Action & Innovation

After years of reading, writing, researching, teaching and working with businesses at enhancing creative thinking in workplaces I have come to one happy conclusion. The conclusion is that at the core of all efforts at coming up with creative ideas, and innovating products and processes lies the fact that “action speaks louder than words!”

People in research, design, planning, marketing and strategizing constantly bleed and sweat over what wonderful thing to do next and how to come up with an idea that will rock the world and save money at the same time. Consultants like myself, catalyze the bleeding and the sweating further by dishing out multiple, hair-brained techniques and methods to “enhance creativity in individuals and organizations.” The whole circus is a vicious circle of futility rather than creativity and creative thinking. The power truly lies in A C T I O N and execution. Though, I am tempted to, I will not quote Nike over here. Nope!

What businesses need to learn and master is the ability to go out on a limb again and again. Individual and organizations need to learn to live with ambiguity and risk. The world outside; the economy, the ecology and the mind of the masses is and always will be in a constant flux. Market conditions will change, trends will change and the world will turn. Speed and action to market is important. Pro-acting to feedback and corrections is important. Getting into the thinking, designing and delivering into the pit is important.

It is vital that organizations not just follow a three-step, a five step or a seven-step method into higher creativity and breakthrough innovations but also give priority to conclusions and ends. Start backwards if we have to but constantly put something out there into the midst of the market and let the world decide if your ideas are worth the paper they have been brainstormed upon. Yes!

Authenticity and Public Speaking

Deep within your brain lies the amygdala_ also referred to as the “reptilian brain.” This part of the brain exercises no logic, rationality or order. It thrives on passion, fear, and rage.

The “fight or flight” syndrome during public speaking, originates from here. Manifestations of this syndrome are sweaty palms, increased heartbeat, a parched throat, and knocking knees.

Once, I observed a sales director of a large multi-level marketing company who had the habit of calling for a round of applause every few minutes during his speech. In the din of the applause, he’d gulp in air to soothe his fears and then continue.

Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism,
Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person. – Dr. David M. Burns

A much better way to manage this fear is to constantly reach in and reclaim our authentic, inner being. Authenticity is achieved, as discussed earlier, by an honest appraisal of our objectives, purpose, and ulterior motives. After this, even if the structure and style of our speech is not that great, it becomes what my kids call “real”.

Many years ago, Mario Garrolinni, a speaker friend of mine died in a motorcycle accident. Several of his friends from the speaking and training business turned up to give eulogies at his wake. They all spoke with eloquence, wit, and style but the speaker that outshone them all was an old and humble mechanic from Mario’s factory.

He came up stooped shoulders, wrung his hands in agony, and stumbled through his words while clutching at the front of his shirt. He spoke of how much he loved Mario and shared happy little anecdotes of their friendship.

His language was simple. He wasn’t stylish or educated. As he spoke, there were tears and laughter in his eyes. After he finished there were tears and laughter in the eyes of everyone present. He was speaking the plain truth in simple words, authentically. Whenever, I get anxious or egotistical, I remember that old, humble Filipino mechanic and I simmer down and tap into my own authentic nature.

I am also not a big believer in the adage of “fake it until you make it”. I’d rather be honest, work hard and straight, and then “make it” so I don’t have to “fake it.” There are times that when you confess ignorance or inexperience you expose yourself to humiliation. But, confessions of truths can also make you endearing and human.

One day, Herbert Lee from Macau, a speaker/trainer friend of mine, spoke about how important it is to expose your inner self to create a better rapport. “You gotta open your hearts!” he cried. To prove this point to his audience he unbuttoned the front of his jacket, yanked his necktie off, and grabbed his shirt by the collar as if to rip it off. The audience leaned back and gasped, not knowing what was coming next. They didn’t want to see a nude speaker! With a flourish, my friend tore the shirt off his body, leaving his jacket on. The audience erupted into amazed laughter when they realized his shirt was a trick-shirt designed to be ripped off and away from under his jacket!

Herbert, though, had made his point that one must expose himself to be accepted and to be liked by his audience.


Sincerity and openness are major factors that can help you overcome your fears. While preparing to deliver a speech, ask yourself the following questions.

First, is the content of my speech true?
i. If there are facts, numbers or anecdotes that you are not sure of, not using them will cut down your anxiety.
Second, Am I telling half-truths and avoiding facts?
ii. If you are vague about concepts and are avoiding the real issues just so that you can fulfill the task of presenting, then you will be doubtful and fearful.
And third, what is my ulterior motive behind all the statements and suggestions?
iii. If your motives are well meaning and will truly benefit the audience, it becomes easier to speak with power, style and confidence.

This tapping into our authentic nature, expressing truths and overcoming anxiety through deep introspection forms the most important layer of the Heart of Public Speaking.

the birds, the bees and the flowers up the wall!

Just the other day someone asked me if I’d heard about Vertical Farming. I said I had but wasn’t too thrilled about it.

“Why?” he exclaimed surprised.
“Uh, because it is trying to correct a problem originally created by ourselves.”
“How is that? Doesn’t it make sense that people will not have to go far out of the cities to get their needs filled?”
“That does make sense but it is a stop-gap solution. The question that we really need to ask ourselves is what has driven us to live in such tall structures, what has driven us to live in such a congested manner and what has driven us humankind to be one of the largest numbers of inhabitants on earth?”

The truth is that we have really overcrowded the earth. There are billions of us digging into the crust of the planet, ‘de-treeing’ the forests and ‘dam-ming’ the rivers and the oceans in the name of progress. We are converting everything into wrought iron, plastic and mortar and then piercing it into the heart of the earth and erecting structures which shoot miles into the sky in defiance of nature and natural forces. We call them skyscrapers and we think that is “oh' so smart of us as a civilization.” How far away is that kind of thinking compared to inventing electric saws to chop down trees or throwing sticks of dynamite into the ocean so the fish will pop out of it dead and murdered.

Every time we as a race and as a society have taken a decision we have believed it to be the smartest decision ever. When we split open an atom we thought that was a scientific breakthrough until it was also used as atom-bomb to kill thousands. When we conquered the oceans we believed that to be an achievement until the waste and spills from our tankers began to poison every single inhabitant that lived in the waters. We are thrilled at being able to fly from one continent to another at breakneck speed not realising that that just gets us doing the digging, the de-treeing and the dam-ming much faster and much more globally. Somebody has to just stop and ask. ‘Why? Where are we going with all this activity? What is the higher purpose? What is the universal vision?

Is our long-term goal to be the most populated species on earth? Is our purpose to smelt plastic, metal and mortar into horrendously vertical constructions, pump up the rivers onto the 141st floor so we can wash our hands after nibbling on frog-legs and celery plucked from the farm next door? Einstein was wrong when he helped us unleash nuclear power but he was right when he said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

Mankind’s intentions are essentially good but mankind’s decision making is dependant only on the intellectual, emotional resources available to it from the environment and that which is true in the present moment. All wisdom is gained in hindsight by connecting the dots backwards. Very rarely have we practiced creativity and creative thinking which is not demand driven, which is not circumstantial and reactive.

I am not offering answers because I do not have any. I am just raising questions and inviting caution before we coerce our flowers and fauna to scramble up on horrendously vertical skyscrapers. I am inviting long-tem concern, thinking in systems and a refrain from applauding our own thinking and actions before we drive the birds, the bees and the flowers up the wall again!

Why Coaching Sales Creates Champions

Though early on in my career I did not get any sales specific training I was fortunate to intern under several successful sales champions. My mentors had learned their skills through the school of hard knocks and over a long period of time. Mentoring me, though, was far from their minds and all they really cared was if I made enough sales and if my success at sales put money into their coffers. Amazingly though, and such is life, I picked up a million little lessons from them which over time gave me an uncanny and an unfair advantage over many sales people and endeared me to my clientele and the market I played in. The learning was in-depth and the growth was exhilarating and long lasting. Years into the profession, when side by side with my mentors I had developed an uncanny and subtle set of playing rules which almost always helped me close deals and serve my clients consistently and to the benefit of both sides.

Over time, I realized that the art of selling was not just an art but an extremely refined science. The rules of this science, in the past, were learned through by getting into the pit again and again. Today, the culture of learning through long and strenuous interactions over a l o n g period of time does not need to be continued. It still has its benefits but keeping in mind the principle of “Anything can be accomplished if the task is broken down into small enough steps,” from the school of Nuero Linguistics Programming, a sales leader can transfer these uncanny and subtle set of playing rules to almost anyone willing to learn and wanting to make a success out of his sales career.

Across the world trainers and sales consultants like me have now packaged these playing rules into principles and practices which can be mastered in a matter of months if not weeks. Gone are the days when a successful sales person or a team leader would get on stage and boost the spirits of his teams through stories and admonitions towards sales success. Today, the name of the game is Sales Coaching—and, it is potent and powerful in real time and in measurable terms.
Sales Coaching brings about a multitude of benefits at the individual, the team and the organisational level.

At the individual level, sales coaching starts with the assumption that if you can dream it then you can achieve it. This becomes an extremely powerful a paradigm for the sales person because it starts with the belief in her potentiality, its helps unleash her latent strengths and it helps her leverage on her own past successes no matter what field or discipline she comes from. Sales coaching, at the individual level, instead of imposing the manager’s or the organizations belief systems on the salesperson helps her uncover her own driving values. It help her fine tune her skills in complete alignment with her own beliefs and potential.

At the team level, Sales Coaching, helps distribute work load and challenges based on personal preferences and competencies of each player. It helps teams eliminate links which may be weak and move from strength to strength to strength. Steven Covey highlights this synergy of strengths by creating a metaphor of loading a single wooden plank with a measured downward pressure, followed by laying another layer of a wooden plank on the first one. The downward pressure and weight thus carried by two wooden planks not just doubles in tandem to the number of planks but increases multi-fold. Such is the power of Sales Coaching for a team. It strengthens each player individually and then bonds them together with their strengths thus reducing team weaknesses. At the practical level, a manager-cum-coach can assess individual strengths and assign tasks and territories to build on strengths instead of just logistical and market demands.

At the organizational level, Sales Coaching helps in the following ways:

• Essential knowledge and organization culture is retained and enhanced in the process.
• Employee engagement and thus retention peaks up because of increased performance and satisfaction.
• Alignment of personal, team and organizational goals are constantly aligned thereby boosting rapid and sustainable growth.


In summary, the business of old-fashioned sales training has taken on a new and a vibrant face. Instead of sweeping statements about successes and successful behaviour during sales it now is a fine-tuned, highly refined and custom made one on one learning. It is not just faster, better and cheaper but it is also creative, conscientious and constructive. A well-designed sales coaching program addresses the needs of individuals, teams and organization in the areas of culture, processes, characters, visions, and competencies. A well designed sales coaching program also provides knowledge, skills and true wisdom for playing well in the pits, where the true action is.

Power Persuasions

A huge majority of us are, to a certain level, hyper-active and lack the ability to focus on things for long. In some ways we resemble a flock of birds chirping away at nothing and for this we can happily blame it on the nature of our creation. In many ways we are affected by the fast changing, constantly chaotic, circumstances which surround us. The bottom-line, though, regardless of whether it is nature or nurture that makes us, is the fact that we are always in a state of flux.

To give positive direction and constructive shape to the change that is constantly happening to us requires that we develop skills to navigate or anchor ourselves at a deeper, primal level closer to our identities and emotions. To give positive direction and constructive shape to change in others we must also develop the skills and abilities to create a shift for them at a deeper and a more emotional level in them…read more

Dr Robert Cialdini, known for his popular book on persuasion and marketing, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion makes claim to six laws that can create a shift in others and these, very quickly, are;

• Reciprocity - People tend to return a favor for a favor. Thus giving the power to one who does the first favor.

• Commitment and Consistency - If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment.

• Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing.

• Authority - People will tend to be influenced by authorities and celebrities.

• Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people that they like.

• Scarcity - Perceived scarcity will generate demand and therefore give power to the one owning title to the things in demand.

These laws are good and make a lot of social sense. I agree with them absolutely and would add to these facts the current research from the fields on Nuero-psychology. What support and enshrouds all these laws is the fact that deep change occurs at the levels where our emotions and memories reside. It is the images, the sounds and the feelings of past experiences of joy and sorrow which become a powerful driving force behind the choices we make today, behind the actions we take today and destiny that we shape for our tomorrows.

Change at and around the seat of our emotions and past experiences is brought about a careful construction and morphing of the verbal and non-verbal language that we use in our day to day interactions with our family, friends and colleagues. Those that recognize the power of the words we weave have learned the art and science of it over time, through deliberate effort and razor-sharp awareness of their own thoughts, mental processes, ideas and emotional shifts. Those that master these skills and develop intuitive competencies stop being like a bunch of sparrows atop a tree but become soaring eagles in the sky that fly down sharp and swift for a purpose and then fly back into the echelons of personal performances and achievements.

History Repeats Itself

The other day at the bank, Lisa, my young and attractive bank officer was telling me how her mother had taken a fall, and while waiting for hip replacement, was confined in a hospital in the USA.

While Lisa was talking to me, I was watching her eyebrows and wondering how painful it must be for girls to undergo all that plucking. I was wondering how she would look if she let her eyebrows grow. Coming out of the trance, I looked up and brightly asked her: “Hey how’s your mom? Does she still live in Japan?”

Right! I was hearing her but I hadn’t been listening! I was physically present but spiritually gone. I was hearing her but I wasn’t listening. Listening requires engagement, comprehension, absorption, and processing while hearing is only a function of the ears.

We spend half of our waking time communicating with others and the other half listening. In school we are taught how to read, write, and recite, but have any of us spent time learning to listen fully? If we learned to listen with our heads and hearts, we’d be able to manage our time projects and plans much more efficiently.

Putting our heads and hearts together makes us not just attentive, but also watchful of our own input. Our partners, our customers deserve that and some more from us. Call this behavior “Listening Mindfully.”

Listening Mindfully will benefit you by:

• Making you aware of your own intentions and authenticity.
• Strengthening and improving your relationships with your colleagues, customers and community.
• Giving you the ability to bring about positive and meaningful change in the world.

In all conversations, Listening Mindfully can be achieved by taking these five simple steps:

1. Investigate Intentions. Before entering any conversation, find out what it is that you really want to achieve. An honest appraisal of your intentions will keep you engaged and make your customers feel served well.

2. Increase Awareness. While you are listening, clear your personal, mental clutter. This could be anything from nagging thoughts, to lists of things to do, to plans for the day. Postpone these thoughts, increase awareness, note change in tone, and pitch and pace of speaker. Look for underlying feelings and visualize your mind consciously capturing key ideas.

3. Interact with Interest and Enthusiasm. Listening is also done with your eyes and body. Maintain eye contact and lean towards the speaker. Every now and then blink with approval, nod, and smile or participate gently by uttering words like “uh-uh,” “hmmm,” or “I understand.” Keep this participation genuine and non-intrusive.

4. Inquire and Re-Phrase. All transfer of information, knowledge, or ideas from one mind to another generally leaves a small percentage of the unknown. Clarify and fill that gap as much as possible by making simple, direct, and inoffensive questions. Rephrase ideas or create comparisons to further solidify understanding.

5. Inscribe Impressions. Whenever and wherever possible take quick and colorful notes. You know what they say about remembering, “A blunt pencil is better than a sharp mind.” This will help you put down your impressions and review ideas and perceptions later.

Follow these five simple steps and your customer service experience will jump up several notches. Also, the next time you are in a bank with an attractive bank officer, it will help keep your mind where your body is. History repeats itself only because people do not listen mindfully the first time!

Raju Mandhyan
www.mandhyan.com

CSR: Learn not Teach

One of my sons has come of the age when he has to make the choice to study further or plunge into the world of business. So far he has been a good son, an outstanding student and a very responsible citizen of the world. His teachers at the Ateneo de Manila University do take note of his performances and they have rewarded him with the right accolades and scholarships too. In life, he seems poised correctly to take off from being a good boy to a man to be respected. I take pride in this fact but claim no credit. As far as I am concerned, he is a self-made man already.

While driving about town, sometimes, we have healthy conversations about business, politics, social issues, life and about living gracefully. I must confess that I, more often than not, pick up more lessons than I think I give out.

One particular Sunday morning, just a week after I made a presentation at the Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR] in Manila, I was telling him about how people across the world are waking up to the realities of the rampage we have created, in the guise of development and growth, we have created on earth. I was also telling him how happy I was that thousand of individuals and organizations in the know are now doing the right thing by healing the earth, nurturing the needy and educating the ones not in the know. “People,” I said, “are essentially good, and when given the freedom and the resources will most likely do the right and the noble thing.” I was happy, I said, that many large business groups do not regard the concept of CSR just as marketing and a business strategy but more as a way of life. On other occasions most of our conversations had been, of course, about developmental work and study opportunities in the USA or Europe for him. His city of choice, to live, work and or study, he’d mentioned many a times to me, was San Francisco. Today, he just sat and heard me out quietly.

A few days after that one-sided chat, we were back in the car again.

“Pa,” he said “there’s this professor at school who was telling us about this developmental assignment in one of the remote provinces in the Philippines.”

“What about it?”

“It’s an eighteen month teaching assignment for high-school level kids in a village where there is no electricity and potable water.”

“And?”

“Well, I am seriously considering taking it up.”

Without thinking and very carelessly, I blurted out, “Why?”

Allowing no pause and with a quick frown on his good-looking face, he exploded, “What do you mean, why?”

That shut me up good for the rest of the drive. Again, instead of teaching, I’d learned. Likewise for CSR, I realized I need to learn not teach, do and not talk, live it and not just employ it as a business strategy.