filosofico typings

Soft Skills Session

Before I forget, lemme write something abt yesterday's [13th October] soft skill's session.. We had it organized by our placement officer, Mrs Padmaja Kanda and conducted by one of her close friends, Mrs Uma Rao who's the HR head of Asia Pacific, TCS.

Though excited in the early 10 minutes, most of the expectations went down when Mrs. Uma didn't even know that our placement season hasn't started yet. She started congratulating for the "hope-so" good placements that we must have had.. Do we expect a HR head not to know abt the placements in IIIT when we were told that she was in the panel at the time of recruting our seniors?? Strange..

Watever... So she finally started and it clicked me that very moment abt the session not being related to placements in any way.. But very soon she made the atmosphere so lively, so damn entertaining that everyone got mentally gripped into the session.. She started cracking jokes and sharing some of the cool experiences she faced. I'll tell you one of them.. She was showing this Salarjung museum, Hyderabad to one of her foreign delegates when he suddenly came up with a question - "why are the Indian women naked in most of the great paintings".. Though tempted to say that Indian women are the most pretty beings, she refrained herself from giving such an answer.. After thinking for a couple of moments, she made up this - "It shows the control of Indian ppl on their 5 senses".. =)) whole class really burst into laughter.. I've been noticing for quite sometime now that ppl find more humour talking abt sex than nething else. Is it just by chance or have i really made a point?

Back to the session summary. She made some really nice points abt sustaining oneself in the corporate world.. In clear terms (or rather in her terms) - "Corporate world is NOT easy to live in. Ppl just won't let you sustain" .. I'll write the others in points:

1) Don't try to be all mushy, polite and flattering with your leaders and bosses.. Noone likes apple-polishing these days.. The day you get to hear from your boss - "You are a nice little boy", understand it deep within that everything's finished. We are NOT striving to be nice boys, we are striving to be GREAT professionals. Put forward your point with confidense and stay up to it.. Listen to everybody but NEVER EVER let yourself get distracted from your final goal. Do not come in consent with anyone just because you're his subordinate or something..

2) Don't be two faced. Split personalities do not exist except in the cases of mental disorders or in all those fantasy movies.. Be yourself everywhere.. Yes, you got it right.. Be what you are. Most people do not have the guts to be what they want to be. I just started reading this book called 'Straight from the gut'.. m sure that most of you must have read it by now. Sometimes I just feel as to which decade m I living in. Such a great book and I get to hear abt it NOW.. I didn't even know abt Jack Welch until I read one of the posts on Rastogi's blog. yeah, so that book mentions an incidence where Jack Welch, being the vice chairman, GE had to attend one of the board meetings and was trying to be more formal and all properly dressed up in crisp suits when he wasn't really in the habit of doing that. Chairman, GE came upto him and sed - "Jack! you look better when you are more original".. So, be the same everywhere.. Things are finished if ppl get to know your two-faced nature and believe me, no one's smart enough to keep that a 'secret' for a long time.

3) Don't always speak your mind directly.. Understand the situation and speak your point in a way that handles the situation in a right way.. She told this incidence - A guy was selected to get the full scholarship from the Fulbright Association for some social science courses in US. He was sitting right in front of the panel in USA for his final interview. And he sed this in straight sentences - "I do not like Americans, I don't like their culture, their attitude".. blah blah.. And came out confidently saying that he spoke his mind out and did a great job.. Obviously he was rejected soon after.. So, understand the situation.. There will be instances when ppl would ask you questions like - "Do you like that guy?" .. Don't start forming biased/straight opinions or atleast don't let the other person know about it.. Speak up in a way that keeps everything balanced.. You could look at some of the episodes of 'The Apprentice' for more examples, especially the board room part..

4) Do not procrastinate.. Take decisions at the right moment.. Don't postpone taking decisions.. You'll ultimately have to take them so why not do it right away and get rid of them.. There's another saying - "Decisions taken with complete knowledge are generally too late".. You'll never have enough knowledge to take a decision for something at its right moment.. We HAVE to believe in ourself, our intuitions and we should have guts to stand by our decisions..

... These were some of the major ones that I rmr.. There was a lot more that she told in that one, one and a half our session.. But believe me, m in no mood of being awake for some more time.. You could download the presentation here: The Need .. may be there's something useful for you in there.. It wasn't bad, as it looked like in the beginning, though there were lots of statements, such as 'ultimate bc baazi', 'faaltu time waste', made by some of my friends.. But that's ok!! Everyone has a right to form his/her opinion..

Good Nite if you're still awake.. And in case I don't see ya - gud morning, gud afternoon and gudnite.. ('Truman Show', for the un-informed)

posted by AK-84 @ 4:16 AM