Gift of Teaching: Why it should matter to anyone?

"Why do you like teaching so much?" asked my son as I was wrapping a call with one of my students. It was not on a regular workday or during the evening that I teach. He has known me to teach at colleges and universities as well as through my own training organization (Agile Training Champions) that I founded with the only purpose of "Making a Difference." Yes, both my parents were teachers. So, I could say "Teaching runs in my blood!" To me, teaching is not for passing time but building society! 

Teaching, to me, is the way people create leaders! Teaching demonstrates one's love for the subject and builds character through that subject in students. In my humble opinion, if a student doesn't like a subject, it tells volumes about the teachers and their way of teaching! Why do people claim "Phobia for Math" in early grades in school?  Scientists call Math the Language of the Universe and how are we promoting the quest for knowledge in the younger minds? How are we creating love for the subject if we sow the seeds of fear for a subject? Teachers who love teaching teach their children to love learning!  

I had a good friend's sibling in school fail a subject back in India. This was many years back. I took it upon myself to teach this subject to the sibling, motivate continually and get the person to register for the exam again and finally succeed. I may not be available for every star fish that is washed ashore, but I made a difference to that one person's life! When this person managed to contact me several years later (as we got separated due to my stay abroad), the expression of how I mattered is priceless. Such "meaningful thank you" is what I am after when I say, "making a difference!"

Furthermore, teaching is not about showing expertise to students but being able to demonstrate our ability to learn from the students. It is a highest form of displaying modesty and humility! At a level that others see you as an expert, you demonstrate your vulnerability and willingness to learn from the students. In the movie, 'Taare Zammen Par,' the teacher takes an interest in a young student's way of expression and changes the perception of the school, the student's parents, and the life of the child by relating the autistic children! This is why I emphasize my reason for continuous learning as "The more I know, the more I understand how little I know. In that I learn continuously!"

Therefore, good teachers do not label or categorize students as 'slow poke,' as one of the teachers talked about my son. I wish the teacher who called Edison as being unable to learn anything can know how wrong the teacher was about Edison. As Dale Carnegie says in his book 'How to win friends and influence people?' emphasized, (paraphrased) "Even He does not judge us until after death; so, who are we to judge others?"

Good teachers owe their students the drive to let them own the 'continuous learning' and 'learning at every moment!" My classes focus on movies and anecdotal thoughts from such movies on many topics. "The ideas get cemented in my mind," said a few students from people that hear learning by association is a daily event! Students learn better when they experience their teacher's love for the subject and care for their students! That's why I continue to study not only fill my own gaps in knowledge but also demonstrate my love for making a difference. And, trust me, students monitor our progress and get motivated. "Fuel their fire for growth" is what teaching to me means! 

"Passion feeds knowledge and knowledge feeds passion!" No other profession other than teaching comes closer in this symbiotic relationship. Even though I know the subject at the back of my hand, I prepare for changes in the marketplace, new events that are relevant, and the type of audience in the class. So, every class is a project and so requires just enough planning to deliver the message better. And the students bring their rich experience and help you fill the gaps between sentences, words, and characters in your own subject! I am better in my concepts today because my students taught me!  

Good teachers enable their students to support their ongoing journey! They share their knowledge willingly and copiously through any and many forms as possible. In fact, to me, teaching is the best form of demonstrating servant leadership, situational leadership, and transformational leadership! In the movie, Hitchki, I remember a great saying about the teachers. 

"A normal teacher teaches, 

  a good teacher makes one understand, 

  a great teacher demonstrates how to apply the concepts, but 

  only some teachers inspire us to take a message forward"

If I can make a difference in one person's life by spreading through my life experience, teaching is the way I continue to "make a difference" by inspiring everyone that I have an opportunity to interface with. In the professional setting, this "teaching" may have additional forms like training, mentoring, and coaching (all of these have fine differences) but focus on making the other better while focusing on making ourselves better.

To my parents, siblings, friends, family, all the teachers, the students, coworkers, volunteers, and others that taught me and continue to teach me, thanks!

What are your thoughts?

Continuous Improvement: The link between "Strengths" and "Opportunities"

Many of us that have some exposure into management either by academic preparation or by practical experience know a simple technique called the SWOT analysis. It is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This powerful technique is often delegated to management and leadership for major things like new product development, change management implementation, and sales & marketing. Its simplicity in personnel development as part of the individual development plan to rise above the competition is less understood and practiced.

For example, most people get exposure to specific techniques like programming, spoken language skills, design skills, communication skills and many others. One even goes to get certified by prestigious vendor neutral (e.g.: Project Management Institute, CompTIA) and vendor specific organizations (Microsoft, Oracle). Admiral pursuits like these give us the competitive edge in the form of strengths leading to opportunities like new job or promotion either laterally or vertically.

But, too often, not having the written SWOT analysis with SMART objectives for a 3-to-5-year strategy soon moves our own strengths into the weakness quadrant. This is because a lot of new developments happen. For instance, when I was in Vietnam last month, I saw ambitious projects like a tunnel from Vietnam to Japan being considered. Academic institutions had representation from a few countries teaching and training at their universities. Students traveled several hours each way to attend classes to increase their career potential. As globally several colleges prepare their learners to excel and several non-profit organizations provide numerous opportunities for volunteers to sharpen their competencies, the supply of such new skills and competencies is constantly increasing. So, unless someone awakens to the competitive reality, one loses the competitive edge they once thought they had!

So, how do we sharpen the saw? The best way to do this is to open the mind and have time for opportunities outside. Kaizen or Continuous Improvement is the key that is going to unlock the opportunities available by giving us a reality check on whether the skills are still on par with the market demand and allow us to gain competitive skills over time. For instance, project managers often think delivering on OBOSOT (On Budget, On Scope, and On Time) is the important metric. With the strategic talent triangle in place, the need for benefit realization is taking equal prominence in addition to OBOSOT needs. How will we ever know this if we don't attend professional networking events and certification workshops and gain guidance through mentors or coaches? 

I personally saw the six mega trends advanced by Vielemetter and Sell (2014) for leadership, such as globalization 2.0, environmental crisis, individualism and value pluralism, digital era, demographic change, and technological convergence. Don't let your skills get rusty. Refine, supplement, and augment them by sharpening them. Increase your competencies through volunteering and begin serving the ikigai that you are meant to. Opportunities only knock the doors of those that not only knock the doors but also build them of glass for opportunity to readily see and come.

Where is your SWOT and how are you preparing yourself for the future?

Ref.: Vielmetter, G. & Sell, Y. (2014). Leadership 2030. New York, NY: Amacom

Extreme Productivity: Basic principles to doing more with less

Having been in a managerial capacity as a functional manager and having led several complex programs and projects as a project manager in many industries, I have seen challenges from people on work life imbalance and from organizations for maintaining business productivity by doing more with less. However, in my experience, the percentage of the population that seek continuous growth pursuing the professional certifications or attending the networking events or conferences is slim.  

Having taught more than 150 classes through various academic institutions for adult learners, I observe learners missing classes because the academic institutional policy allows missing 20% of classes or accepting a “C” in their courses as that guarantees employer compensation. So, why should organizations invest in people that won’t invest in themselves by integrating their professional and personal life by managing time to acquire knowledge? By the same token, how could organizations allow mediocrity with a "C" and expect stellar performance? Aren't the organizations then enabling a behavior that allows individuals to be satisfied with the knowledge in their chosen fields that doesn't scale with the growth?

Remember that the growing organizations in the future will no longer be characterized by 8 to 5 jobs but will require one to be digitally connected.  So, waking up to reality to know the demands of your profession is critical for career success. In this blog, I present three simple and powerful principles that I have found useful. I would like to call them “Extreme Productivity” unleashing people’s energy towards what the organizations are going to be looking for in the future amid growing business challenges so that the value the individuals add becomes indispensable.

Principle #1: Look for a role and not for a job

You interview for a job and so getting a job offer is just the beginning. But, if you continuously do what you in your job, you continuously get what you get.  Will the same compensation and career challenge keep you satisfied? Even if you say, “yes,” because of personal challenges, comfort zone, or unwillingness to change, will that be good for the organizational growth that provides for you?  The organization is constantly changing to meet the market conditions and so the conditions under which one got a job can no longer be the same. When the economy shifts and the organization sees the need for sustaining growth with competitive high performers, they look for those that have already proven their multifaceted skills in the organization. It is not time for them to skim the individuals resume for past experiences because current performance paints an accurate picture. They look for those that exceeded their job responsibility and went the extra mile. These members succeed because they look around, prepare themselves early, and take on a role to make themselves useful. This is not a role given by the organization but assumed by the individuals,

Principle #2: Business Impact is measured by results and not the efforts

Sometimes, the business may demand someone to put in more hours. But, from a business perspective, long hours don’t always mean more productivity. It may also mean that you are not doing your job efficiently or expanding the work to fill the time. If ambiguities in task, missing analysis in backlog grooming, lack of adherence to process control, or deficiency in the required knowledge domains surface to the organization, then, one is not only wasting their own productivity but also that of others. Depending on your role, the earlier principle will be extended so that you are becoming efficient by analyzing the market for latest trends and being ready, investing in a tool that the businesses use, learning about the trends being used in your practice to make you more success-friendly, or setting effective time management practices for yourself to manage personal and professional balance.  

Principle #3: Pack value in your day for the team

Everyone must have heard the saying about seeing things from others point of view. Those that really look at productivity will focus first to ensure that other’s time is not wasted. For instance, should the people copied on the email be copied, are those meetings necessary, will that person receiving the task know what to do? When the other person is more productive and you are not, you have just created a producer-consumer imbalance. One can avoid this imbalance and other’s dependency on them by first planning the day others will need those deliverables. This will add time to our schedule. By putting a timebox around activities on what takes less than 10 min, 15 to 30 min, more than 60 min, etc., one can start addressing these tasks efficiently. Readers are advised to an earlier post on Scrumban approach (Rajagopalan, 2014) on personal productivity.

In the end, any professional must be productive to some extent. Everyone believes that they are worth more in money and career status. If this is true, then everyone should understand that their value to the business should always exceed the economic value the business can derive. When that happens, the business will always find new ways to benefit from your talent. The only way to satisfy this equation is when one can be “extremely productive.” In today’s digitally expanding, virtually global, and multicultural distributed workforce, one’s value is constantly challenged every day that can only be addressed by a continuous improvement mentality. Are we ready to take on this challenge? 

How well do you relate to these principles? Please share your thoughts.

References

Rajagopalan, S. (2014). Adapting Scrumban to Personal Productivity. Retrieved from http://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2014/10/adapting-scrumban-to-personal.html