On a really Lighter note !!!

My title at the organization that I work says that I am a Leadership Performance Consultant and as part of my passion and occupation, I facilitate multiple streams of leadership programmes though I head an important initiatve within the unit, that I work.

Most of the days I am addressing different sets of people – sometimes seniors, middle management, some times junior folks in the organization and other times new joinees from the lateral stream. Whoever my audience are I feel a transformed person in front of a group and I usually give my best, though I completely realize, learning is the responsibility and it is the onus of the learner and not the facilitator and as a facilitator, I can only make the process of learning interesting, easy and the journey memorable.

And every session is unique and different and depends largely on the audience and their energy levels and interactions. I really love what I do, and I feel that is one of the reasons for all the appreciation that I receive and also the reason for my transformation in front of my audience.

So I went ahead full steam for the session today which was about branding our associates at the organization while they take up consulting assignments with the our esteemed customers and how to represent the organization by creating a powerful presence of the self. It’s a full day session and normally I take in around 20 nominations and today of all days there were around 27 participants and I went ahead with the session.

Right from the beginning I realized the session was going to be great, as there was a participant, who is a senior leader and a good friend with a great sense of humour and couple of others who are the type to make very intelligent interruptions. And the others were also quite interactive. So the session went on pretty well and I was quite happy about how the session was progressing and I was swelling in pride, while enjoying the whole experience of facilitating the session. The humour of some of the people enhanced the entire session and atleast to me there was no single boring moment.

The afternoon session had an hour of Dining etiquette through a group activity and the teams were working and making presentations on the activity, when it happened. I heard the joke and was wanted to walk out of the class to LOL ( he he), but I had to control myself and laugh very diplomatically. As part of the activity, I was giving some inputs about toasting and how it is generally done. I was explaining about how everyone would be given small wineglasses with enough wine to take just a couple of sips and the one who gives the toast raises the Wine glass and says a few words honoring a person, a relationship or about a special occasion.

I also on a serious note added that you do not drink the wine until the toast is made and out popped a question for one of my participants - “ Can I ask for side dish for the wine?” I was like “ what ?” “ Did I really hear you right?” and I saw some of the smart ones in the session were controlling their laughter and I literally wanted to ROTFL ( ha ha).. I had to tell him that the wine that I was referring to was not the Wine available in the local “ Wine shops” and by then the entire class was roaring with laughter. Sidedish for the wine during toasting – how funny can it get?

I took some time later explaining to this participant the significance of toasting and the occasions where toasts are given and how.

I still had a smile and I know this smile is going to be there on my face for some time to come.