and simulated situations about client and a consultant would behave but we dealt very little on how a consultant will sell a proposal to a client? There are different style of consultancy depending on how consultant perceives and how he wants the relation with his clients. First category of consultants are those who thinks themselves as experts and offers advice to the line manager but don’t involve themselves with the decision making process and often don’t collaborate with line managers. As a result, the solutions provided are superficial and do not solve the problems on a long term. Second are those who become a ‘pair of hands’ to the line manager. This type of relation is sometimes difficult to maintain even though the consultant is entitled to provide solutions. This is not the win-win situation expected out of a consulting assignment because consultant in this method works as a “surrogate manager”. Third is the best practice followed by consultants i.e collaborative method in which both client and consultant are 50/50 relationship. This is a win-win relationship.
Depending on whether the problem exists or not consultant can categorize it in 3 ways:
•    The problem does not exist: The consultant should convey this to the client in a polite manner that actually there isn’t any problem.
•    The problem exists but cannot be solved: Here, the consultant should make the client understand that the problem cannot be solved and should provide a valid explanation for it.
•    The problem exists and can be solved: The consultant should solve the problem.
For a consultant rephrasing the problem and asking appropriate question is a vital task to get into the roots of the problem and then thinking about finding the possibility of weeding out the problem.
In a client meeting, the consultant should ask 3 things to the client:
•    Redefine the problem
•    How others are contributing to the problem
•    How he is contributing to the problem
Giving a genuine feedback to the client is another important activity. The consultant should be conscious enough on how to give the client feedback. The consultant should follow appreciative enquiry and then follow with the set positive and negative feedback in a tentative manner so as not to hurt client in the process. Should bring out specific instances were the client he felt might be helped.

Our most important take away: “Gain to a company should not be at the cost of loss to the society”,

On our last session:
Anil Sachdev mentioned for a consultant being authentic is most important and it means bringing forward the actual issues without any manipulation. It is important from the point of view that a consultant must make a client trust him. Being authentic builds a relationship, which will help the consultant understand the need and requirements of the client.
As committed by Anil Sir, we were to experience a live consulting case of a reputed company R, who wanted rebrand their company. We were briefed about the situation earlier. One of our colleagues represented the consultants end to the client. The consultant had to work with a line manager, who headed the change management department. The company operated in many diverse sectors and had a federal system of administration. As a result of office politics. And its often very difficult tobring in consensus in all line manager so that tasks can be started and implemented. Even in such a scenario it is important that the consultant be rooted to his/her values.
After that we had a role play session in which in teams of three, one person played the role of a consultant, another, the role of the client and the third person was the observer. We used the guest clients’ issue as our assignment and began the role-play.

In this entire session, we learnt that:
•    It is important to be yourself and be clear about who you are and what you stand for.
•    Give maximum attention to what the client wants while you are rooted in your values.
•    The best way for you to work with clients is to be seen as a person who goes out of way to help them and be genuine. Be careful in giving any short-term commitments that you cannot deliver.
•    No matter what the politics of the organization, never backbite anyone in the clients’ organization.
•    If you have made a mistake, have the courage to immediately own up and do not try to give excuses.
We are eager to take up live project and hopefully will do justice with it.