Week 3 - Foot, Pencil, Book, Aeroplane...

Today’s class was all about learning theories. I do have to confess that I didn’t realize that 3 hours had passed by until Dr. D called it a day. Had I had the right equipments with me, then I would have uploaded the class video to some server ;). Saying that the class was interesting is an understatement.

Something that I really like about this class is how interactive it is. Dr. D also manages to make us understand a concept better by employing various activities. Dr. D started the class by pulling a trick on us (though we didn’t know how he had managed to pull it off till the end of the class – I don’t want to state it and spoil the fun of his future students!) and then it was optical illusions time! I’m sure most of us would have seen the figure on the right and would have spotted the gray spots. Can you focus on just one of the gray dots? ‘What! Are you saying that it is disappearing! First you are seeing something that doesn’t exist and then you are stating that it is disappearing if you try to focus on it. Does it sound good to your own ears?’ Apply the same concept to a corporate environment and see how they correlate.

Shifting lanes and going back to the title of the blog – we were learning about brain function and its data storage schemes. This was followed by an activity where we learnt to remember unrelated words by developing a story (there was a big foot that held a pencil which was writing in a book. The book looked like an aero plane when viewed from an angle; the aero plane had a running nose and so needed a handkerchief; this handkerchief was tied to a rifle and we generally see rifles in a television. This TV was kept in a bowl of lettuce that had brown corners as it was toasted in a toaster. I was watching the TV by sitting in a chair that had basketballs as arms which glowed as lamps – Dr. D, guess you helped me waste a few gray cells!) I’m sure this story doesn’t mean much to you readers but it was definitely a learning technique that we enjoyed in class.

I’m sure most of us have felt guilty/disappointed/sad for several things in our lives and we have even felt that someone was responsible for making us feel so.
Valuable lessons: If you are upset or sad – you cause it! No one has more power to determine your emotional and behavioral reactions to things than you do. Who controls how someone else behaves? – They do. – How someone ends up feeling is not influenced by another person’s behavior or motivation but the response (stress response or otherwise) is always in one’s head. An enlightening experience: Amygdala (emotional center) decides our response to every data/external stimuli that comes in through our thalamus. It then reaches the prefrontal cortex via the hippocampus which then initiates our response. So folks, we cannot control how we feel towards certain things and there have been innumerable situations when I have wished that I had reacted differently – it’s time to take control from your amygdale. Let us reeducate it to respond differently to the same situation if it encounters it the next time. Remember, happiness/pain/guilt/helplessness is all your stress response or interpretation of the situation. I’m sure my closest circle has had enough of thalamus, amygdala and cortex for the last few days. If you weren’t one of the privileged ones, then I am sure that you have just had your share of it too!

Week 2 - Management By Attention

After a grueling statistics session for the first half of the class, Dr. D did deliver what he had promised – his gift to all his students. Management By Attention or MBA, his baby, would definitely serve as a guide to every manager. While all statistical graphs showed anomaly, Dr. D and his team had to dig into voluminous data to see if they spot a pattern. Dr. D’s MBA was thus born!

Attention, Support, Feedback, Information Sharing, Nurturance, Emerging autonomies, Limit setting, Revalidation, Growth and Loyalty is a model that has withstood the test of time and millions of data; a model that can be applied to any context where there is a relationship between two people. Dr. D also made it easier to understand why relationships between couples/lovers sometimes fail. Let me apply the concept to explain the scenario. At the very beginning of a relationship, couples tend to be attentive to one another’s needs and will also be willing to take the extra step to keep the significant other happy. They would support one another (encourage, motivate, guide and also remove all the obstacles that hinders the growth in their better half’s path) and also give and receive feedback so that they can please and satisfy one another. After getting to know each other (information sharing) and caring (nurturing) for a while, these two people who had merged as one now emerge into two autonomous bodies. This gives way to misunderstandings, quarrels and other complications. There arises a need to set limits so that their relationship does not fall apart and constant revalidation is required to ensure that their relationship continues to grow into a loyal one.

Most couples who have strained marriages wake up when they realize that things are out of control. They try to fix it by setting limits and revalidating their boundaries or by even taking a few steps backward to nurture each other. But all care and restrictions will not be of any good till they realize that they need to provide attention to make their relationship work. Any workaround or initiation always starts with attention as the other steps will sequentially follow thereafter. Management By Attention is therefore a good model that can be put to use in any context. Guess everything makes sense now! Thanks, Dr. D, for having shared it with us :)

Dr. Drehmer is ill :(

The second class was canceled as Dr. Drehmer was ill:( Get well soon, Doctor :)

MGT 500 - First Class

The first thing about the class is that I wasn't able to locate the classroom! Well, that is not exactly how I envision my first classes to be! Anyways, rantings apart... this class was unique in a lot of ways.

There were five aspects of the class that I will probably want to remember for a long time - a few things that will keep me motivated till the end of the course (and hopefully beyond that!)

1. Dr. Drehmer's introduction and welcome - I thought that it was actually sweet of Dr. Drehmer to stop by every person's desk and formally introduce himself - a time consuming process but it definitely does make everyone feel recognized and special within the class.

2. Tom Hanks clipping and 49 different course structure - 'Tear the pages from the book, for poetry is beyond the pages of a book...' - Something that Dr. Drehmer and Tom Hanks believed in. It was interesting to note that the Professor gave the students the freedom to choose their course plan based on their interests, strengths and weaknesses. An activity based class approach is definitely going to drill the message in our minds harder.

3. 'The wolf that I choose to feed' - This story struck a chord for a reason that is still unknown to me. Well, the grandpa did teach an important lesson to his grandson and to the rest of the class. The power to decide how one's life path goes ahead/backward definitely lies within one's hands and it is sometimes not that easy to make such a decision. Most of us are torn apart between the two fighting wolves within us and at the end of the day it is important for us to take control and decide what is best for us (and possibly for all concerned).

4. Clock work Vs. Snake pit - Been there done that! The stark differences between the two different work cultures were brought out and the stress that each manager in the respective scenarios were well illustrated.

5. Right brain hemisphere stimulation exercise - A cool exercise that generated some of the funniest inventions of all time. It definitely made me understand how the thought process works in a human mind and also set a spark in my right brain hemisphere. Camera - clothespin, broom, book! Wow! The best inventions are on its way people :)

I had a great first class and I am positive that I will be saying the same on the last day of the course too:)