Common Sense at Work

A Must Read for professionals with traces of Common Sense!
COMMON SENSE @ WORK

SOHAIL ZINDANI
International Speaker, Author and OD Consultant, Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Learning Minds! Group

Learning Minds! Group Publication
Common Sense at Work
COMMON SENSE @ WORK

Sohail Zindani - 2011
Common Sense @ Work. Copyright 2011 by Learning Minds! Group. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information about this book or other Learning Resources from Learning Minds! Group, visit www.learningminds.biz First Edition, April 10 2011 Designed and Composed by Marketing Division; Learning Minds! Group E-Published by Learning Minds! Group
Dedicated to my Parents, Wife and little angel Diya!
Contents

Thinking in lines of developing a table of content is yet another challenge to me. However, a friend of mine reflected on his own wisdom by saying that having table of content printed right at start of a book, actually give the readers an opportunity to skip what they dont want to read and mark what they would like to read in near future. Taking my friends advice seriously, I present the following, for your ignoring and future planning. For those whod really like to read this book can actually skip this page.

Introduction - The Tragic Death of Common Sense

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Common Sense in Common Things at Work Common Sense in Leadership Common Sense in Strategy & Consulting Common Sense in Customer Service Common Sense in HR Common Sense in Education

15 16 22 27 29 36

In Search of Common Sense - 7-Steps to Re-Kindling Common-Sense 1. Anti-EGO Movement 2. Kids Wisdom 3. Go Cross! 4. Read Crazy Stuff! 5. I Dont Know Mantra! 6. Keep Normal Remain Human 7. Surprise!

42 43 44 46 47 48 50 52

Making Common Sense Common!

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Draw Common Sense!

Go Crazy & Think Creatively - Try to make something that reflects Common Sense. Dont skip this page!

Introduction The Tragic Death of Common Sense

Many years back: when smile was natural and not a customer service department requirement, when leadership and management belonged to the same family, when no gender was trying to get better than the other, when schools and universities were busy educating and only companies were doing business, when apple, blackberry and orange were only fruits, when you use to be healthy without being diet conscious, when you knew who your neighbors and colleagues were [their name, cast, preferences, dislikes almost everything] and you didnt needed a survey to tell you this, when we were just a phone call away from anyone in our office with no emails having to and cc and BCC; we use to enjoy what was naturally given to us common sense. But then came the era of complexity with some complex assumptions, projections, strategies and plans.
Ive hated complexity and strategies as much as, my Mathematics teacher used to hate descriptive answers and my ex-boss used to hate people laughing. It reminds me of my school age another story of complexity from algebra to integration, from photosynthesis to nomenclature, each and everyone, sitting in our schools staff room was busy making their living by stopping us to live. Although I use to love few teacher but I never figured out how the school management got to know about my love as almost every time that teacher was either replaced with someone else or the teacher herself decided to leave our school. The greatest attack on simplicity and common sense came when we were graded for arts and singing. How can one decide on who is better between Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Jakson. Well I do realize that I was no where nearer, but just to heal my heart, I quoted this example.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has

RENE DESCARTES

Because common sense is common in humanity, the chance of acceptance and comfort grows. Rather then making the most out of this commonality, some so called gurus and legends made it more and more embarrassing for us to come up with something that is commonly understood. To quote one of my teacher at university, while teaching strategic management he said Your ideas are so simple and basic it can never create strategic advantage. For creating strategic advantage, you need to come up with some more sophisticated, mature and intelligent ideas. Remember son you are grown up now. Off course, I felt like killing my self [immediately after shooting him], but then I managed my anger as I was all focused to get a better GPA that semester to get a better Internship offer and then eventually a better job Off-course nothing as such happened, and so I am a fortunate entrepreneur now! In short the more complex your idea is, the more mature it appears and it increasingly means that it wont be understood by those with common sense, i.e. Humans, and hence wont be implemented in this era. But I am sure, strategist wont mind it as they have nothing to do with implementation. Ideas that appeal common sense are the only ones that gets implemented [as in any case, its Human wholl implement it] Another suicide attack on common sense came from the buzzword gurus who made millions of dollars by confusing us with the obvious. If I [a very basic, striving for common-sense, kind of a author] say something directly might offend many. So let me quote a Time Magazine commentary on a Stephen Covey book captured this phenomenon:
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His genius is for complicating the obvious, and as a result his books are graphically chaotic. Charts and diagrams bulge from the page. Sidebars and boxes chop the chapters into bite-size morsels. The prose buzzes with the cant phrase empower, modeling, bonding, agent of change without which his books would deflate like a blown tire. He uses more exclamation points than Gidgets. As for me, common sense is seeing things as they are. You are following the dictates of cold logic, eliminating both sentiments and self-interest from your decision. Nothing could be simpler and natural. Although I am NOT a marketing or sales or branding or advertising or positioning or promotion professional, however, I would grant myself liberty to give the following examples and I hope you can feel the terrible and abusive murder of common sense: . .. . .. . .. . ... .

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Example 1:
TAKE THIS QUICK QUIZ: [Answer: Men or Women] - These attribute are must for a Sales Person! 1. Who manages more things at once? 2. Who puts more effort into their appearance? 3. Who usually takes care of the details? 4. Who finds it easier to meet new people? 5. Who asks more questions in a conversation? 6. Who is a better listener? 7. Who has more interest in communication skills? 8. Who is more inclined to get involved? 9. Who encourages harmony and agreement? 10. Who has better intuition? 11. Who works with a longer to do list? 12. Who enjoys a recap to the days events? 13. Who is better at keeping in touch with others? If, after completing this quiz, you ended up with having Women as winner you are close to reality. Now think about your own organization think about your vendors think about the companies you work with think about the shops you visit are they responding to common sense??? Ah! I know theyd tell you that its either national context or the cultural issue or pertains to religious values but for me, its just their commitment to non sense. If, for some biological or psychological or gender phobia reasons, you ended up with having Men as winners I strongly recommend you to take the quiz again and again and again until you identify, where you actually went wrong.
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Example 2:
Who earns and possess the maximum wealth? Those to are under 45 or the ones who are above 45? Now if you answered above 45 than can you please also explain me the sense of investing every damn dollar of the marketing and advertising budget in positioning the brand and its benefits for those under 45!!! If you are a marketing or advertising professional, I am sure, youll now be looking forward to meet me with unlimited survey reports and theories in one-hand and a Get well soon card in another [to prove me that Youth is the most attractive market] but even then, you wont be able to disagree with the fact that money belongs to those above 45 What a shame What are we doing to target these wealthy people! Hey, how can I forget my ever preferred, highly cherished profession of Human Resources? From Policy to Appraisal, from TNAs to Man Power Budgeting, it represents many elements, designed to destroy common sense. However one MUST note that organizations with HR policies, designed in line with Common Sense are producing unthinkable and astonishingly awesome results. I can name many in Pakistan and elsewhere and I take all pride in saluting them. Let me share some most common anti-Common Sense features in HR: In 99.99% of cases, organizational HR policy is not designed by anyone working in the organization today! Appraisals are done annually and insults regularly,
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Training Needs Analysis is conducted, tabulated and implemented, and is being done in the same way for last I dont know how many years and by now no one in the organization has actually asked one simple question How come we need the same training every year for the same group of people with the same facilitator Salaries are raised across the board, same proportion, while the top management is busy talking about Talent Management and Retention Strategies Company will invest millions of rupees in sponsoring mega events and decorating huge billboards but will question the return of investment in training their frontline people [who are the true face of an organization]. I will share many other examples in the chapters to come This mass destruction of Common Sense continues at school, university, home, government, etc. This book tries to cover as many areas as I can think of but related to workplace only. For those, who are interested in seeking application of common sense at home, I strongly suggest you to contact your children or nephews, immediately.
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Reflection Exercise:
Can you think of such anti-common sense activities at your workplace? If YES, please share it with us by writing those hereand if you cant find any such anti- common sense activity at your workplace, either you are lying or are the biggest boss at work.

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Common Sense in Common Things @ Work

The best way to practice lot of common sense at work is to do so in the most common areas and functions at work. I am not sure, but I guess, common sense has its own muscles which gets stronger with use. I find many people around us, everyday, who are committed to revert back to the ultimate creator, and return him the gift of mind, completely unused! With over sophistication in almost everything that we do, common sense appears to be reserved for few privileged souls only. It makes common sense even rarer because the class for which we reserve the ultimate potential to use common sense is normally the one, which is so bogged down with education and position and class and reputation that they are technically not equipped to use common sense anyways! In pages to follow, I make my little effort to reflect on the common sense element in the most frequently used terms and fields of management Ive also tried to include few things, over and above business and management world

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Common Sense in Leadership

As Henry Mintzberg, professor of management at McGill University, said, Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential and significantly devoid of common sense. With all due respect to all those amazing gurus of management, I, and many of my colleagues are yet not able to understand the difference between management and leadership. OK I do realize that technically you become manager in an organization by designation, however, leadership is what you do to people. Most honestly, after reading all the recent books on leadership and management, I feel that being a manager is an insult. I mean, the way this term leadership is projected over management, one would prefer leaving the job than to be called a manager! The best thing that I can recommend for your free time jokes reading is to study the differentiation between Leadership and Management. Let us put this differentiation in common sense filter plant and try to make sense out of this ultimate nonsense, which have earned millions of dollars for many gurus, around the world
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The manager administers; the leader innovates.

Interesting why youll ever appoint anyone who only administers and dont innovate now that is another issue if your organization is anti-innovation! For Gods sake stop embarrassing managers by telling them that they are good for administration role only I guess what these legendary gurus are trying to tell us is that the day a manager innovates he enters the elite category of leadership!
The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.

Now this is absolutely amazing. I feel like stop writing and laugh for another 2 days, only on this ridiculous observation. If manager is a copy then who is he coping perhaps another manager. I suggest, in this case, the company must have better looked for an original leader and appointed him as manager. I surrender to comment on the points that follow. You read it yourself and for God sake dont get inspired. Read it loud and give your best shot to make any freaking sense out of it The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses
on people If this is the case, what are these systems and structures doing at workplace!!!
The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range
perspective Perhaps this can be an eye-sight issue

The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why
Hmm
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The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the
leaders eye is on the horizon Hey where are your eyes right now on the book or on the horizon???
The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it and if
manager challenges it, he or she is fired!

The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing Than
who the hell is doing all these wrong things

The manager creates boundaries; the leader reduces them I hope
such a leader is not a football coach!

The manager acts as boss; the leader acts as coach, facilitator, and
servant so what are coaches, facilitators and servants supposed to do

There were few more shameful differences which I intentionally eliminated, so that all those readers who are by designation, a manager, dont get offended. Whenever I read it I only appreciate one thing How beautifully these management gurus have confused us. Honestly, after reading such differences, I think of a manager as a dustbin material. Authors and Gurus kept on projecting the role of management in 70s, 80s and up till early 90s. But then, as soon as they realized that the commercial potential of writing and speaking about management is on decline they all came up with a brand new concept Leadership! Why would you ever, in your entire professional career, appoint a person as manager who does wrong things in right way!
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As I reflect on my career as management development facilitator, I can never forget this incident, that actually surprised me as of to what extent, nonsense can be part of our culture It was a bright, clear yet relatively cooler morning at one of the hill-side locations in northern parts of Pakistan where I, alongside with 30 senior management team members, were gathered to make sense out of our managerial actions at work. What a start we had We didnt required any official ice-breaker as issues it self were hot enough. With the first half of the day that concluded at 11 a.m, I realized that the young slim and quite frustrated looking guy, sitting on my right hand side was just not part of the session mentally. I did tried all my trainer techniques to get him involved, but honestly speaking I failed miserably. So, in the tea break, I actually approached him, and tried to understand what the hell was going on his mind. After some fake attempts of trying to tell me that everything was fine, he spoke, I dont know why the management have sent me here. There is NO one in my organization who reports me, NO one ask me for any input. Now apparently this is not a surprising comment for me as we hear it on quite a regular basis in organizations. But in this case, what was MOST interesting is that this young guy was on 3 day leadership retreat, and those who know what I charge and what are the arrangement costs involved, this was quite an expensive blunder. Wait I know some personal leadership gurus who talk about position and power in detail will try to convince him about unleashing his hidden leadership potential. My advice is not to even think of doing it particularly when you are 4000 ft above sea level! Call for Common Sense: Why are you busy training people on how to lead when your organizational culture statement is: Do what we say and park your brains at home. Leadership is nothing more than demonstration and providing space for others to demonstrate as well.

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Another important common sense in management comes from ground breaking and mind-boggling research by Gallup and represented and articulated with excellence by Marcus Buckingum in his books, as he advocates the importance and power of managing strengths. On the contrary, managers are busy molding the lives of their subordinates, as per their wish or succession planning demand. The greatest and perhaps the most genuine management guru, Peter Drucker defines this kind of management as: Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done. Marcuss work must be the basic curriculum for management studies but I guess, our universities are busy looking for revised editions of mistakenly written management bibles in 70s and 80s and 90s what a shame! Piece of Advice: Make management studies a bit more interesting and challenging affair. The management graduates that we are producing today are being educated for yesterday Do something about it. Invest seriously for developing management potential in your people. Not every person is equipped to lead / manage others well. One must master this skill. Only trainings wont help you. As I mentioned earlier, Leadership is Demonstration Is you organization a laboratory where people can demonstrate Leadership? Are you, as a manager, willing to let your subordinates manage things around you and for you?
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What is your say on Leadership?

Its not the Gurus who define leadership Its You!
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Common Sense in Strategy and Consulting

Strategy Strategy Strategy! We are having everything with strategy these days strategic networking, strategic meeting, strategic lunches, strategic thinking, strategic discussions I wont be surprised if we start talking about strategic sleeping, strategic love, strategic driving. In fact, anything, that is not coupled with the word strategy appears to be really weak and mediocre. Let us examine the core of strategy and its strong relationship with Common Sense. The world is busy chanting the case South West Airline the ever profitable airline in US. Thanks to the extremely effective, maverick-cum-evangelistic leadership of Kelleher, Southwest has outlasted competitors big and small to become bigger than all of them combined. Since 1971, when the company took delivery of its first Boeing 737 after waging a four-year legal battle to get off the ground, Kelleher has built Dallas-based Southwest Airlines into a responsive army of 30,000 passionate, dedicated employees. Southwest is often number one on Fortune's list of best American companies to work for. If you look at the numbers, Southwest is doing things right, customer-wise: The company does $5.7 billion per year in business. Its market capitalization of $14 billion is bigger than United's, American's and Continental's combined. It has been profitable every quarter and every year since 1973. With so much of success, when asked about the Strategy, Herb puts it straight and simple by exposing their core strategy We have a strategic plan. Its called doing things. By doing nothing except employing common sense at work [taking the best
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care of employees and customers], SWA is able to stand as best in class for over 35 years. Now I bet, if I present this case to any local airline [or even a regional airline except the Singapore Airline], theyll tell you that this doesnt work here! Strategy and common sense in strategy has also been a victim to strategy consultants. You tell them any problem, and they suggest exactly the opposite as a way out. You tell them that your organization is centralized, and they will suggest decentralization as the only way to breathe at workplace. If you are already working in a decentralized workplace, I bet, they will recommend a bit more sophisticated and a well thought of centralization plan and to further support it, they might also come with some religious and social argument for doing this. Consulting on the other hand has been the core culprit of sucking common sense out of strategy. To go even further and risking my profession, I am amazed how the training business works. Very recently, I came across a program titled Get Hired Right Now, and to the entire humanitys surprise, it was being conducted by someone, who recently got fired in downsizing, based on poor performance and not to my surprise, all the 16 participants of that workshop are planning to attend a workshop on How to gracefully kill someone who cheated you. Jargons, theories and cases, consultants can do anything to prevent you from using common sense.

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Are all consultants and trainers in the same category? Absolutely NOT! In fact, telling you the truth, our corporate market would have never been any attractive and interesting without these few consultants, who have most sincerely contributed to the betterment of workplace. Hats Off to those Champs!

Just for a test, try this:

Top Ten Things You'll Never Hear from a Consultant
1. You're right; we're billing way too much for this. 2. Bet you I can go a week without saying "synergy" or "value-added". 3. How about paying us based on the success of the project? 4. I suggest you should seek advice from some other consultant on this. 5. Actually, the only difference is that we charge more than they do. 6. I don't know enough to speak intelligently about that. 7. Implementation? I only care about writing long reports. 8. The problem is, you have too much work for too few people and you even dont pay well. 9. Everything looks okay to me. 10. Its not a major issue use your common sense!
If you hear anything as such I suggest you to think about hiring them!

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What about this one:

A medical doctor, an engineer, and a management consultant were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world. The doctor started "Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken from Adams body. This must have required surgery, and so I can claim with a high degree of confidence that mine is the oldest profession in the world." The engineer responded, and said, "But earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most impressive application of civil engineering. Therefore, dear doctor, you are wrong: mine is surely the oldest profession in the world." The management consultant leaned back in his chair, smiled, and then said confidently, "Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?"

And this one is my favorite:

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the shepherd... "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?" The shepherd looked at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looked at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answered "sure". The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his IBM ThinkPad and connected it to a cell phone, then he surfed to a NASA page on the internet where he called up a GPS
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satellite navigation system, scanned the area, and then opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sent an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, received a response. Finally, he prints out a 130-page report on his miniaturized printer then turns to the shepherd and says, "You have exactly 1586 sheep. "That is correct; take one of the sheep." said the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car. Then the shepherd says: "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my animal?", "OK, why not." answered the young man. "Clearly, you are a consultant." said the shepherd. "That's correct." says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" "No guessing required." answers the shepherd. "You turned up here although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don't know crap about my business...... Now give me back my dog!" To conclude complex strategy and consulting solutions alone are not helping us Its the common sense that WILL come to our rescue. In bad times like the ones we are living in, its the best time to refer to common sense, and remember common sense lies with the bottom line!

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Common Sense in Customer Service

This is a point where Common Sense may commit suicide! Honestly Customer Service is such a cool job but was heavily tempered by organizational policies, ISO requirement, consultants paradigms and many other major attacks from Customer Service Policy Manuals and Books. Let us look at the basics Customer Service is such a humanistic job. The best effort you can put in is by doing nothing extra [Only if you are human]. However, by giving you vocabulary like an extra step, extra mile, extra penny, the so-called guru kept you confused at the state you were already in. For instance, smile! Now is it a stuff that comes naturally or is something to be trained on or to be based on policy manual. But making it a compulsory part of every manual, a psyche was created that it is something one must strive to get What a shame! In my Customer Service Trainings, I do tell my participants to smile sensibly. Smile, as I said, is a humanistic trait and human is a social animal. If your smile contradicts with his or her socio/emotional state, the customer normally forgets about the social part and focuses only on the animal side! Most companies are talking about serving only the external customers with little or no-emphasis on internal customers. Common Sense! If the driver is not excited to drive even the best cars wont win. We tell our customer how much we care for them but beat the living hell out
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of our employees, who were initially assumed to be human and were solely responsible for taking care of our customers. My love for companies like Engro, Telenor and many other local organizations is on the greatest level, because the only thing they do is that they care for their employees and in return, employees do the same with Customers. So a practical tip of advise forget about all your hidden potential and the giant within and anything inside you that you dont know just focus on Common Sense how will you treat them if you were treating yourself. 99% of customer service problem can be solved by employing common sense. Rest 1% can be left for consultants and manuals. Very recently, a customer service director was hired at an organization, I work with. I got to know that he demanded his office on 7th floor of the building, as he doesnt like noise around. My suggestion to HR throw him from the same floor to improve overall service standards at your workplace but by the way who hired him?
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Common Sense in HR

I was recently approached by a leading organization [Industry censored as then you can easily spot the client]. They told me this amazing outcome of their recently concluded TNA activity, again done by a consultant. We had around 900 people to be trained on communication skills alone. Now those who have had the privilege of paying my fee can actually calculate the overall sum, allocated to conduct communication training on such a large scale. After settling from the partial heart attack [out of happiness of course], I asked the million dollar question who are these 900 people? And the answer revealed that about 850+ people were from the production side only. We made a daring move and visited the production facility. [I wish I could have included a DVD along with this book to give you the actual view of the site]. To explain you in words only, these people [they call the shift engineers] work in 3 shifts of 8 hours each. The closest of the distance between two humans was 8 feet and the noise level was way far more irritating than any boring CEOs speech on vision and mission of the company. I returned back to the HR office and labeled TNA form as WNA [Wish Needs Analysis]. My only question was what youll achieve by doing communication training with these folks and not to my surprise, the answer was 100% achievement of our Training Targets and Budgets, based on our TNA. Common Sense call: Dont send your people for training on How to Swim in Deep Water, if you plan to engage them in a Desert. Another great discovery happened in my early days of training. A local bank approached me to train their staff on Motivation. I suggested them a one-day course, on which they demanded a two-day module. When I tried to convince them that the
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module could be safely covered in one day, they told me how important it is to make it a two-day course. They told me that it was mentioned in their training plan that they will arrange training on motivation as a two-day course, and budgets were approved accordingly, so no matter how I do I have to do it for two days. I agreed to do the assignment [perhaps a crime that I committed that time, and I am still guilty for that]. In the last session of day 2, a Branch Manager came to me and told me something that I will never forget He said, Mr. Zindani, youve done a
great job. Honestly, we all are so very thankful to you for at least giving us an opportunity to laugh. We also learned a lot from the cases you shared, activities you did and suggestions you gave, but I have an advice. If you seriously want to motivate them, ask our HR department to divide the entire sum, what they will be paying to you for this program between these 19 people.
I felt most insulted, and trust me its a serious gutful action to share this story with everyone, but I guess, that HR department must feel guiltier than what I feel. Ive been sharing this recruitment joke in many HR Conferences and I present it here for your reading pleasure and thinking trouble:
One day while walking down the street a highly successful executive woman was tragically hit by a bus and she died. Her soul arrived up in heaven where she was met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter himself. "Welcome to Heaven," said St.Peter. "Before you get settled in though, it seems we have a problem. You see, strangely enough, we've never once had an executive make it this far and we're not really sure what to do with you."
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"No problem, just let me in." said the woman. "Well, I'd like to, but I have higher orders. What we're going to do is let you have a day in Hell and a day in Heaven and then you can choose whichever one you want to spend an eternity in." "Actually, I think I've made up my mind...I prefer to stay in Heaven", said the woman. "Sorry, we have rules..." And with that St. Peter put the executive in an elevator and it went down-down-down to hell. The doors opened and she found herself stepping out onto the putting green of a beautiful golf course. In the distance was a country club and standing in front of her were all her friends - fellow executives that she had worked with and they were all dressed in evening gowns and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both cheeks and they talked about old times. They played an excellent round of golf and at night went to the country club where she enjoyed an excellent steak and lobster dinner. She met the Devil who was actually a really nice guy and she had a great time telling jokes and dancing. She was having such a good time that before she knew it, it was time to leave. Everybody shook her hand and waved good-bye as she got on the elevator. The elevator went up-up-up and opened back up at the Pearly Gates and found St. Peter waiting for her. "Now it's time to spend a day in heaven," he said. So she spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and singing. She had a great time and before she knew it her 24 hours were up and St. Peter came and got her. "So, you've spent a day in hell and you've spent a day in heaven. Now you must choose your eternity," he said.
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The woman paused for a second and then replied, "Well, I never thought I'd say this, I mean, Heaven has been really great and all, but I think I had a better time in Hell." So St. Peter escorted her to the elevator and again she went down-down-down back to Hell. When the doors of the elevator opened she found herself standing in a desolate wasteland covered in garbage and Filth. She saw her friends were dressed in rags and were picking up the garbage and putting it in sacks. The Devil came up to her and put his arm around her. "I don't understand," stammered the woman, "yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and wedanced and had a great time. Now all there is a wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable." The Devil looked at her and smiled. "Yesterday we were recruiting you; today you're staff."
Is your induction program designed on these lines??? Performance appraisals are normally understood by the consultants who developed it, or other consultants who developed it earlier, from where the later consultant referred. [I hope I made myself clear enough]. Very recently, at a client site I got to know that they had across the board, a raise of 2.375%. I almost fainted because of this sophistication, which was nothing but suffocation for the poor employees. As I see, the biggest point of conflict between performance appraisal and common sense is that Performance is a regular activity while appraisal is an annual drama. I dont discard the idea of having performance appraisals but what I argue about is the process. The best performance appraisals are the ones, designed by employees

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and managers, together. Based on my personal research, companies can save a lot on performance appraisal and TNA and such HR activities budget, if they invest a bit in Google searching. I hope you are getting what I am trying to say Ctrl C Ctrl V! We have a very surprising complex of west. We copy and paste every crap that we get. Its a shame Honestly, its a shame. I remember one of my trainings that I was doing for a pharmaceutical company. In the workshop, we had their star performers [Sales Reps], from all over Pakistan. As I started commenting on managing people, and I asked the participants to develop a chart of the process in which theyd like to be managed, a sales rep from interior part of Sindh, actually developed the worlds famous One-Minute Managers model a model that have earned millions of dollars for Ken Blanchard. I was SURPRISED. Surprised because he didnt know who Ken Blanchard was, had no idea about the One-Minute philosophy, was hardly able to read English, and yet he had that million dollar thought. So piece of advice: Stop relying on global experts only talk to your frontline, and theyll teach you common sense! How can I forget Salary and Compensation department? Although, I know that they, at the end of the day [in 90% of the organizations], are top managements post-men. I honestly dont know why, an employer is willing to offer a raise of even 50% to an employee who wants to quit and is thinking about a raise of 2.375% across the board for people who really want to work for the company. Any logic? I am sure, HR will take the lead HR, in fact, is already taking the lead. But my only concern is that this lead is not self-proclaimed and policy driven but a lead that people voluntarily want to follow!

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What HR can do to promote Common Sense at work?

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It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL
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Common Sense in Education

We are living in a world that was never so unpredictable, materialistic, fast-paced and crazily growing. Everything is changing, and changing with immense pace. What is true today will be an obsolete literature tomorrow. The bad news is that our Education system is absolutely missing on whats happening around us. Common Sense will be a much more sophisticated term in this case, as I doubt even the basic senses capacity. The first and the greatest flaw in educational models is the judgmental approach the approach that tells student how good or bad they are. The misery is that most students take it very seriously. Shame on us as teacher and facilitators who do such a crime! If the creator never did it for humans, how dare can we do it to our fellow- beings. Another concern that has been disturbing my mind is the amazing irrelevance. What is taught at schools Primary, Secondary, Higher Secondary, Colleges, and Universities what so ever has to do little or mostly nothing with the real world. Educational syllabus is structured, predictable and provides an outline Real world is insanely unpredictable, least structured and has no boundaries. How, by any means, can we prepare the youth of today for the challenges of tomorrow with such a syllabus? Food for thought: How many schools include Readers Digest as the part of their science syllabus? A teacher asked me why to do so I screamed, Why Not! At least it has a connection to what the child sees outside your Prison look-alike schools.
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Think about this as well University students having laptops with a Wi-Fi connection, where they search the taught topic, come up with the most recent literature available, and discuss it further. It may sound odd to many, but you know what it will be a hell to many of us around [so called teachers], because than we know they [our students] will beat the living hell out of us! I have been reading and listening about ever increasing tuition fees of schools at all levels. Honestly, I dont mind it, as I know, its just the beginning. Educational and Healthcare cost will further rise by many folds in near future my complain is only that by charging such a hefty amount, whats the use if these schools are producing nothing but clones In my opinion, if a school system cant ignite the spark in the kid to be him / her self the school system should be immediately adjourned. Today, when I recall my best teachers, it is true for them that They made me fall
in love. They helped me figure out who I was.

Our toughest learning achievementmastering our native languagedoes not require schools, or even competent parents. It does require a desperate need-to- know. Great teachers are great learners, not mere imparters-of-knowledge. Great teachers ask great questionsthat launch kids lifelong quest of discovering more. The world is not about right & wrong answers; it is about the pursuit of increasingly sophisticated questionsbut the misery is that we increasingly reward answers, and penalty is the very fate of questioning individual. Shame Shame! Please note The Three Most Important Letters WHY? Richard Paul, Director, Center for Critical Thinking says, We need to shift the focus of learning from simply teaching students to have the right answer, to teaching them the process by which educated people pursue right answers.

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Now consider what Jordan Ayan had to say in his book, AHA!... My wife and I went
to a [kindergarten] parent-teacher conference and were informed that our budding refrigerator artist, Christopher, would be receiving a grade of Unsatisfactory in art. We were shocked. How could any childlet alone our childreceive a poor grade in art at such a young age? His teacher informed us that he had refused to color within the lines, which was a state requirement for demonstrating grade-level motor skills.
Schools are busy participating in the massive suppression of creative genius If you are reading this article, and belong to any senior level position with your school try this, and youll testify my words (not 99 but 100%) Go and ask,
How many artists are there in the room? Would you please raise your hands. FIRST GRADE: In mass the children jump from their seats, arms waving. Every child is an artist. SECOND GRADE: About half the kids raised their hands, shoulder high, no higher. The hands are still. THIRD GRADE: At best, 10 kids out of 30 would raise a hand, tentatively, self-consciously. By the time youll reached SIXTH GRADE, no more than one or two kids will raise their hands, and then ever so slightly, betraying a fear of being identified by the group as a closet artist.
Now if this happens to you, come and meet me as I will personally congratulate you for participating in this mass creativity destruction campaign. For what I had to say, and what I have to say about the school system, a substantial amount of testimony exists from highly regarded scientists like [Nobel laureate]

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Richard Feynman, Albert Einstein, and many others, that scientific discovery is negatively related to the procedures of school science classes. Let us strive for common sense in education let us start educating children and youngsters for what is to come or at least, what is happening When we do our corporate trainings, I feel that missing link very strongly and I am sure, many of my colleagues in the industry would agree. The graduates of best of the universities are charged up with Jargons like SWOT, Risk/Reward Ratio, the BCG Matrix and so on and so forth. What they are missing is on the How part. My Suggestion: Although, I gave quite a few suggestions, my most important one comes now, Teacher should be nothing more than Facilitators of ideas. By doing this, we, the teachers, will make the greatest contribution for future.

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What you can do [as Parent, Teacher or Student] to bring Common Sense back in Education?

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Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
BUDDHA

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In Search of Common Sense 7-Steps to Re-Kindling Common-Sense

Number 7 plays a very critical role in making any book successful, so I also thought of giving it a try. In this case, arriving to this 7 steps is not based on any extensive research but just a humble attempt to bless my books with the spiritual and effective power of 7. However, most interestingly, I conditioned my mind too much for 7 that it was almost impossible to think anything beyond that. In fact to be most honest nothing came to my mind after concluding point 6 but you see, 6 is not as lucky and attractive as 7, and so I had to add a surprise element as number 7.

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1. Anti-EGO Movement
The first of them all EGO: Edging God Out! It is interesting that for last many years, our attitude movers and shakers [authors] have been writing about 1001 ways and many others of eliminating EGO from your life What a shameful call How is it possible to eliminate EGO, just like that! In fact, I guess, these authors are just too EGO centric as they are busy preaching what is right to them, and making no endeavor in referring to common sense. When I call for Anti-EGO movement, I am talking about the process of accommodating others about not only speaking but sparing few seconds everyday in listening about telling yourself, at least once a day that you dont know something that others know The beauty is in small steps and not the complete life transformation promises the Tony Robbins typos Let us also see why Common Sense is inversely proportional to EGO. EGO tells you that you are always right Now because you and your mind is not common to the world, the sense that your mind makes out of things will definitely not be common. As Ken Blanchard puts it up, No One is as Smart as All of Us. So without shifting PARADIGMS and Unleashing Your Potentials as many would put it up, I simply advice to try avoid your very EGO for few minutes every day. Tell your self that in front of God, we all are equally intelligent and equally fool. I am so sure that if you are human, youll like the alternate approach and minutes spent for anti EGO movement will increase gradually.
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2. Kids Wisdom
The most beautiful, challenging, yet thrilling dimension of my training career comes from my interaction with children. They are smart, creative, simple and honest. These four attributes are, however, quite rare in most modern professionals. Although, we do invest a lot in making our employees creative, yet the environment we provide is simply contradictory. My belief that humans are born creative and later are misguided by experience, education and environment gets confirmed when I talk to these little wonders! Let me share few observations, Ive made, while training those whiz kids: They ask for every damn thing no matter how expensive it is. They even dont care about who has the actual possession of it They just want it, and so they demand. We - the grown-up waste most of our lives, thinking whether to ask for it or not! They always want to win, without hurting anyone else. They dont create troubles for others in order to pursue good for themselves still they want to win. Are we still that eager, yet not greedy! They are happy, with no particular reason. Searching for reasons to be happy is an adult nonsense. They get bored quickly. They hate doing the same thing over and over again. This disenchantment gives them the hunger to find new things to do, or at least new ways of doing the same old thing.
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They forget grievances, and move on with building stronger relationship. They fight, they yell yet they settle issues, 100 times faster then the adults. What a shame for us! Kids see the stuff it self not the value! They are never concerned on how expensive the stuff is they make their selection, solely based on their liking. Unlikely of us, they never think on return on investment, future profitability and commercial value they just purely love it for what it is! They find their way out To Play!... Believe it or not kids have their own set of worries [Education, Parents Orders, friendship promises, learning more and more] but despite of all this, they find out reasonable time to play and be at their absolute best as adults, we are just too bad at doing this. Meditating might be an art or skill, we adult wish to master but if observed carefully kids can meditate, anywhere and anytime. Ive been amazed to observe how a kid gets lost with something he/she is playing or observing and will not get distracted to even the worst of the distraction, provided by the outer world. I know, many of us will be ashamed of our self by reading all this, as weve invested hundreds of dollars in learning these things and yet nowhere closer. In fact, we have so many Gurus to look up to for this stuff however, actually, the real gurus live in our homes!
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3. Go Cross!
When I demand to go Cross, I am referring the importance of meeting, talking, discussing and laughing with people from other departments and people from different walks of life. We look in one direction, all our lives. We prefer only what we do may it be religion, sports, education, job, relationship what so ever. We are Uni-directional. Sensibly thinking, the sense in such case will again be Uni-Sense not the Common Sense. To make our sense more common, we must meet people from different walks of life. Finance people love finance people because for them, they are the only humans at work. Marketing people never talk to finance people because they think everyone else at work, except the finance guys, are humans. So much of confusion and hurdles Sales people hate production people as if they are the ones responsible for their career stagnancy and production people hate sales people as if they are the ones who are solely responsible for their ever declining appraisals. HR and IT are the ones always responsible for everything, and they them selves dont know why! Piece of advice: Make it an organizational policy for cafeteria that no two individuals from same department can sit together. I am NOT kidding make it a policy or these hard nuts wont crack otherwise! Design your Performance Appraisals in a way that appraisals are interdependent with other departments. For doing so, you need to design the appraisal yourself. Google wont help you and it also means that many consultants wont be able to assist you.
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4. Read Crazy Stuff!

Trend of reading has gone down in our society, and it is truly shameful. The best sight is at the airport. Youll hardly find anyone reading. Its either cell phones they are engaged with or simply looking here and there. Most interestingly, even in a 7- hour flight, we either pretend to sleep or to watch other people sitting as if we were any security in-charge. Here, Id also put the blame on parents. They never emphasized the importance of reading, and as a result, the entire generation is now out of this habit of reading. At max, some of the most profound professionals read magazines and books, pertaining to their own career Good! But not Good Enough! By reading things about only one aspect of life and not the other will corrupt our common sense. And so I advice read crazy things from Readers Digest to Fiction Novels from Spirituality Literature to Science Adventures From Local Literature to contemporary art each and everything in the world has something for you. My Call: Read before you die.

List 5 books youd like to read. 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Read -before your die!

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5. I Dont Know Mantra!

Now this is perhaps the most important phrase I will ever share with my readers and listeners I DONT KNOW Aha! What a relief when one says it Just imagine the openness to learning that you create for yourself by chanting this phrase do it with me: I Dont Know I Dont Know I Dont Know I Dont Know I Dont Know is perhaps one of the most powerful leadership phrase ever! It allows you to explore the common sense, prevailing in masses around you and also empowers you to go beyond your personally crafted non-sense. By saying I Dont Know, one immediately enters into the world of no position authority. Ive been working with many clients, regionally; very few of them practice the I Dont Know mindset. In one of my assignments with an automobile company, I met this Service Department Manager at the corporate level. Initially I wondered why is he here when he doesnt know anything, but more I spent my time with him, more I realized the power of him saying I Dont Know. Whenever he said I Dont Know, the other person jumped into the unknown to come up with a better solution. Now if he comes up with something really amazing, this manager would praise him for doing that, and if he comes up with something not workable or gets stuck, the managers jumps in with some suggestions. As a result, the speed with which the team worked went up like anything. So by saying I Dont Know, you increase the overall speed of work and quality of results.
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Managers often ask how to practice this I Dont Know Mantra of Management I reply start it from your home. If you have kids at home tell them that you Dont Know and youll see that million dollar expression on their faces, which says Aha.. Finally my Father has stopped lying Word of Caution: Never say I Dont Know to your boss It doesnt work up-word. Normally, your boss is stupid enough to believe that he/she knows everything. But it also implies that your subordinates think the same way so better start saying I Dont Know to them your subordinates. The Common Sense teaches me one thing: If you Dont Know something, and you say that you Dont Know, people will at least respect your honesty. But if you Dont Know anything and you dont say I Dont Know, people still know that you Dont Know and theyll pray for you getting well soon! List 10 common things you dont know how to do. For example, I Dont Know how to Swim I Dont Know how to find the mighty x in an equation of Algebra! 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
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6. Keep Normal Remain Human

With Power and Money, one doesnt change but actually gets exposed of what he actually is. Another hurdle in the way of living a life full of common sense is that we fill our lives with so much of power and fame and money and what not. Normal people normally: Laugh

- - - - - -
Do You? Can You? Dare You! Do You! How You! You MUST!
Listen

Question

Learn

Enjoy

Fear God
The trick is in remaining normal. These are the normal people who ended up their lives in such a dignified way that we call them abnormal and start imitating the state where they ended NOT POSSIBLE! Jack Welch, the highly successful chairman of General Electric, put it well when he said in an interview in the Harvard Business Review: Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick, convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything theyve known since childhood. Real leaders dont need clutters. People must have the self- confidence to be clear, precise, to be sure that every person in their organization highest to lowest understands what the business is trying to achieve. But its not
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easy. You cant believe how hard it for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if theyre simple, people will think theyre simple- minded. In reality, of course, its just the reverse. Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple Simplicity is very difficult these days. I attend conferences and I normally speak at conferences. What sucks my head is the graphically loaded, full of lies, strategically charged presentations, intended to spread mass confusion. It also reminds me of that interesting game I played in one of my workshops with a senior group of professionals. The idea was to select 1 bowl out of total 5, with a coin under it and they had 4 chances to get the right one 80% chance to win. To my surprise, the person whom I invited to do the activity took almost 3 minutes 40 seconds to pick all 4 of them with the left out bowl being the right one What a shame! I did this same activity at a school with kids of class 4, 5 and 6 and not to my surprise, the young boy whom I invited picked random 4 bowls in hardly 5 seconds and none of them was the right one either. My only question is who was better the one who took almost 4 minutes to be wrong or the one who enjoyed the process, went wrong in 5 seconds and made everyone laugh. The only difference between those two was of normality and common sense. The more senior we get, the more alien we become to common sense and normality. The real heroes are those who get senior in terms of position but maintain that million-dollar child attitude to learn and enjoy Stay Hungry Stay Foolish Steve Jobs
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7. Surprise!
As I confessed earlier, the only motive to write 7 points was to achieve excellence in authorship This brings me to point 7 of Surprise. With the best of all senses, common or any other, all humanity fall short in front of the power of Almighty. He creates and he destroys, whatever, wherever, whenever So the last call of common sense is surrendering yourself in front of the Almighty. Nothing more nothing less but surrender to the supreme. No strategic plans can change the direction of Tsunami; no brainstorming session can stop floods; No birth control pills can stop human growth; no Viagra can make you younger; no book on Common Sense can educate you for common sense Its all beyond our control. All religion preach the importance of effort but NO human can dare to have control on results its so interesting that when we are about to end the journey of our lives, we realize that it was just a dream. All the might, power and the position, that we sat on and cheered for, looks like fiction toys, we enjoyed playing with. The very principle that all humans have to taste the flavor of death, is powerful enough to keep you on ground, normal and full of common sense.
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Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

WILLIAM JAMES

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Making Common Sense Common!

WOW! I never realized I was getting disciplined enough to reach towards the ending part of the book. I am amazed! So for conclusion, let us look into how we can promote common sense in the society we live, community we serve, office we work for, and home we live in!

1. Start listening.
I guess, it is something very unnatural to our education system to teach listening. We teach speaking, reading and writing and take listening for granted interesting The very problem of humanity today is the lack of listening skills. Because we dont listen, we dont understand. Because we dont understand, we dont relate to it. And because we dont relate to it we miss it completely!

2. Dont Over Strategize!

The only thing that works is Action. As Jack Welch puts it up In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. Pick a general direction and implement like hell.

3. Laugh! Even at your own self

Most of us just cant laugh seriously they cant. We are so damn serious about life that common sense cant even dare to enter our lives. Having Fun in Life is not Making Fun of your life. Let me give you a formula start smiling 10 times a day and do it religiously, as if a Great Personal Potential Unleashing Guru has recommended you Smile 10 times a day do it regularly not 9 and not 11 10 times! Do it daily, and I bet, youll request me to allow you to increase the number to 100 and my answer will be take 1000 of those and even more. You look awesome [and human] when you smile... SMILE!

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4. Thankfulness to God
If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. In Happy moments, praise God. In Difficult moments, seek God. In Quiet moments, worship God. In Painful moments, trust God. In Every moment, thank God.

5. Challenge the status quo.

Most people misunderstand common sense by doing what the world is doing. Sometime, in fact many times, majority is nonsense in authority! Challenging the norms, although is not appreciated in many societies but remember what Einstein said Great spirits have always encountered violent
opposition from mediocre minds.

6. Back to Basics
Last but not the least is what I adapted from Tom Peters recent book, The Little BIG Things where he quoted Jack Bogle, Enough!: Too Much Cost, Not Enough Value Too Much Speculation, Not Enough Investment Too Much Complexity, Not Enough Simplicity Too Much Counting, Not Enough Trust Too Much Business Conduct, Not Enough Professional Conduct Too Much Salesmanship, Not Enough Stewardship Too Much Focus on Things, Not Enough Focus on Commitment Too Many Twenty-first Century Values, Not Enough Eighteenth-Century Values Too Much Success, Not Enough Character

All the very best for your Common-Sense Charged Life!


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Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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About the Author:

Few people have impacted the day-to-day execution of learning in Pakistans corporate arena more than Sohail Zindani. A gregarious, sought-after speaker, author and organizational development consultant, Sohail is characterized by friends, colleagues, competitors and clients as one of the most insightful, humorous, compassionate and professional individuals in training industry.

Sohail has a gift for adapting his presentation style to his audience. His unique humor, natural style, unconventional wisdom and unsurpassable en ergy has thrilled, inspired and energized audiences around the region. Profile Snapshot:

International Speaker, Author and OD Consultant; - www.sohailzindani.com Founder and CLO, Learning Minds! Group www.learningminds.biz Listed Speaker at A-Speakers Bureau Member, International Advisory Board of World HRD Congress; Featured Speaker and Expert at Learning Regional and International HR Events and Summits; Over a 110 Clients in 5 Countries More then 35000 Participants Trained Over 350 Trainers trained

Common Sense at Work

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A Must Read for professionals with traces of Common Sense!

COMMON SENSE @ WORK

Learning Minds! Group Publication