Workshop work - Influencing Mindshift

The world moves with conversations and decisions.  Some of these decisions happen with internal conversations with oneself, some with external conversations i.e. with other people.  (Pic Courtesy - pexels-isaquepereira-394377)

Making a decision or getting people to decide involves change - which is easier said that done.  Most of the time, people hate change because change is hard, because even though the change is in their best interests, they love their comfort zone more, among other reasons for loving or hating people, things, directions (sometimes based on conscious or unconscious biases).  

As most people are aware, convincing someone to change their minds is not as easy as it sounds, and takes lots of time and effort. You have to carefully craft your message. Why? 

You don't want to come across as pushy and dominating

Whether as a leader or a parent,  people do use their own minds (in ways you haven't fully considered or predicted), so you have to plan to predict and how to manage the objections that inevitability come up.

All of this mostly increases your blood pressure before providing a modicum of tangible results.

Because of these factors, I consider convincing or influencing to be the most superior form of communication.  

In organization's speed is of the essence, hence I put together a workshop that consisted of exercises and activities including roleplays, around Robert Cialdini's Principles of Influence, Levers of Change by Howard Gardner, and Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and spent some time around building a growth mindset (change is easier when you can influence that in others). 

Here's some pics of the action including participant's insights and actions of this workshop titled "Influencing Mindshift" that I conducted for leaders of a consulting organization:

Deep Dive Into Influencing

Participants' Insights

Action Planning

The Books I read in 2025

 Here's what I did in the world of reading in 2025.

As usual, it's a mix of both fiction and non-fiction.  I'd say the most intriguing books for me in the fiction category are "Snow Crash" and "Three Body Problem".

In non fiction, I found "Open Space Technology", "The Choice Factory", "Dialogue" and "The Misfit's Manifesto" extremely powerful, and definitely recommended for those in the space of leadership and learning.

Click here to know which books I read, and the reviews I have left

Happy New Year 2026

 

My wish for your New 2026 for you and your loved ones

Generative AI for business Leaders

 

Here's a lucid article on how #leaders can leverage #AI to make a difference to their organization's growth along with the skills of it's people.

From the article - "Leaders who take proactive steps to amplify #humanskills will future-proof their workforce, unlock new levels of innovation, engagement, and competitive advantage, and ensure that AI enhances, rather than replaces, their greatest asset: people."

Click here to read the article.

Pic credit pexels-shvetsa-5614124

Christmas Greetings 2025

 

Learnings from Stress Management Training

 The next step in the Leadership journey for this client's leaders focused on managing their stress levels.

In the world we currently have, and with AI speeding things up and creating all sorts of FOMO with people at all levels, it's really difficult to control external sources or causes of stress.  With this understanding, I designed a one day workshop that combined aspects such as EQ basics, Time Management, along with tools for 

• Mindful stress management and 
• Journaling for Gratitude 

These would allow participants to manage their own reactions to external situations, and keep their stress levels lower.

Here are pics from the session  that was held in person.

Expectations

Their understanding of "Living In the Present"

Causes of Stress in their context

Learnings that they will action

From the hybrid batch, here's what came up for the participants.

I had a wonderful time doing the sessions.  Do get in touch on+91+9820155778 if you would like me to conduct similar workshops for your organization.

Why IAF conferences are in my blood - IAFIndia2025

From the Woven Garden Session conducted by Kala Diwanji, Varsha Chitnis and myself

 It's the experience.

This "experience" is made up of:

• Fun
• Learning
• Building new Relationships
• Nurturing old relationships

I've been attending them since 2015, barring a couple of years where other things in life asserted (and inserted) themselves to take precedence over the conference.  I've also volunteered for some of the conferences, on specific teams like the Proposal Team or the Registration Team.  I have also had the good fortune to be able to present a Facilitation Process (jointly) at two IAF India conferences (2019 & 2025) and the IAF Asia Conference in 2023.  All these have added to my experience in such a manner that I always feel "Yeh Dil Mange More".  So I had taken up the role of Co-lead for Mumbai hub from 2018 to 2020.

Here are memories of past conferences with some of my co-facilitators with whom I had a blast both designing the session and running it.

With Kala Diwanji and Varsha Chitnis at IAF India Conference Pune 2025

With Hideyuki Yoshioka and Varsha Chitnis at IAF Asia Conference in Hyderabad 2023

By the way, we were facilitating Large Groups (Hyderabad had approx. 200 and Pune had about 80 participants) for both the above sessions.

As a volunteer for IAF, you can add the term "community bonding" to the list mentioned above.  For me this is critical because volunteering creates the "belonging"  feeling that leads to us all bonding as a community.

In the #IAF2025 conference too, the challenge is which sessions to attend.  Unlike other non-IAF conferences where we wait for gyan from speakers, here at IAF conferences, we create the gyan ourselves thanks to the superb facilitation processes run by the Facilitators whose sessions are diligently managed by the Proposal Team, and evaluated by CPFs.

We rekindle old friendships and make some new ones.

We add to our basket of facilitation tools, not just during the conference, but even later where we can call those facilitators to clarify and gain more insights into their processes.

I enjoyed all the sessions I attended at IAFIndia2025, but the ones that stood out for me are:

Ravi Bhaviskar - Re-live Impact Story of Empowering Barefoot and Brilliant Girls

Ravi Bhaviskar's Facilitation Impact story showcasing how he used facilitation to enable the #barefoot and brilliant girls to dream big.   He even ran the process he used with the girls for us to get the experience of what he had done for them.

Zoom to read those stickers

Anand Mehta's wonderfully immersive process on Gratitude and Healing.

Ajit Kamath in Action

Ajit Kamath's masterclass on the IAF Competencies - done through facilitation processes.

Group pic of our Large Group session on 14 Nov 2025

Grateful thanks to IAFIndia, the core team, volunteers, session buddies and student volunteers, not forgetting our sponsors for making sure that we have a fabulous experience.  I'm eagerly looking forward to the next conference.