Ajit Kamath Wizzes

Just watching TED videos, if one could have been made a hell of an impactful presenter!, then we would have long left the data point that “Speaking in Public is the No. 1 Fear”. And probably it would have been close of business for many of us who specialize in training and coaching people on Hi-Impact Presentation Skills. So what happens when one does watch TED videos regularly? My 2 bits coming from having many training & coaching relationship with aspiring presenters is that many of them who watch these videos regularly, end up just becoming good if not great   ‘mimics!’. Because consistent watching of TED videos (as the environment is completely different from an organisational setting) you may tend to pick up styles that large group speakers use in such open forums.  You may love the pizzaz and the oration they use, but frankly, can you really use these mannerisms back into your workplace and what if you end up using such oration in client presenta...

Wikipedia explains that Gamification   is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts.   Gamification commonly employs   game   design elements   which are used in non-game contexts   to improve user engagement,   organizational productivity,   flow ,   learning , crowdsourcing,   employee recruitment and evaluation,   ease of use , usefulness of systems,   physical exercise ,   traffic violations, voter apathy,   and more. If I go with the above definition, then yes!, improv is gamification .   So what is improv? Improv is a short form of the noun improvisation o    the action of improvising. "she specializes in improvisation on the piano" synonyms: extemporization,   ad-libbing,   spontaneity,   lack of premeditation;   "some of the best things in the film came out of improvisation" o   ...

Nautanki'  is one of the most popular folk theater performance forms particularly in northern India. Before the advent of Bollywood (the Hindi film industry),    Nautanki  was the biggest entertainment medium in the villages and towns of northern India (wikipedia) 'Nautanki' is also used as a slang in Hindi speaking parts of India (originates probably from Hindi movies) and means that a person is overtly dramatic - sometimes put across to show that the person could be lying or manipulating. Many years back, when I was pitching "Drama & Theater in Learning", one of the HR Senior Managers bluntly retorted that he expects learning to happen in the training and not "nautanki". Is it that they have completely accepted this tool? Honestly "NO!". Over the years, L&D Leaders have mellowed down, and that too because of the feedback from the workshops that I have conducted using drama/theatre/improv measuring more impact vis-a-vis th...