Take a knee and smile

Colonel's strategy victory

Somewhere in Iraq in the early days of US attacks, a group of soldiers went to a local mosque to ask assistance for distribution of supplies to the people in that village. Not knowing of the soldiers’ intention, a mass of people gathered and intended to defend their sacred building and protect their spiritual leaders. Yelling and waving their hands in the air, the villagers then circled the soldiers from several angles. The atmosphere was so tense. One single provocative act might pull the trigger from the soldiers’ automatic rifles and start the killing of unarmed villagers. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Hughes reacted in an instant. Unexpectedly, he took the megaphone and calmly said to his men, ‘Soldiers, on your knee.’ That means the soldiers had to kneel on one knee. He shouted at his men to point their rifles to the ground. Then, came that order, ‘Now, smile.’ At this point the tension went down. Some people were still yelling but most of them smiled back at the soldiers. They came closer to the soldiers and even patted their back gently as the US army retreated slowly with smile on their faces.

Holistic staff development

Some challenging notes on holistic staff development.

1. What kind of soil are you bringing to the people around you? Are you a rocky type of person Or are you a fertile soil type of person?
2. If you don't like children and if you don't care about poverty, go work somewhere else. There's the door.
3. Do you bring life to rooms you walk in? Or do you suck life out of rooms?
4. You cannot give what you do not have.

Baca Buku

Tantangannya adalah ...

BACA 200 HALAMAN SETIAP HARI.

Talent

Selecting for talent is the manager's first and most important responsibility. If he fails to find people with the talents he needs, then everything else he does to help them grow will be as wasted as sunshine on barred ground. John Wooden, the legendary coach of the UCLA Bruins, puts it more pragmatically.

"No matter how you total success in the coaching profession, it all comes down to a single factor-TALENT. There may be a hundred great coaches of whom you have never heard in basketball, football, or any sport who will probably never receive the acclaim they deserve simply because they have not been blessed with the talent. Although not every coach can win consistently with talent, no coach can win without it."

According to everything we have heard from great managers, the coach is right. But he is also a little humble. What made John Wooden so successful was not just the talents on his teams, but also his ability to create the right kind of environmental to allow those talents to flourish. After all, talent is only potential. This potential cannot be turned into performance in a vacuum. Great talents need great managers if they are to be turned into performance.

Buckingham and Coffman (1999). 
First, break all the rules. What the world's greatest managers do differently.

The challenge now is for the managers to realize this in recruiting the right person on the right seat. And also for those who strive for performance, are you performing your talent?

Just Do It - Lesson learned from sharing about my passion

Beberapa waktu yang lalu saya mengikuti sebuah pertemuan yang dihadiri oleh beberapa Training Manager dan Training Specialist yang melayani di Compassion Asia Region. Di awal pertemuan ini kami diminta untuk berkenalan dengan satu orang yang baru ditemui dalam kegiatan ini. Untuk menuntun proses berkenalan ini kami dipandu oleh 5 instruksi yang diberikan oleh fasilitator.

1. Tulislah nama lengkap teman anda.
2. Berapa lama dia sudah melayani di Compassion?
3. Minta dia untuk menceritakan 1 informasi menarik tentang dia yang belum diketahui banyak orang.
4. Buatlah sebuah gambar berkaitan dengan informasi baru yang anda peroleh dari teman anda.
5. Perkenalkan teman anda ini kepada semua orang dalam ruangan.

Dalam kegiatan ini, saya berkenalan dengan Benagas, Training Manager dari Compassion India. Sebenarnya bungung juga memikirkan informasi tentang diri saya, yang menarik tentunya, yang saya bisa bagikan. Nah, karena sebelum kegiatan ini kami mengadakan ibadah dan disitu ada puji-pujian yang diiringini dengan gitar, maka saya pikir bagus juga untuk menceritakan kepada Benagas tentang kerinduan saya untuk bisa memainkan alat  musik gitar. Keinginan ini sudah ada sejak saya masih SMA dulu sampai waktu kuliah. Yang saya ingat, saya selalu dikelilingi oleh teman-teman yang bisa memainkan gitar. Tapi kenapa ya saya tidak bisa main gitar. Sudah beberapa kali berusaha belajar dari teman-teman sekitar tapi selalu gagal. Oh ya, istri saya punya suara yang bagus dan ada kerinduan untuk bisa mengiringi istri saya menyayi, terlebih kalau bisa mengiringi dia menyanyi di gereja. Setelah selesai membagikan hal ini, Benagas membagikan beberapa tip yang menarik (mungkin juga sudah pernah saya dengar dari orang lain tapi mungkin penyampaian Benagas yang sangat memotivasi saya sehingga saya sangat terkesan).

• Not too late to learn something new.
• Pilih satu lagu yang saya sukai.
• Cari chord lagu ini di internet.
• Latihlah memainkan lagu ini dengan gitar, berulang-ulang kali. Karena ini adalah pembiasaan, usahakan untuk terus menerus latihan dengan satu lagu ini bukan hanya satu minggu, tapi bisa beberapa minggu, atau dalam hitungan bulan. Intinya biasakan diri dulu untuk bisa dengan satu lagu sebelum memainkan lagu yang lain. 
• Get the feeling, perpindahan dari satu chord ke berikut. 
• Kuasai memainkan lagu tersebut.
• Setelah benar-benar menguasai, mungkin dengan tambahan chord lainnya, pilihlah lagu yang lain yang saya sukai.

Memang ini kedengaran sangat sederhana dan sekali lagi, mungkin sudah pernah ada orang lain yang menyampaikan kepada saya tentang metode ini. Tapi dalam kesempatan tersebut ada hal yang yang saya pelajari yang melebihi kerinduan saya untuk main gitar. Hal itu berkaitan dengan tugas saya sebagai Training Specialist.

Sebagai Training Specialist, saya harus mampu untuk menguasai satu topik sebelum saya memfasilitasi pelatihan berkaitan dengan topik tersebut. Intinya saya tidak bisa memfasilitasi sebuah topik pelatihan dengan baik sebelum saya mempelajari dan menguasai topik tersebut. Topik tersebut mungkin saja adalah hal yang baru bagi saya. Karena itu saya harus berusaha untuk mempelajari hal tersebut, melatih memberikan pelatihan tersebut sebelum saya membantu orang lain menguasai topik itu. Learn it, master it, learn it, experience it. Just keep on learning.

POLITE- ics

Oke... memang kalo bicara tentang politik, banyak orang (yang menganggap diri mereka awam) akan langsung berujar bahwa topik ini adalah sesuatu yang tidak enak untuk jadi bahan diskusi, kotor, tidak up-to-date.
But look around you, terutama kalo menjelang masa-masa pemilihan calon legislatif, atau masa pemilihan pimpinan kepala daerah dan presiden, dimana-mana kita akan langsung mendengar pembicaraan tentang politik. Secara langsung, media sosial dan media massa membombardir masyarakat dengan berita-berita yang berkaitan dengan hal ini. Jadi secara sadar juga banyak orang yang kemudian meng-copy paste apa yang mereka dengar dan saksikan ke dalam diskusi-diskusi informal dan bahkan gosip-gosip dimanapun mereka berada.
So, politik ini akhirnya jadi bahan pembicaraan yang hangat dan 'enak' untuk dibicarakan.
From politik to POLITE-ics.

Tantangannya adalah bagaimana membawa remaja dan pemuda gereja masuk dalam ranah politik sehingga pembicaraan yang terjadi bisa menambah wawasan mereka tentang politik secara 'polite'.

How about this challenge?

http://harnipandeirot.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/how-to-deliver-a-boring-training-session/

HOW TO DELIVER A BORING TRAINING SESSION …

Standard

Delivering a fun and interesting training session is easy.  Delivering a boring training session is even much easier. I can do it. You can do it. Everybody can do it.

Eager to know more?

Here are the tips.

Say ‘No’ to ice breaker and energizer activities. They are just wasting your time. Many people are so fond of having activities to fire up the participants or to grab the audience’s attention to the training session or to the facilitator him/herself. But you know what, this so-called ‘short’ activity is actually time-consuming because the participants will have fun and ask for more. ‘It’s not enough. We want more,’ they will say. Besides that, as a facilitator, you have to prepare yourself for that particular energizer. You need to at least know how to do it because you will be mocked if you facilitate an energizer that you do not master. You see, preparation for one energizer also requires your time and energy.

Avoid discussion. When you give an opportunity for the audience or training participants to ask questions or to criticize the training materials/session, it will just open a window of opportunity for them to start questioning what you train. You will lose your power and dignity. The result of it is that they will not trust you for the next session. Therefore, do not ever end your session (or in the middle of the session) by asking, ‘Is there any question?’ Whatever the circumstance is, keep on going. If there are some people raising their hands and ask if they can ask some questions, just say, ‘Sorry, we do not have any discussion session for today.’ Easy, isn’t it?

I am Mr/s Know-All. Giving training is all about sharing to participants about you know. It’s all about what you know, not what they want to know. So, it is you who runs the show. You are the main actor. You see, people come to your training because they eager to know what you know. Well, there are also some participants who actually come to training with having background knowledge on the trained issues. Since they already know some things, they tend to test you with questions and comments that will discredit you. Well, with this kind of participants, simply tell them that your source is the right one and that theirs is out-of-date. If they insist on telling you comments that might endanger the whole training process, one key sentence that we can always say is, ‘We don’t have much time to argue about this. So why don’t you write your questions or comment on a piece of paper and I will give you better explanation later.’ Well, you know better that it will now likely to happen.

Keep talking, I mean that’s why you want to be a trainer, right? To train people. And to do so, you need to be good at talking. So, do what you’re good at. Talk. Don’t give an opportunity to the participants to start talking. If you do, they will steal your talking time and they will do the training instead.

‘Stay in your comfort zone.’ Your seat is your comfort zone. Why bother yourself to move around? It will just distract the participants’ attention. By staying at your seat or desk, participants can concentrate more and absorb the explanation that you give. Besides that you will not drop a single sweat, except if the room is hot and not air-conditioned.

Glue your audience to their seats. Don’t move. Freeze. It’s pretty much similar to ‘stay in your comfort zone’ idea. There is no advantage to invite participants to mingle and get to know each other. Trainees are here to absorb your explanation. This requires them to sit and enjoy the sessions. Isn’t it nice to have an audience that sits still?

There is no fun in having fun. Having fun requires extra energy, preparation, effort and ‘extraterrestrial’ media. If you concentrate on this thing, you will end up spending your valuable time just for the sake of entertaining the participants. I mean, what is the use of entertaining participants when you are not entertained with what you do to them. Participants attend your training for knowledge, skills, and for attitude. They do not come for laughter. They do not come for smiles. They definitely do not attend your training sessions for energizer and ice-breaker activities. And of course you do not want them to remember your training for the ‘fun’ they have. They should remember your training for the knowledge and skills they gain.

Quiet, please. Music, video, and other sound are prohibited. This multimedia stuff will just distract the participants’ attention, not to mention your concentration too. Moreover, having music and video require sound system and projector. What if the training venue does not provide these tools? Will you stick to your plan and have 30 – 40 participants gather around your laptop just to have a glimpse of what you play? How silly is that?

So, what do you think? It’s easy, isn’t it?

The question now is, ‘how boring can you go?’