In one of the recent endeavours of the Team Transformers, a series of residential workshops were conducted on personality development for the final year post graduate and post doctorate students at the Dr. Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan.
From the very start of these workshops, there was always a strong query or doubt prevailing, for what can actually be done to enhance, improve or develop the personalities of such hard core technical people, who’s thoughts, ideas, perceptions, understanding was now more governed and was shaped up according to their area of specialization.
Under such doubtful circumstances where more of reluctance or casual approach could be felt or realized by the participants, it was very essential to immediately develop a strong rapport with them. To initiate this process of rapport building, the start of the 2 days workshop for each group of participants was an energizer or an ice breaking activity, which helped to promote maximum alertness, presence of mind, provoke ideas and induce lots of brainstorming.
Immediately after the same, the participants were inspired to self introspect and understand their real strengths and areas of improvement so as to induce maximum self awareness. This further helped participants to have a deeper understanding of self which further induced self esteem and stronger self motivation.
Thereafter the participants were assigned some tasks which helped them unleash their individual talents, promote self expression and provide them with opportunities to brand themselves and prove their real worth or capability in action.
In the next session to develop positive thinking and make way for building of positive attitude, the participants were made to introspect and understand one’s personal beliefs and value system, which further induced clarity about:
- Self Perception and Self Reliance
- Understanding of one’s own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in life
- Introspection and understanding of why someone has a specific personality and behaves differently
- Freedom from lack of interest or unwillingness towards work and collaboration of one’s personal values and ethics
- Realization of need to enjoy what you do
- To define our purpose of life and gain experience from mistakes
The participants also had a full fledge session on Emotional Intelligence, wherein with the help of special audio visuals and some other simulative exercises, the participants were helped in understanding and expression of self emotions. Further progressing in the same direction the participants were guided with the ways to manage emotions and develops the most essential skills of empathy, compassion, adaptability, flexibility and creativity to be emotionally smart or emotionally intelligent.
The participants were further put into various simulative situations of problem solving and decision making so as to further enhance their ability of goal setting, prioritizing and managing time. The participants were also emphasized upon the need to share, express and brainstorm matters of conflict and chaos.
In another very important session on effective communication skills the participants were involved in special exercises to promote attentive listening, maximum alertness, deeper understanding and stronger receptivity. The participants were instilled with deeper realization and stronger understanding of different styles of communication as per the role and situation. As the learning outcome of various energizers the participants were elaborated the essentials of non verbal cues, gestures, facial expressions and body language along with the para verbal aspects of tone, pitch, volume, voice quality, articulation, etc.
In the concluding sessions of this program, the participants were sensitized with the most crucial aspects of overcoming gender disparity and stereotypes and balancing the variations existing due to generational gaps. The participants were also made to realize their responsibility, beyond self, towards their near and dear ones, the less privileged ones, the ignorant ones, the ones in pain and suffering, towards mother nature and most importantly towards it nation.
At the end the participants were even provided with this opportunity to present the learnings of this personality development program in their own unique styles with the aid of music, dance, poetry, story narration, pictorial presentation, graphical presentation, mime or role play.
At the valedictory of the personality development program of each respective batch, the participants themselves elaborated some of the most crucial learnings of “Being Action Oriented and Unleash your hidden traits or real personality by putting yourself in different challenging situations” and yes we the Team Transformers strongly believe that this was surely the initiation of a very strong change or personal transformation to be induced into one’s personality on a permanent basis.
