Yet another person was an avid off-roader. There were many jaws that dropped at that moment. There was another person who had taken breaks from work to be able to sneak across international borders to rescue girl children. His aim in life was to be able to donate 50% at some point. There was another quiet person who donated 25% of his salary every month to charity.
He did not look the mountaineering-types. There was one person who had conquered Mt.Kilimanjaro. The next one hour was one of the most fascinating hours that I have spent – just listening to the stories of these 10 corporate people, entrenched and enmeshed by their daily lives and day-to-day challenges, and yet when each of them spoke, the similarities, the hopes, the challenges and their unique achievements came together so beautifully to form a unique collage. I was privileged to be a part of that circle. This was when we got all of them sitting knee to knee in a close circle. The trunk being your core values, the flowers being your achievement, the thorns being your challenges & struggles, the leaves being your skills, the buds being your opportunities and so on…”, “Can you think for 10 minutes and share the story of your tree?” “Just imagine that the tree you have drawn is your personality tree and each component there represents something in your personality – for ex. Well, the only restriction they had was their own imagination. We soon had all 10 senior managers take up colors and markers and unleash their creativity in drawing a tree – complete with roots, leaves, buds, thorns, trunk, birds around…. “Nothing serious, we are just playing”!…. The one thing that makes people let their guards down, other than small children is the act of playing. The head-fake for us came in the form of PLAY. The footballer moves his head in one direction, when he actually intends going in the other direction. There is a popular concept in football called a “head-fake”. “How do we get around this deep seated psyche?”. Years of competitive corporate life, sometimes makes one believe that showing your real self somehow exposes you and makes you more vulnerable to the office politics. Read Also The Blind Man’s Tower : A Game Of Situational Awarenessīut sometimes with people, it is not as easy to get them to drop their defenses. This is when the learning of many years came rushing to me: “To get a group of people feel like a close team, get them to pretend / act they are already a close knit team, sitting in a huddle, swapping stories about each other”. How could I make them see that together they created a unique mosaic, which is so uniquely “them” as a team?”. The key question now for me as a Facilitator was to now move them back in the opposite direction: “How do I get them to come together again, with the new appreciation of how unique they were individually – and yet how similar they were in many ways that wove them together as a team. The day had proceeded better than expected – and the fact that the group had reached the realization of the differences was palpable. The idea was to highlight how – below our apparent similarities, each one of us is so uniquely different as a human being, in the way we perceive the world and make our decisions around it.
We had just finished doing many exercises using the Myer-Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI). In front of me was a group of senior managers of an MNC bank. Only this time, the scenario was different. The same thought came rushing to me again: “Pretend / Act a certain way – and soon you start feeling the same way too!”.
Johari window collage professional#
And wonder of wonders – it worked!! That was one trick I have used over and over and over again all through my growing years and in my professional life too!
But the all-consuming panic and stage fright quickly ensured that I followed the one path to survival shown to me. “You feel confident first – because of which you are able to act that way”. “Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way round?” I wondered. Long ago, when I used to literally shiver at the thought of going up to a stage and speaking in front of an audience, someone wise had given me a golden piece of advice: “Pretend & act that you are confident – and soon you will start feeling that way”. This is also one of the best ways I know of to get the hidden area we talked about in our previous post on the Johari window, to be reduced significantly. There is something about sitting around in a close huddle and swapping stories that makes people bond together like nothing else does.
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