My dear friends,
Holistic Capacity Building in your respective organizations is essentially expanding collective capability and competence of a set of human beings engaged with a purpose. Learning Ambience is necessary for the Organizations to remain competitive at all times, and to nurture and retain talent. Learning should be an integral activity of the business to achieve the goal of transforming the entity into a Learning Organization of distinction. Learning should aim at imbibing and evolving the best practices in the industry, continuously striving to achieve excellence through enhancement of performance and productivity, refreshing the knowledge base and sharpening the employees’ skills on a maturity continuum.
Deeper paradigms of learning
Learning often involves new skills and developing new behaviors. Learning is not simply listening to lectures, taking notes, memorizing the text and passing tests. For the learning process to succeed the individual must be willing to apply every bit of knowledge & information gained and experience the process and outcome. He should be exposed to Attitudinal Perspectives, Emotional Intelligence and Behavioral Science etc. in the training & development plans for a complete learning process involving the entire learner.
Real objectives of learning
Real objectives of Learning encompass not only exposure to the existing knowledge but more importantly development of:
- Talent
- Analytical skills
- Team work / Leadership
- Creativity & Innovation
- Envisioning
- Conceptualization
- Values
- Acumen
- Sensitivity
- Ethics / Ethos
- Consciousness
- Mindset
- Spiritual Wisdom
3-Orbits of learning: A new concept ©
All the above 13-faculties can be developed by an Educational / Training System with following inputs getting infused hand-in-hand from 3-orbits alongside:
- Intellectual Inputs
- Emotional Intelligence
- Spiritual / Social Consciousness
For the above, we need subject Experts to take care of the domain knowledge, Psychologists to take care of the emotional intelligence and Philosophers and Spiritual Scientists/ Sociologists to develop the spiritual/ social consciousness. The group has to work in close coordination and synchronization in order to figure out the deeper paradigms of learning.
Model of 3-orbits of learning ©
Example-1 Energy Conservation in Power Supply System
A shocking question was posed to the author after concluding his session on “Energy Conservation”. “Why should we promote energy conservation when we are in energy supply business? Every extra unit we supply, we make profit out of it.” An interesting question emerging out of perverted perception, values and lack of consciousness. I had to make an effort to answer the question. I answered in 3-steps taking the audience through 3-orbits of intellectual, emotional and spiritual domains. I said first of all please don’t worry as a hardcore businessman for any units saved, since there is a queue waiting for new connections, which is a larger profit making proposition for you. This argument fitted well in the conversant 1st Orbit of intellectual logic.
Now, as a good businessman would you like to supply energy in energy surplus/ wasting area or an energy starved area, I asked. I quoted a couple of examples. In Hawaii sugar Industries, at the reception, one is offered sugar as-well-as sugar-free crystals along with the tea. If you ask them as to why they offer sugar-free, as sugar producers, their reply is “we don’t produce sugar for consumption of sugar surplus people”. Similarly, as responsible energy producers and suppliers, good businessmen involved should have a clear preference to supply energy to energy-starved area and not energy-surplus area.
Expanding further on the 2nd Orbit of emotional intelligence, the other example I gave was that of Airlines who constantly innovate ways and means to add value to their prime customer service. For instance, in the “Executive Class” when the airhostess offers to clean your spectacles and the laptop screen while you are working on your laptop, the world becomes much brighter thereafter. They term it as “Prime Customer Experience”. As good businessmen in Energy supply industry, “Reliance Experience” or “Tata power Experience” will have to be created most innovatively. We may have to create a kind of “Resident Doctor Service” for Prime customers through:
- Round the clock availability of engineers/ technicians for emergency.
- Energy Audit for suggesting energy saving measures to benefit the customer.
- Power Quality Analysis for Harmonics/ Power factor to suggest Stabilizers/ Capacitors of appropriate ratings.
This will not only be desirable for competitive advantage but also for the customer to see the Energy conservation benefits getting passed on to him and the society at large.
Taking the audience to the 3rd orbit of social and spiritual consciousness, I said that after 10 years, even if the supply equals demand, for every unit saved, there will be a saving of-
–1 kg of Coal (from the fixed stocks, encroaching upon the rights of future generation)
-1 kg of CO2 (responsible for Greenhouse effect)
-0.4 kg of Ash (responsible for atmospheric pollution)
-6 gm of Nitrous Oxide (polluting the environment)
-1 gm of Sulphur di oxide (responsible for Acid Rain)
The above clearly illustrates the perceptional inadequacy of our single orbit of training & education system of merely the intellectual inputs, ignoring emotional intelligence and social consciousness.
Example-2 Quality Management
Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association more popularly known as Dubbawallas of Mumbai have made history in Six Sigma World Records. With an employee strength of 5000, they supply 200,000 Tiffin boxes of homemade food to the work places and carry them back home involving 400,000 transactions per day with no technological back-up, at a cost of service of meager Rs 200/ month. Their Six Sigma performance is 99.999999% with an error rate of 1 in 16 million transactions, against normative Six Sigma Error Rate of 3.4 in 1 million opportunities.
With an average literacy rate of 8th Grade schooling, Dubbawallas have achieved such a wonder which Corporates with battery of Experts on Statistical Quality Control can’t achieve. The recognitions showered on them amongst many are; Best Time Management-Entry in “GUINESS BOOK of World Records”, Registered with Ripley’s “Believe it or not” and Documentaries made by BBC, UTV, MTV, and ZEE TV.
The secret of Dubbawalla’s miraculous success comes out of their emotional values and spiritual consciousness. Each one of them, every day from 10.30 am to 1.00 pm is on toes, with just one driving spirit that “my client should not remain hungry today for want of my service”. If such emotional and spiritual/ social wisdom topping up their intellectual level developed out of 8th grade schooling can create a world class wonder, think about the results that can be obtained by designing an Education System based on 3-Orbits of Learning !!!
The Coverage of 3-Orbits
Learner Centric 3-Orbits of Education/ Training
Learner Centric 3-Orbits of Education/ Training, graduating from intellectual inputs to emotional intelligence and further to social and spiritual consciousness can lead us to superior mindsets creating a better world around us. Education is not just knowledge based skill training but it is development of self-awareness, a holistic perspective for wholesome development and oneness with the world. It is a process of elevation of consciousness that transforms a “Biological Intellectual” into a realized self. Holistic education under 3-Orbits of Learning will connect you better with your own self, understanding the totality of the cosmos around and within you, observing events and relating them in proper perspective and to grow as a complete person.
Satyamev Jayate !!!
Best wishes and Regards,
Dr. B.S.K.Naidu
BE(Hons), M.Tech., Ph.D., CBI-Scholar, D.Engg. (Calif.), FNAE, Hon.D.WRE (USA)
Chairman Emeritus, Great Lakes, Gurgaon, NCR, New Delhi, INDIA
Former Director General (NPTI & CPRI / REL), Ex. Director (REC) / Executive Director (IREDA)
No job is small or big, the way in which you do, makes it small or big (c)
But is it that easy? After debacle, definitely not. We need to understand that success and failure is part and parcel of life. Growing up on failures and learning from them is the mandatory ingredient needed to concoct a perfect recipe called Success. Confidence and self belief are the two ingredients that are necessary to keep you going after a failure. History is replete with examples of people who braved failure to achieve success and make it big.
Great Lakes Institute of Management 