Discover the leader in you - Thursday, December 14, 2000
A D PRADEEP Kumar
Developing positive attitudes, personality traits and behaviour that will lead to conducive interpersonal relationships among employees has become an integral part of the human resource development programmes of many Indian corporates these days. Taking a cue from the trend, the Rajasthan based Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya has developed Self Managing Leadership (SML) and Self Orientation Workshop (SOW) programmes for people in business and industry.
Headquartered in Mount Abu, the Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya is affiliated to the United Nations' Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as a consultant NGO.
There is a growing realisation in Indian industry that apart from an employee's special skills, his personality, commitment to work and rapport with fellow employees all have significant impacts on the overall productivity of the organisation. A person's attitude and behaviour towards his colleagues can build up or spoil moods and team spirit. So, there is need for the all-round development of employees. Most available training programmes do not include spiritual wisdom as a rich resource for self-development. By imparting training in moral and spiritual values, the SML and SOW programmes help participants to feel the inner goodness of their own personalities. This makes them feel happier and, in turn, makes their job seem more fulfilling to them.
It is essential for businessmen and industrialists to apply universal as well as spiritual values in their field of action through spiritual empowerment. This helps in the development of value-based management and business practices along with individual excellence.
While SOW helps you to bring about change in all your activities, including attaining self-mastery, SML provides you with the skills and confidence necessary to master changes in life. SOW is the more recently developed programme, and it helps you to break through all personal limits, master your own world, develop skills of introspection, sustain awareness of positive thoughts, words and actions, discipline yourself and progress steadily to control all situations and bring about a perfect balance in life. It tells you how to maintain a balance between relationships and responsibilities in the three areas of home, business and self.
The Inner Assets' Management module under the SOW programme analyses the utilisation of thoughts, words, time and actions. This tells you how you can utilise your inner energies, their correlations and provides a close look at the accumulation and economic spending of these energies. The programme also teaches the art of business-how to deal with customers and employees tactfully, yet sincerely. SML, on the other hand, is a practical self-management development programme for people who are facing major changes in their life. It provides the skills and confidence necessary to master changes in life. It contains tools for an individual to realign with his changing environment and thereby develop greater self-esteem and self-control in terms of new attitudes, style and behaviour.
The SML programme trains you to develop a clear focus for the next stage in your life, to take responsibility for your own mind, emotions and life itself and stop blaming others or circumstances for adversities. It also helps you to improve the quality of communication and relationships as well as the overall quality of your life. This programme is especially helpful in coping with sudden changes or chaos in work situations when anxiety and stress become unbearable. The programme helps you master self-management skills to overcome such anxieties and stress. Pressure at work puts unbearable strain on relationships at home, health and self-confidence.
SML also clarifies the changing role of a manager. It demonstrates why the old methods of controlling people are no longer suitable and identifies new paradigms of leadership. There is also an introduction to the transformational leadership model, which explains a 10-step personal planning process that is the foundation of SML. This includes a personal SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. SML also distinguishes between `innate' values and `acquired' values and explains how to use these as the basis for choice selection and decision making. Moreover, it identifies the negative habits and attitudes of a person, his barriers and how he can deal with them.
Both the workshops, SML and SOW, have been well accepted in corporate circles. Companies who have enrolled for the courses include Nagarjuna Fertilisers, Godrej, GNFC, Atul, Spic, Silvassa Industries, RIL Patalganga, Central Bank, Bank of India, BPCL, ONGC, IOCL, IFFCO, KRIBHCO, Jindal Iron and Cadilla Healthcare.
Apart from SOW & SML, the Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya offers many other customised programmes pertaining to stress management, among other things.
(For more details , you can contact: Brahma Kumaris, Business & Industry Wing, Om Shanti Swastik Society, NS Road, Juhu Scheme, Ville Parle (West), Mumbai-400 049; Tel: (022) 616 08206, 616 0789; E-mail:
bkyogini@vsnl.com.)
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