0 to a 90 seconds video in 1 week!

This past one week has been supppperrr crazzyy!!! Just loved the adrenaline rush that came with it.

Without revealing the name of the customer and the intricacies of the project (not because we don't want to but because we can't :-)), we would like share our experience.

It all began with this really cool team brainstorming about how they can showcase the value of this new system being rolled out for everyone in the company and also promote it. The moment questions like, "How do we communicate?", "How can we educate our users?" and "What is the best way to do so?" pop up, this super natural force immediately transported us into that meeting and we soon became a part of it!

Once we heard the team's thoughts, we immediately got into action and after a week, voila, a crazy cool video launched into the company's blood stream! It was super exciting to see the feedback we got. Here are some comments:

- "Excellent way to let users know about the new system"

- "Very creative. The video is awesome!"

- "We need more of this here!"

We definitely painted the town red with this one!

This was just another experience where we "Engaged Employees" by simplifying Communication & Education

LISTENING: The part of communication that is IGNORED!

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said” 

–Peter Drucker, Management Theorist

While expressing your thoughts in a coercive, powerful manner is crucial to being a good communicator and manager, this is, in fact, only half of the battle won. The other, equally important aspect of good communication involves developing your listening skills.

As a manager, good listening skills are especially important to you in order to help you develop a better rapport with your team members, understand and hence resolve any problems with customers and colleagues more effectively, and to ‘read between the lines’ more adeptly to gain a clearer understanding of how well or otherwise your audience is responding to you.

The first step towards developing good listening skills is to want and consciously intend to do so. The second step is to acquire and master certain behaviors that will help you to be a better listener.

1. Know your objective

Determine the purpose for, or objective of, your listening. For instance, you could be trying to empathize with someone, or analyze or solve problems when communicating with someone else.

Being clear about your objective will help you to be more receptive to cues in the conversation, and hence sift through all the clutter to retain only those bits that are most pertinent to you. Knowing your objective will prove invaluable in situations where the person you are conversing with either rambles, or talks about multiple topics as the same time.

2. Actively interact

While being a patient, quiet listener has traditionally been confused with being a ‘good listener’, it is important that you learn to distinguish between the two. A quiet listener may not gain complete understanding of what is being communicated to him/her, and will also fail to inspire confidence in the speaker since he/she is unsure about whether or not he/she has succeeded in capturing your attention.

Communicate your interest by asking questions, seek clarifications where required, and even feel free to disagree in case of differences in opinion. Further, when asking questions, prefer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions that require a certain amount of elaboration, as opposed to those that can be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

3. Stay focussed

Simple as it may seem, but focus is probably both the most important and most difficult of all listening skills. Listening well requires self-control and to not allow your mind to drift into random thoughts. Consider the case of a college lecture: most students accurately comprehend and retain only about half of what they hear in a 10-minute period. Therefore, students who can stay mentally engaged and focused on listening to their instructors during class stand a much better chance of learning the material presented, and accurately applying it in assignments and examinations.

One way to increase your focus is to first be clear about your objective, and subsequently the value you will gain from the interaction. In the case of a lecture, for example, tell yourself that you are going to find some nugget of valuable information or thought stimulator in what you are about to hear. Think of it as a treasure hunt, a game or a challenge, and you will automatically find it much easier to stay interested and hence, focused, on the interaction.

Leading Today's Business Organizations

The current business environment is extraordinarily challenging, competitive and dynamic. Companies need young professionals who can make an immediate impact on their organizations and also individually grow as the company is growing. Business knowledge, management & leadership skills are critical assets for success in almost any career. 

A lot of students entering the workforce or people already in the workforce are from non-business backgrounds such as engineering, science, medicine, arts or the finance streams and now find themselves on career tracks where they need to understand and “speak” the language of business fluently. Others are entrepreneurs who need to stay ahead of the curve in order for their business to succeed and grow. In any case, you need the business, management & leadership skills to advance your career to the next level.

In the past, when organizations followed a more pyramid-type structure, leaders were invested with far more formal authority. These leaders could issue directives, which would be funneled down through the various organizational ranks.  As such, the edicts issued by the leadership carried an enormous amount of organizational weight. Today’s organizations, however, are flatter. The degree of formal authority invested with leaders is much lower than before, and, given the modern-day organizational structure, many leaders do not particularly this authority particularly useful. Instead, they have learned to rely more on their own mastery of certain skills, and focus on learning and developing the same.

While different leaders follow different styles of leadership, there are certain common traits that every leader must possess. These include:

• Communication skills: To speak and write persuasively
• Interpersonal skills: To listen and hear what people are saying and react in constructive ways (active listening)
• Conflict-resolution skills: To handle friction and inevitable tensions
• Negotiation skills: To bring different groups together in order to reach mutually agreeable goals
• Motivational skills: To align people who may not report to you toward a goal'
• Decision-making skills: To take decisions in case of deadlock situations or move towards the larger goal

One of the biggest reasons why most people are so intimidated by the prospect of being a great leader is that only a few truly dare to lead. Indeed, taking up the mantle of leading a team of individuals, many of whom are talented, capable and opinionated, may seem like a daunting task for someone with little or no leadership experience. However, it is this willingness to take on a role and responsibility that others shy away from that sets the stage for a effective, powerful and admirable leader.

Most organizations today are desperately seeking such leaders who will not be afraid to act as pathfinders, visionaries and motivators, creating new avenues for growth for themselves, their teams and their organizations. More than ever, the need for good leaders is large and the opportunity great. To capitalize on this opportunity, however, you must first embrace the fact that leadership comprises multiple dimensions. It is a combination of personal characteristics and transformational behaviors that influence positive action in others. 

If you have any questions, comments or would like to learn more about any of the tools or techniques to improve your soft skills please write to us at chalktalk@last-bench.com

For more information on our skill development programs please click here.

The growing need for Employability Skills in India

Recently I attended a webinar co-hosted by the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) and National Skill Development Corporation of India (NSDC) discussing the opportunities in skill development for businesses in India over the next few years. In the one hour presentation they spoke about initiatives, programs and competitions undertaken by the NSDC and how businesses must focus on skill development for a country which will soon have the largest working population in the world. Though the opportunity is great and the platform might seem perfect to tap the commercial potential, the information and numbers raise a bigger issue (and one that was left unanswered in the webinar) that what are the skills that an emerging India needs?

Academic skills and technical skills have often been the core focus of the government and the result has been fairly limited, with minimal increase in opportunity or empowerment. Of late, there has been an gradual shift towards vocational skills, which is definitely a breath of fresh air, for both job-seekers and employers alike. In fact Corporate India, with each passing year, renders the current crop of graduates more and more unemployable. For a country where the working age population will very soon be far in excess of those dependent on them and will continue to do so till 2040, this is a very disturbing statistic. (source: World Bank).  Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head when he said 'India does not have problem of unemployment but that of unemployability'. Hence the focus must undoubtedly be on developing skills that transcend technical or academic capability and help create professionals who are not only ready to face the challenges of a dynamic and competitive business world but also have the flexibility, intelligence and practical skills to sufficiently excel in their respective roles within an organization.

According to the survey, carried out by a number of agencies (and endorsed by the PM’s National Council on Skill Development and the NSDC), the top three most important general skills identified were motivation, reliability and teamwork, while the top three most important specific skills are entrepreneurship, effective communication and use of modern tools and technologies. This is some very important information coming directly from the corporate world and should almost become the tenets of basic skill-based training in India. The importance of the survey results and the focus on developing these skills (both general and specific) cannot be emphasized more, because they have a three pronged effect. 

First, they provide individuals seeking employment with a first hand account of what skills they must possess and, if necessary, develop in order to catch the eye of a potential employer. Of course, recognizing skills and developing them are only primary steps, putting them to practice and creating a habit of learning new skills is the ultimate goal. The onus to do this is not just on the job seeker but also training organizations and businesses to identify innovative methods of developing and teaching these skills. In todays digital age, the use of technology is imperative for educational and vocational institutes to attract the youth and make the learning as enjoyable as possible. Learning happens best when the learner is so engrossed and engaged that he does not realize he is learning. 

Next, by developing these skills individuals are not just molded to excel in corporate or government positions but also develop a sense of innovativeness and creativity. There in lies the hope that we are not just empowering job seekers to achieve career goals but also create a section of individuals that will take the entrepreneurial path, at some point in their careers, and will eventually become job creators. 

Last, through the development of these skills job seekers will find it mush easier to accentuate their core academic and technical skills and employers will find that (a) hiring candidates becomes much easier (b) their investment in training new employees and in turn, attrition rate is lower and, (c) productivity is greatly increased because now corporations can focus less on teaching people how to do work and more on actually assigning them to more complex, diverse projects. Hence, to summarize, the development of these skills greatly improves the chances of (a) getting hired then, (b) staying hired and finally, (c) personal and professional success. Could there be more valuable advice for new graduates and young professionals? I think not.

Here is an info graphic that Last-Bench created almost a year back highlighting the importance of soft skills for job applicants. In fact the development of these skills must become a compulsory module in a lll colleges and universities to ensure graduates receive complete education.

If you have any questions, comments or would like to learn more about any of the tools or techniques to improve your soft skills please write to us at chalktalk@last-bench.com

For more information on our skill development programs please click here.

How to Improve Your Presentation Skills

“There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.”

-       Dale Carnegie

Corporate Training Video (demo): 'Giving Effective Feedback'

Check out our brand new corporate training video - 'Giving Effective Feedback'. 

(This video is a demo and we appreciate your feedback and comments. Look out for more such videos. Soon!)

EasyVocab : Learn and master the English Vocabulary

We're in the business to make education PRACTICAL and FUN! Now we're making it accessible too! Presenting EasyVocab! The new way to learn and master English vocabulary in a fun, interactive way. And guess what? It's absolutely free!...

MANAGE WHAT 2.0: Evolution of our Soft Skills program

Here's a quick look into our new look MANAGE WHAT program! 
Also, a first look at our new PROMO VIDEOS!!

We're Hiring! : SPIT-MCA interviews...

As we begin to ramp up activities at our young but effervescent start-up, we realized we'll need a few more hands (and brains) to help us achieve our targets. So, we reached out to the MCA students at Sardar Patel Institute of Technology with the opportunity to intern with Last-Bench! and get a taste of the start-up environment. We were thrilled with the response and the talent on display left us quite impressed. Here's a gist of the entire experience...

Last-Bench! Festive Offers...

It's our first Diwali and true to the Last-Bench! style we really want to celebrate! So, we've decided to make LIGHT OF LEARNING shine brightest...

S.M. Parekh Memorial debate competition at Sardar Patel Institute of Technology : Sponsored by Last-Bench!

A debate competition allows for enterprising and intelligent minds to take stage and express their thoughts and views to an enthusiastic audience. This one was no different.  Last-Bench! had the privilege of sponsoring the annual S.M. Parekh Memorial debate competition at SPIT and, like everyone else present, we were left speechless by the quality of the competition and the array of talent at the event.

Program : MANAGE WHAT

'After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say ''I want to see the manager." ' William S. Boroughs What really makes a good manager? What skills and training do you require? How much experience is needed? How can you apply what you're learning now to a leadership position in the future? One comprehensive answer to worrisome questions - MANAGE WHAT!

THOUGHTLESS NO MORE!

     

'The current business environment is extraordinarily challenging, competitive and dynamic. You must be over qualified, have multiple degrees, have years of experience and seize opportunities!'

At Last-Bench! we like to call this the 'Parrot line'. Why? Because everyone picks it up from someone else, will talk about it at length but won't do anything about it. In fact people don't know what the solution to the problem is and constantly worry about how success can become a guarantee? The solution is getting lucky at the right time and till then churn on, persist and hope for that special break. Right?  Wrong! Here at Last-Bench! we like to say- 'Today's world is highly competitive, YOU must carve a niche for yourself!' See how we played around with words? See how the emphasis is suddenly on YOU to make that next big leap? Whether at home, at college or at your workplace, people will constantly give you advice (c'mon we've all given and received it!) but in reality advice is just food for thought and action is what makes the difference!