Three months back my brother and a couple of other people from the neighborhood decided to start a Sunday Vedic class in the mutt (temple cum community hall) next to my property. I enthusiastically joined in as it was a long standing desire coming true. I should confess I had tried doing some self learning in the last few years with audio aids but wasn’t too successful. The accuracy of pronunciation eluded me and the length and complexity of words in some of the Sanskrit shlokas (verses) stood in the way. The only thing I managed with some degree of success thanks to the internet and the English translations so easily available now, was understanding the meaning of quiet a few of the shlokhas.

For some one associated with learning in a corporate scenario in various contexts over the last 16 years it has been a different experience. As it is too early to come to any generalizations and conclusions I am just stating a few facts in this write up.  

There is a teacher who teaches the group of students numbering 18 every Sunday for  1 hr 15 minutes. The composition of the learner group is as follows: 10 children between the ages of 8-15, 6 adults in the age group of 35-40 and two elders above the age of 60. My son aged 10  is also part of this  group , though he refuses to sit with me , instead sits with his friends.

The teacher who is an independent financial consultant by profession, refuses to take any fee. In fact he has been encouraging the group to have more classes every week to speedup the learning process, and is ready to offer his time whenever the group wants.The premises are in the local community hall and anyone is free to join.The teacher chants a few words once aloud all the while focusing on the clarity of pronunciation and the intonations, and this is followed by the group chanting the words loudly twice, and this teachning-learning continues. The teacher repeats the earlier words again in case he feels people aren’t able to pronounce/intonate it perfectly. This is done even when he feels a couple of people are out of sync. He is able to follow the chants of each one in the group and able to identify when some one is out of sync. He stops to help the individual chant it right. Every session is broadly divided into 2 parts. The first part lasting around 30-35 minutes is spend on chanting  what had been learned in the earlier sessions, and the second part focuses on new verses.

The session ends with an exhortation by the teacher to continue individual practice during the week.

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The author Sriram is a Director and Partner with Aventus Partners, a HR firm providing executive leadership solutions.

Please check out his profile in Training Orbit at http://www.trainingorbit.com/Person/345/sriram

I attended the National HRD networks National Conference held at Mumbai between 25-27 th Nov 2009. It was a  very professionally organized conference, with strict adherence to timelines and briefs .Importantly there were hardly any no shows/replacements from the published list of speakers . There were around 700 delegates predominantly from the HR profession who attended. For those interested to know more visit the website   www.nhrdnconference2009.com

A few things that struck me were   

1. The presence of leaders from Indian Industry and government in an HR conference. You had Anand Mahindra, Kumaramangalam Birla, Omar Abdullah (CM of J&K), Indu Shahani (sheriff of Mumbai)  among a host of other leaders .
2. More important than their presence was their preparedness to address the sessions agenda and the universal acceptance of the role that people and their management are to play in their future plans. It didn’t sound like lip service anymore. Seemed more like a basic given.
3. There was optimism about the Indian growth story mixed with caution . People like Ms Rama Bijapurkar and Ramachandra Guha spoke about the demographic and the other challenges that the country faces.

For us HR and development professionals and those  working in organizations delivering services in these domains the following is food for thought .

Developing and managing people professionally and in an aligned manner  is not just an imperative for businesses, but has become a fundamental driver in the plans of government as well as voluntary organizations.  This opens a huge space hitherto unserviced by us.

It is not just any more about carrots and  sticks  , more autonomy , opportunity to develop ones skills and  potentials but a sense of purpose and pride that makes talent tick . What do HR professionals need to do to foster and sustain a sense of purpose and pride in people and organizations that they serve.

Todays world is defined by paradoxes and apparent contradictions. What processes do we deploy to help individuals and organizations thrive in this scenario.

In an era where organizations themselves don’t promise guaranteed life time employment, is there a responsibility that we have in keeping our workforce employable.

Generation Y (those born after 1980) are increasingly becoming the dominant segment in many an organization. There is a lot that the earlier generations in the work force can learn from them. Are we and those in our organization doing this and benefiting from it?. Heard of reverse mentoring - seems to be becoming a reality today.