The document critiques the effectiveness of conferences aimed at skill development in India, expressing concerns about the lack of engaging content and meaningful interaction. It emphasizes the need for a structured approach to such conferences, recommending that speakers focus on relevant issues and that organizers invite more diverse participants, including beneficiaries and members of the unorganized sector. The author calls for immediate action to ensure that the goal of skilling 500 million people by 2022 is met with effective strategies and genuine community involvement.

1. Y#38 May 1, 2015
Window for action loving
PROFESSIONALS
Coaching Learning Advancing Sharpening Smartening ©
Advt.Pages11-12Grow your SKILLs 2
Skills needed for
Skills Development
Conferences
3-9
‘Skills for Seniors’
Quotes
10
Excellence is
not a skill.
It is an
attitude.
- Ralph Marston
When love
and skill
work
together,
expect a
masterpiece.
- John Ruskin
Dear Readers
Greetings!
500 million people to be
skilled in India by the
year 2022. Not a mere
statistical nightmare but
a reality that is going to
test the might of ABCDE
– Academia, Business,
Consulting,
Development sector and
the Enterprises. The
Government can only
make policies and
contribute to the
creation of some
infrastructure. What
else?
We, the action loving
professionals, have a lot
to work towards. To
begin with, spread the
consciousness, enhance
our own skills and
contribute to the
development and
refinement of skills for
people around us.
Clarity begins at home…
Y not!
Cheers,
Rajiv Khurana
Editor
rajiv@rajivkhurana.com
9810211256.

2. Y#38 May 1, 2015
Window for action loving
PROFESSIONALS
2
Grow your
SKILLs
S
Stay focused
Don’t start every pursuit together. Pick and choose.
Focus with commitment and timeline.
K
Keep the right company
You can’t learn cricket in the company of hockey
players. Golfers stick to golfers. Who are your pals?
Skills enhance when you hang with them and thrive.
I
Invest in ‘your feel good factors’
The right mental framework can get nourished with
your positive body language and projection. Invest in
how you look. Dress well. Behave better.
L
Learn the right stuff in a right way
Information and advise comes in plenty. Seek the help
of a competent coach or a buddy. See the way others
have improved. Create your niche.
L
Leverage, practice, share
Your skill must move from the level of ‘conscious
competence’ to ‘unconscious competence’. This will
happen when you try to leverage it to every possible
situation and practice hard. Seek feedback and
improve. When people start benefitting from your skill
and sharing, it is sign that you have mastered it.
Rajiv Khurana, CMC, FIMC
Acronym SKILL is the intellectual property of Rajiv Khurana

3. Y#38 May 1, 2015
Window for action loving
PROFESSIONALS
3
“Not again. Not me”, I reacted when my friend Sumit Chaudhuri
suggested that we attend a national level workshop being organised
by a premier industry association at a large security-paranoid venue
in Delhi. For more than seven years, I have attended many such
conferences and I have become sick and tired of the dull
repetitiveness. Even some of the organisers have become sick of me
for the pestering questions I ask. The law of devastatingly marginal
returns has infected me. Sumit, being the pest he is, still bull-dozed
me to tag along. It is tough to pretend attentiveness with ‘open eyed
sleeping’. I galvanised my strengths to attend the conference.
Conferences are generally a good place to satisfy my old urge and
ailment of curiosity. I ask questions to quench my ‘un-ending
learning-thirst’. Sometimes these questions do rub the speaker/s a
wrong way as they hit their assumption of ‘audience is ignorant or ill
informed’ stance. Conferences are expected to usher-in a discussion
among participants who have an agreed serious topic. This indeed
was a serious topic and I started looking forward to the enriching
discussions that may follow.
Rituals of inauguration later, the race towards the end of session
started. Seven speakers, each tried to outdo others by stretching the
allotted 15 minutes to cover probably their 40 minutes content! The
sarkaris and the MNC type speakers gloriously over-shooting with
their vocal bullets. The audience kept quiet. I admire their
perseverance to check WhatsApp, send emails, play candy crush, talk
in whispers or have the courage of dozing-off in full defiance until
the lunch breaks-us-apart.
The word ‘conference’ became a big hit. It was hit by the
monologues. And some more monologues. This is cheating. I felt like
saying. You convene a conference and then make us all hear your
same data, same ideas, same stories, same ‘junior’s made seniors
present crappy PPTs…and same ‘no time to take any questions’
arrogance. I kept quiet. Lunch. Someone had paid for my free lunch. I
respect the courtesy. I overlooked my contest.
Skills needed for
Skills Development Conferences
- Rajiv Khurana, CMC, FIMC

4. Y#38 May 1, 2015
Window for action loving
PROFESSIONALS
4
The lunch was a successful show of ‘total
absence of culinary skills’. Yucky! Didn’t
change anything further. The challenge
began. One more big session. Seven more
speakers. His Masters’ Voice in the garb of a
conference. Tough time to fake the skills of
attentiveness. Action Replay! Whatever was
repeated in the first session was repeated
again! “Where are the skills of speakers and
organisers?” I enquired from Sumit, equally
struggling to show-case a serious conference
professional participant. With over thirty
years of bearing out each other successfully,
we can read each other’s looks. “Why do you
take everything so seriously?” I read in his
eyes and decided not to ask further.
Disengaged, I finally started to jot down my
points to write this article.
I am not a sceptic. I know the big challenge
ahead. Skilling 500 million people by 2022 is
a daunting task. Every way to create a record
of sorts. Seven more years to go and where
have we reached? Nowhere on the right
path! We are still contemplating our ways
without understanding the ground realties.
Having spoken with lakhs of youngsters in
over 50 cities of India, I do have some minor
grip over the problems we face. The reality is
a pathetic mismatch of APSIRATION,
INSPIRATION and PERSPIRATION resultantly
choking the RESPIRATION of the future
society we talk about in sometimes idealistic,
sometimes scary and mostly demographical
connotations.

5. Y#38 May 1, 2015
Window for action loving
PROFESSIONALS
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Do these conferences help? Should be. That’s why they are
held. They create some ripples, some data, some events
and in most cases some recommendations that get created
by some back-end innovative writers covering the
conferences to cook up what is said and often left unsaid.
These conferences are turning out to be a big industry to
attract people to jump on to it. The task is too big and the
toughness is getting bigger.
How do we make them more meaningful? How do we
translate Prime Minister’s dream of co-creating ‘Skill India’
from a mere gathering of thoughts to generate and add to
‘Bill India’?
Do we need to introspect? Especially the organisers and
the speakers. To start with, let’s ask ourselves some easy
questions.
• Why not plan a proper structure for the conference and
tell the speakers in advance to stick to their ‘lakshman
rekha’? Better still, give them some penetrative
questions to answer from their domain instead of
making motherhood statements and making macro-
talks. Make the knowledge partners work harder to
justify their logo on the backdrop.
• Why not invite speakers who have done some work
closer to the ground and understand the realities
instead of operating from their ivory towers?
• Why not invite the beneficiaries to share their
experiences and expectations? These could be the
past, current or probable students along with their
parents, guardians, teachers etc. At least, we can
understand the correct way to create alliance amongst
the aspiration, inspiration and perspiration of the
target audience.

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• Why not think broader to include the
members of the un-organised sector
including MSMEs to contribute to the
thought process? After all, they are
going to absorb the large number of
workforce with them – whether
skilled or not. How can we afford to
generally overlook them from MAKE
IN INDIA and SKILL INDIA initiatives?
This sector can only inspire people to
turn to entrepreneurship with
whichever skills they learn or
enhance.
• Why not invite families [from middle
and lower middle class background]
who have gladly accepted these
skilled people as prospective grooms
for the daughters? It’s high time to
have a reality bite on the dignity and
acceptability of labour. We have
woken up very late to inculcate this
pride and dignity. We have a long way
to go.
• Why not spend adequate time to the
development of teachers and
coaches to teach, train, motivate or
groom young India on skills? Don’t
forget to even find ways to improve
their income. If you pay peanuts, you
know what you get.

7. Y#38 May 1, 2015
Window for action loving
PROFESSIONALS
7
• Why not think broader to
include the members of the un-
organised sector including
MSMEs to contribute to the
thought process? After all, they
are going to absorb the large
number of workforce with them
– whether skilled or not. How
can we afford to generally
overlook them from MAKE IN
INDIA and SKILL INDIA
initiatives? This sector can only
inspire people to turn to
entrepreneurship with
whichever skills they learn or
enhance.
• Why not invite families [from
middle and lower middle class
background] who have gladly
accepted these skilled people as
prospective grooms for the
daughters? It’s high time to have
a reality bite on the dignity and
acceptability of labour. We have
woken up very late to inculcate
this pride and dignity. We have a
long way to go.
• Why not spend adequate time to
the development of teachers
and coaches to teach, train,
motivate or groom young India
on skills? Don’t forget to even
find ways to improve their
income. If you pay peanuts, you
know what you get.
How should speakers prepare
and improve?
Their preparation needs to
polish some S-K-I-L-L-I-N-G.
S – Stay focussed. Both in terms
of time and content. The
audience is interested in your
thoughts and not your greater
glories and the power behind
your organisation’s name.
K – Keep jargons at bay. Please
express. Don’t impress with
your heavy duty words and
abbreviations that audience
may be ignorant about won’t
admit or oppose. By the way,
words like, “Strategy, Value
proposition, Out of the box
etc., etc.” are all becoming stale
due to over usage and under
impact. Try something
different. Something simple.
Talk ‘dil se’.
I – Introspect deeply and
prepare. Integrate your
thoughts with
entrepreneurship, self-
employment, arts and craft etc.
instead of talking about jobs
alone. India can’t create so
many jobs. People will have to
fend for themselves especially
in the surroundings they live in.
Animal husbandry, fisheries,
handlooms and power looms
etc. make more sense.

8. Y#38 May 1, 2015
Window for action loving
PROFESSIONALS
8
L – Link with the aspirations of the students and parents.
Having written career columns for over 12 years, I
broadly know what parents generally force their kids to
do. Be a doctor, engineer or civil servant. Period. How do
we make the aam janta see the change? How do we
convince them that there could be better careers as a
self-employed electrician or a plumber instead of a third-
rated qualified engineer? How do we encourage the
creation of a society that respects people engaged in
jobs or careers hitherto looked down upon?
L – Leverage stories of success. Nothing beats some true
stories. If the person can’t be present, show pictures or
better still some multi-media clippings. This can be
inspiring and trendsetting.
I – Improve your presentation skills. If you must show
your PowerPoint skills, work on it. Avoid showing a slide
made out of your office document or report. Ensure that
the font sizes are big enough to be read in a large
conference hall, the colour scheme is good and pictures
are sharp. Avoid graphs, tables and full paragraphs. The
slide is not a presentation. It’s a tool. You are the
presentation. Work hard. Don’t rely on CPT – Cut & Past
Technology. This is the luxury of the lazy MNC executives
who show the busy slides, mumble some data while the
audience tries to discern some meaning out of it before
giving up.
N – Neutralize babudom in thinking and sharing. Negate
boredom in the audience. Nurture optimism. The
challenge is big. The preparation needs to be bigger. We
cannot deal with tomorrow through yesterday’s mind
set, preparedness and actions. Project ‘managing from
tomorrow’. We know 500 million people to be skilled by
2022. State your roadmap for 2015 and 2016 clearly and
precisely.

9. Y#38 May 1, 2015
Window for action loving
PROFESSIONALS
9
G – Give audience a chance to interact with
you. They may have ideas you might have
overlooked. They may probe you further
with some penetrative questions. Open the
two ways street. Tell them what you want to
tell them. Learn from them. Ask the
organisers to plan for such interactive time.
Or else, refuse to go and speak. Learning
from the audience could be more rewarding
than the memento you receive. Try it.
Coming back to the conference. It’s an old
saying, “Meeting is a place where minutes
are kept and hours are lost.” What do we call
a conference? “A meeting place where post
conclusion reports get generated by cooking
up something out of nothing said or
understood. The reports reaching
somewhere to be left on the back burner
without gas.” How mean of me! Sorry, but I
mean it. I wish there was an RTI on the
conferences conducted on SKILL INDIA and
the recommendations adopted and
implemented. I would love to understand
the ROI.
I still dread the likelihood of attending a
similar such conference. Mercy, my friend!
Rajiv Khurana CMC, FIMC
International Management Trainer, Consultant, Coach,
Author, Venture Mentor, Photography Enthusiast

10. Y#38 May 1, 2015
Window for action loving
PROFESSIONALS
10
Skills for
Seniors
Communication is a
skill that you can
learn. It's like riding a
bicycle or typing. If
you're willing to work
at it, you can rapidly
improve the quality of
every part of your life.
~Brian Tracy
The man who will use his skill and
constructive imagination to see
how much he can give for a dollar,
instead of how little he can give for
a dollar, is bound to succeed.
~Henry Ford
Making good decisions is a crucial
skill at every level.
~Peter Drucker
It is possible to fly
without motors, but
not without
knowledge and skill.
~Wilbur Wright
Creative thinking - in terms of idea
creativity - is not a mystical talent.
It is a skill that can be practised and
nurtured.
~Edward de Bono
I really believe that
everyone has a talent,
ability, or skill that he
can mine to support
himself and to
succeed in life.
~Dean Koontz
Only those who have patience to do
simple things perfectly ever acquire
the skill to do difficult things easily.
~James J. Corbett
Skill is the unified force of
experience, intellect and
passion in their operation.
~John Ruskin

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CMC, FIMC
rajiv@rajivkhurana.com
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