Effective Training

Many temples that invest in training fail to get the most from their investment. Devotees are sent on courses without being sufficiently clear about why they are attending the course. Devotees attend courses without setting clear learning objectives for the course. They come back from a course and are not debriefed and set longer term learning goals. Here are some ideas for getting the most from your investment in training.

Link Training To Temple's Objectives

What are your objectives and targets for the year? Training works best if linked to hard, measurable objectives. This could be (launching a new preaching project, enrolling new congregational members, growing existing resources, increasing book distribution, enhancing media presence). In this way it is much easier to measure the overall effectiveness of the training.

Identify The Training Needs Of Your Team And Individual Devotees

Assess the training needs of the team by relating its current performance to desired performance. In which areas is the team underperforming?

Pre-Brief The Team And Set Individual Learning Objectives

Prior to training taking place explain the reason for the training and set expectations together on the outcomes for the service. Talk to the team as a group and individually, set objectives for each devotee so they focus on their individual learning points during the training process.

Run The Training Programme. Set The Action Plans

Make sure the team comes back from training with personal action plans for following up the skills learned or revisited on the course. Discuss these with each devotee and get team feedback on course effectiveness.

Monitor Performance

Monitor the performance of the team and individuals, following the course. Spend time with team members in the field and look for changes in behaviour. Give the appropriate feedback to encourage proper performance. Remind devotees of the training points they may have forgotten, or misunderstood.

Measure Results

Measure the results of the team and look for individual success stories. Look for further training opportunities, such as team meetings, or joint attendance of workshops. Encourage personal self-development by inducing devotees to read books, listen to tapes, consult experienced devotees, etc.

Determine Your True Goals

I found this in one book.

***

Realize what you really want. It stops you from chasing butterflies and puts you to work digging gold.

1. Write down your three most important goals in life right now.

2. What are your three most pressing problems or worries right now?

3. If you won a million dollars cash, tax free, tomorrow, what changes in your life would you make immediately?

4. What do you really love to do? What gives you the greatest feelings of value, importance and satisfaction?

5. If you could wave a magic wand over your life and have anything you wanted, what would you wish for?

6. What would you do, how would you spend your time, if you only had six months left to live?

7. What would you really want to do with your life, especially if you had no limitations?

Do Something Every Day

Success is more likely if we work diligently on our goals every day.

1. Resolve today to pick up the pace in your life. Move faster from task to task. Walk quickly. Develop a higher tempo of activity.

2. Imagine you were going away tomorrow for a month and you had to get caught up on everything before you left. Work as hard and as fast as you do just before you leave for vacation.

3. Practice tight time planning. Imagine that you only had half the time available to get the job done and work with a sense of urgency all day long.

4. Continually ask for more responsibility, and when you get it, complete the task quickly and well. This one habit will continually open doors of opportunity for you.

Coaching Structure

These seven steps you can take when coaching devotees:

1. Establish rapport that leads to trust
2. Deal with immediate issues
3. Explore goals, values and beliefs
4. Find resources
5. Re-evaluate habits
6. Define tasks
7. Provide ongoing support

Wanting and Committing

Yeah, we have to spend the rest of our life following. We have to attack the subject from all angles. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. As one success teacher said: "It's not do you want to do it but will you do it." We all want to follow but we all don't. Wanting and committing are very different.

Mahatma dasa ACBSP

Gita Coach Bio

Bhuta Bhavana dasa, London
Email: bhutabhavana@yahoo.co.uk

Bhuta Bhavana dasa joined ISKCON in 1996 in London, England. Since joining, he has engaged in a number of service activities and initiatives. His current services include giving regular classes at the Sri Sri Radha Londonisvara temple in London, providing training of all kinds for the Bhaktivedanta Manor communications team and the Pandava Sena Youth Mentorship, as well as hosting the media and guests at special events. He is also part of a marketing initiative for the university outreach preaching programs in the UK, and the creation of a training wing for Bhaktivedanta Manor to facilitate all of the training requirements of the temple and congregation. These are a small sample among various other innovative and dynamic initiatives he has, and is undertaking in pursuance of assisting the mission of Srila Prabhupada.

Over the last few years, Bhuta Bhavana dasa has been a motivation and leadership consultant, whilst actively partaking in multiple government, educational and social initiatives, adding value through leadership, motivation, meditation workshops and so on. He is a training provider by occupation, and specialises in skills relating to career and employability. He recently went to Canada and led a number of interactive workshops on "Bhakti Yoga", "Empowerment through Yoga and Meditation" "Leadership from Within" and "Stress Management", often working with university students and young professionals, along with the general public.

Bhuta Bhavana dasa has spent many years working as part of the Pandava Sena youth university presentation scene and is one of the most prolific speakers, trainers and mentors. A disciple of His Holiness Srila Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja, Bhuta Bhavana dasa touches the hearts of all that he meets; not only touching hearts, but changing them too. He is a graduate from the prestigious London School of Economics where he studied Philosophy and Economics. He then went on to obtain a Masters from Birkbeck University in Politics and Sociology and uses his external qualifications to present spiritual life in dynamic ways, relevant to a variety of audiences.

Gita Coaches

These ISKCON members are trained Gita Coaches. They can help you achieve your spiritual, personal and professional goals in a structured and focused way. You may contact them for a taster session - on the phone or Skype.

Gita Coaches

Bhuta Bhavana dasa, London, email: bhutabhavana@yahoo.co.uk
Karuna Sindhu dasa, London, email: karuna.sindhu@pamho.net
Ramanrsimha dasa, London, email: ramanrsimha@hotmail.com
Akrura dasa, London, email: akrura@pamho.net

Power Of Questions

There are basically two kinds of questions that we can ask ourselfs: empowering questions and disempowering questions.

Empowering questions:

- Provide new understanding
- Provide new ideas
- Focus you on solutions instead on problems
- Move you to action
- Make you responisible
- Give you the impetus to make a change
- Make you have a deeper sense of meaning for your life
- Help you learn from the situation
- Induce you to get out of your confort zone

Disempowering questions:

- Focus you on the problem not the solution
- Make the problem bigger than it really is
- Makes you unresourceful
- Put you in a stuck state
- Make you feel you are responsible for something but there's nothing you can do about it
- Are "why me" questions
- Make you hopeless

Is there anybody up there that can help me?

There was a guy who fell off of the edge of a cliff. He is hanging on that cliff and a couple of minutes go by, and he can't figure out a way.

He says, "Is there anybody up there that can help me?"

He hears nothing. He says, "Is there anyone up there that can help me?"

All of a sudden you hear a voice, "This is God. I can help you. Just let go and trust."

A minute later the guy says: "Is there anybody else up there that can help me?"

PROBLEM OR OPPORTUNITY?

I found this in one ebook.

We need to learn how to find something that we can take advantage of in ANY negative situation. Something that we can utilize, to create even greater results and success.

How do you turn a ‘problem’ into something that really empowers you?

Let me explain what a ‘problem’ really is, and why human beings ABSOLUTELY NEED ‘problems’ and challenges in their lives.

Yes, that’s right. We NEED problems.

Most people see ‘problems’ as something that gets in their way, something that prevents them from achieving what they want. ‘Obstacles’, ‘stumbling blocks’...

Although short-term they may look like stumbling blocks, in the long-run most of these things we call ‘problems’ are actually stepping stones.

SPACE

No one can make you feel good or bad without your approval. People can make you feel good or bad to the extent you allow them to.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom to choose and an opportunity to grow.

Between what happens to us and our reaction to it there is a space. We can stop and think what would be the best way to react.

Animals have no space. They react right away.

Can’t Go There

Got this recently from a friend:

Sometimes a client doesn’t want to go somewhere with the coaching. The coach becomes curious. What is it that the client doesn’t want to deal with? Clients risk to get a life full of avoiding. The coaching should help clients stop a life of avoiding, pretending and denying. From this empowered place they will be able to make better decisions and be stronger in their relationships.

Sometimes the coach is afraid of going somewhere and therefore also doesn’t want to go there with the client. Therefore a coach should always be working with himself – have his own coach.

GRATEFUL

Every day, thank ten people for something they have done for you and see how your life changes in a positive way.

LEADER

Do you demand respect or command respect?

WHO YOU ARE

This is a part of an article I got from my friend Marshall Goldsmith, a famous executive coach:

One of our greatest challenges in changing behavior can be our self-limiting definitions of who we are. We send messages to ourselves like: "I just can't speak in front of a group." "I could never lead others." "That just isn't me!"

We often think of our identity as fixed. It doesn't have to be. For example, if we define ourselves by saying "I am a terrible listener," we will create the reality that we become a terrible listener. And even worse - if someone says that we are a good listener, we won't believe them. We will say to ourselves:

"That's not the real me."

When my clients describe self-limiting identities, such as being a poor listener, I ask them if they want to change. When they say they do, I assure them that they do not have incurable genetic defects that are stopping them from listening. Not only can they change their behavior-and become good listeners - they can change their definition of who they are.

Overcome the Obstacles in Your Mind

Who is the you that you want to become? Have you defined yourself in a way that limits your own potential?

In the same way that others changed not just their behavior but their definition of who they are, you can also change your definition of who you are and change your role in the world.

Figure out the role you would like to play in life. Outside of real physical or resource limitations (e.g., I cannot be a pro basketball player at age 58, no matter how much I try), what is holding you back?

You may not be able to overcome all of the obstacles in the world, but you can overcome the obstacles in your own mind!

Reluctance, Resistance and Coaching

Got this excellent article today in my inbox.

Reluctance, Resistance and Coaching

By Patricia Wheeler

Executive Coaching is increasingly offered as an acknowledgement of success - a tool to continue developing already effective leaders, high potentials and high performers. Some organizations are proactive to the point that it's the exception rather than the rule to deploy coaching to help an executive in trouble.

Many companies are still on the "learning curve" of how to use coaching to develop leadership capacity, particularly for technically oriented leaders and operational experts.

In my experience with hundreds of leaders, I find that people approach coaching in one of three ways:

- Some voluntarily raise their hands and ask to work with a coach. These leaders are often "early adopters" who embrace new technologies and opportunities that they think will make a positive difference.

- Some, when given the opportunity, are interested and even excited by the chance to further develop leadership skills. This group is in the majority. These two groups are committed to finding learning experiences and great coaches to raise their game.

- And, some individuals have great trepidation about coaching. They are reluctant, avoidant, and sometimes downright cynical about the process. They see it as a waste of time at best and potentially detrimental at worst.

What drives this reluctance? First of all, it goes without saying that every leader deserves to exercise choice about the coaches deployed to work with them. Just as you qualify doctors and dentists, you must know that your coach is well suited and trustworthy.

In addition to this external concern, I see three additional sources of leader reluctance, resistance and fear of coaching that must often be acknowledged and adddressed:

1. Concern about venturing into the unknown, seemingly "dark territories" inside us. Leaders who have advanced primarily through the power of technical expertise must focus on the less familiar and intangible territory of interpersonal style, behavior under stress and the need to build trust and followership through behavior and relational skills rather than factual knowledge.

2. Worry that the coaching process will be too public, potentially embarrassing or may expose perceived weaknesses to others and make the situation worse. Here it is crucial for the leader, their boss and the coach to be crystal clear about what information will be communicated to whom, and how. Coaches must deeply understand the organizational culture and its ground rules to craft a "no-lose" plan in which the process builds rather than erodes credibility. (News flash to leaders: your stakeholders already know your weaknesses!)

3. Reluctance to deliberately and consciously work on things that we know will make us uncomfortable. Let's face it...we like doing things we're already good at. It takes courage to push ourselves into areas that are less developed or don't represent our usual, familiar style. How often do we tell ourselves that our worries are groundless, or that we'll take care of the problem when we're less busy? Many of us, including myself at times, avoid doing things that we know will be good for us in the end because we dread the ordeal. We put off making the dental appointment, starting the exercise program, telling the doctor or our family about some worrisome symptom.

How many times do we know that we should address something in our life...that either will enhance our well-being or avert destructive consequences? When do we avoid something because of inner worries, and if we do, how do we address them? We suggest turning a vague anxiety into an expressed fear - in other words, ask yourself, "What am I most afraid of?" When we unflinchingly look at this bottom line, we move toward making decisions that will serve us now and in the future.

If a leader fears that coaching will be an unpleasant experience with a potentially negative career impact, we work on establishing ground rules of confidentiality with them and their sponsors.

If they had bad experiences with coaching in the past, we explore this and create ongoing feedback and feedforward within the coaching process.

If they are concerned about looking bad to their direct reports, peers or bosses, we create a design that highlights their strengths and commitment to leadership and builds credibility with stakeholders. In other words, we must put the "moose" of reluctance on the table and address it early and honestly in our discussions.

Briefly put, deal with anxiety or avoidance by turning them into tangible concerns. Address them, minimize their chances of occurrence, then go forth and get even better.

* Patricia Wheeler is an executive coach and consultant who helps smart people become better leaders. As Managing Partner in the Levin Group LLC, she has spent 15 years consulting to organizations and coaching senior leaders and their teams. You may contact Patricia by E-mail at Patricia@TheLevinGroup.com or by telephone at 404 377-9408.

LETTER TO MYSELF

What is the use of training so many people to be servants when you have not been able to train yourself?

Discriminatory Power

Human intelligence can decide for the future. That is human intelligence. The animal cannot decide. We have discriminatory power. If I do this, I will be benefited; if I do that, I will not be benefited. This is there in human life. So you have to use it properly. You should know what is our goal of life and decide in that way.

- Srila Prabhupada