Friday, February 24, 2012

Lions and Tigers enrol for Personality Development Programs

The title is a joke.

When I was much younger, on a couple of occasions, my parents advised me to attend some personality development program. I hated the suggestion back then, I hate it even now (when offered to someone else :)). Mind you, I said 'the suggestion'. What it does mean is that I am not quite averse to the idea of 'personality development'.

Here's a perspective.

One of the popular indicators (only an indicator, no guarantee okay!) of a 'well-developed personality' is felicity with language. So people who are good at talking, at using a range of words, at structuring arguments seem to have a good personality. And this indicator seems to have been used by a lot of institutions and coaching classes to sell their PD programs.

Having observed myself over the years, the one thing that has aided in improving my skills in language is the the actual 'searching for' and 'doing of' things. The more I've tried doing things in a particular domain, the more my need to search for the most effective means to accomplish those things. And of course, searching meant asking the right questions or conveying the right ideas, which in turn means trying to use the words which are most representative of the thoughts in my head and which could be understood in the same manner by the people trying to answer my questions or trying to help me. And learning from this process for the next thing to do.

I've seen quite a few people around me attend the PD programs. Very often, the 'positive change' disappears after a while.The reason is, in all probability, not going through the process of finding more words or a better vocabulary for doing something new/better. Doing it is.

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