Making a Difference

Like all my other employers, Vyaktitva in some way has helped define my vyaktitva. A lifelong learning for me happened in a 5-min phone call with one of my seniors at Vyaktitva.

I and another colleague were about to start off a 5-day ID workshop for a client organization. This was the first assignment I was doing for Vyaktitva and though I had done training sessions, they had been exclusively done in-house and largely for my own team. The good thing was that the content was completely known to me – I could talk about ID in my sleep. But I had long back realized, based on my experience with teachers at my school, that knowing the subject area/content was one thing and being able to conduct a successful session was quite another.

Just before session started, I was very very nervous. Then, the call happened. My senior called to wish me luck and I guess he sensed that I was nervous. At that time he said, “Go into the room and look at the people as they walk in. Just before you start addressing the class, say to yourself – I will make a difference to each one of these people today. And, then start the session. As you progress through the days, every time you feel challenged, remember that you will make a difference to each person. I’m sure you will do a great job.”

I did what he told me and ended up doing a great first session. I did many more sessions after that one and got much better as a trainer/facilitator. To this day, when I feel signs of nervousness in a training session or even in a meeting where I’m presenting to very senior people, I say this sentence to myself and like magic my nervousness reduces dramatically.

I analyzed why this helped me and this is what I came up with.

·         Saying and believing this instantly puts me away from the spotlight and moves the spotlight to the audience. The session is not about me performing well. It is about the audience benefitting from it.

·         Whoever the audience might be, a bunch of very young, difficult trainees or a group of very senior corporate types, I can always believe there is something I will say that will help them. This also keeps me constantly cognizant of what the audience expects and helps me to mould my message appropriately.

·         I realize that there will always be some people in the audience who will not want to listen to me, will have other preoccupations or priorities or will simply want to give me a tough time. This doesn’t bother me very much anymore because I’m very clear that all I’m doing is to help make a difference – so I’ll do my best. If that doesn’t help some people, tough luck! Yes, when I analyze the session, I do see what I could have done differently to reach that person(s) too. But I don’t fret too much about it.

With that one phone call, my senior did make a big difference!