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Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

A close friend called me up after reading my post on “The Power of Play”. He had a valid question: “Great article on PLAY” he said. “It does give a different perspective”. “However, what it does not tell me – as a hard nosed corporate executive is – Why does PLAY work ?”

There is a very endearing line from one of my favourite cartoon characters, Charlie Brown. It goes: “Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.’”
Continue reading “Why PLAY Works !”

Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

The below article has also been published by THE HINDU, Business Line on Aug 31st, 2012. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/newmanager/article3836405.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation – Plato
Continue reading “The Power of PLAY”

Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

The below article was also published by People Matters on their website: http://peoplematters.in/articles/focus-areas/can-a-leopard-change-its-spots

Our work with different teams, cutting across different industries, puts us in an interesting situation. Often times, we get the opportunity to interact with team members, post the conducting of an engrossing workshop – around team building, leadership or innovation.

Continue reading “Can A Leopard Change Its Spots?”

Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else”.  Sam Walton, Founder of Wal-Mart 

The importance of a satisfied customer cannot be overstated. Little wonder then, that most of us are regularly faced with the customary “feedback forms” – after every meal at a restaurant, every stay at a hotel & every flight in an airline.

Often times though, the overuse of a tool can dilute its effectiveness. Here is a truth test for you: When was the last time you enthusiastically filled up the restaurant feedback form? Here is another: How many times have you pretended to be asleep when the air-hostess comes along with the feedback form? The answer to these two questions highlights – how tired most of us as customers have grown of the standard methods of measuring customer satisfaction.
Continue reading “Different Ways To Measure Customer Satisfaction”

Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

In numerous interventions that we facilitate for team building and leadership, one of the common queries that we hear is about the lack of inspiring stories of great teams in domains other than sport. Sports, of course has by its very nature, an ability to capture peoples’ imagination and keep them spellbound with its tales of courage, leadership, team spirit etc, but such stories seem to be fewer in business and other domains.

Continue reading “Stories of Great Teams: Part 1: “Skunk Works”!”

Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

Its not easy being a Trainer. The challenges are multiple:trainer training on board

• Many people often don’t know that they don’t know (Unconscious Incompetence)
• Few people know they don’t know (Conscious Incompetence) – but get cynical about how much the training can actually help them
• Only a few people are mentally ready to put in the conscious effort to deliberately learn the steps they pick up during trainings (Conscious Competence)
• And as in most new skills in life – only a few finally arrive at the promised land of having achieved Unconscious
Competence, in the area of learning.

Continue reading “Training Vs. Facilitation – Two Different Worlds”

Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

Last week, I had a rather interesting conversation with a friend, whose company had taken him for an annual offsite at Goa. The purported objective of the offsite was team motivation and alignment to objectives. And since it was Goa, the word FUN and hence team bonding cannot be left behind either.

“How did it go?”, I asked.

“Great fun, all of us really had a ball”, he said. “It was much needed for the team, considering all the turmoil we have been through recently”.

Continue reading “Why Invest In Team Building Activities?”

Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

Recently while working with clients to design interventions based on their core values, I have had the opportunity to study the value systems in different organizations across sectors.  Seeing the importance some organizations placed on their core values and the seemingly lackadaisical approach by some others, led me to reflect on the importance of the concept for organizations.

What are core values? As some experts put it, values for an organization are the guiding beacons for corporate behavior.

Continue reading “The Power Of Having A Set Of Values”

Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

Of late, we have had an increasing trend of clients requesting for Team building sessions to be conducted in Hindi or that interesting mix of English & Hindi, popularly referred to as Hinglish.

A few months back, I had this enlightening experience in Singapore. I was just heading out to join the group, when one of the organizers, a Singaporean Chinese, walked up to me and asked me in a worried tone: “Sid, do you know Mandarin?”.  I guess the answer was very self evident from my very Indian looks, because before I could answer her, she spoke again and this time sounding deeply worried “Sid, we have a situation. There are two ladies in the group who don’t understand English at all. They are only comfortable with Mandarin. Since all our staff understands Mandarin, will it be possible to get someone else, who could do this session in Mandarin?”. And then, perhaps so that I wouldn’t take it personally, she added: “We don’t want anyone to feel left out, you know. I hope you do understand”.

Continue reading “How To Facilitate In Vernacular?”