Rajiv Kumar Luv

Is your industry becoming more competitive? Are your prospects taking a closer look at what your competitors have to offer?
Stating your competitive advantage as having the best quality or the best price is no longer enough because your competitors can also claim the same things. Competitors also copy your strategies and tactics, even your product/service offerings. So how do we compete more effectively in highly cutthroat business situations?
There is no such thing as the “perfect product” and if there ever was, salespeople would be out of a job. Excellent salespeople solve product shortcomings by using competitive sales strategies.  If you develop these tools, you can sell more than your competition.

To be competitive you must satisfy your customers, and you will only know how well you are satisfying your customers if you measure their satisfaction levels.
When customers have to deal in areas with which they're not familiar they often feel insecure and slightly threatened. It's important that you project a feeling of competence which will convince the customer they've come to the right place.
You lose more business not because of poor product but inferior service and poor treatment. If the customer's first impression of your company is a lousy one, they won't be back to give you a second chance. Treat your customers the way you expect to be treated whenever you are a customer.
How do you dazzle and delight dissatisfied customers? What's the best way to retain and regain customer loyalty after a service breakdown has occurred? These and many such issues would be dealt with during the course of the programme. Satisfied customers return and send others; dissatisfied people do not!  It has been estimated that it costs seven times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.

Goal Setting is valuable to all people who would like to increase their results and maximise the effectiveness of their activities.
Goal Setting can help you take control of many areas in your life—self-esteem, health and fitness, relationships, communication, career/lifework, finances, and/or life crisis—so that you can determine where you’re going, how to get there, and when you’ll get there, and what you want to do when you arrive.
Successful goal setting is continually setting new goals and achieving them.
This program will provide you with the “nuts and bolts” of goal setting in a way that is easily understood and easily executed.

When it comes to business, performing better than your competitors is surely critical. You must be thinking about ways to attract more following and business revenue than your competition.
 A company that can predict the future, map current resources namely people, technologies, investments, and projects to business demands, and analyse those it has used in the past, is an adaptive organization. It has the edge on the competition and can show value to stakeholders. Adaptive organizations are flexible and link business processes in previously unachievable ways, unearthing more sophisticated business options. They also move from a heavily fixed-cost environment to a variable-cost one, where overall costs reflect demands in real time. This flexibility creates new options for leveraging existing technology to drive the business. This program can give you an edge on your competition by staying current as a leader and visionary as well as in your specialty.
Every business has a competitive strategy.  However many strategies are implicit, having evolved over time, rather than explicitly formulated from thinking and planning process.  Implicit strategies lack focus. Produce inconsistent decisions, and unknowingly become obsolete.  Without a well-defined strategy, organizations will be driven by current operational issues rather than by a planned future vision.

The workplace is a mixture of people from different generations facing a generational adjustment of values, learning and working styles that will have a huge impact on how leaders think and act. The younger generations will transform the nature of the workplace.
Leaders need to understand the motivations of different generations and lead them accordingly.
The younger generations' attitudes, values and behaviors are already beginning to show conflict with the older generation. According to a survey  employers are experiencing tension between employees of different generations. The survey found that older employees are dismissive of younger workers' abilities, and younger were dismissive of older workers' abilities.
Generational Effectiveness in the Workplace focuses on the needs, desires and strengths of each group, providing the most effective way of understanding, communicating, managing, training, and motivating every person in your company.

Organizations should realize how much Employee stress cost them each year. Studies show that stress adds to the cost of doing business in a number of ways. Just how costly is employee stress?
Stress results in – absenteeism, poor employer-employee relationship, violence, customer service problems, grievances, errors of judgment and action, conflict and interpersonal problems, resistance to change, loss of intellectual capital. Having stressed-out and depleted employees can have very serious effects on the bottom line. The more stressed a person is, the less he cares about excellence and innovation.

Effective business networking is the linking together of individuals who, through trust and relationship building, become walking, talking advertisements for one another. Sales people need to keep their funnel of prospects full and to do that the skill of networking is a must.
Many businesspeople agree business networking is a more cost-effective method of generating new business than advertising or public relations efforts. This is because business networking requires more personal commitment than company money.
Business networking can be done locally or via the Internet. Business networking websites have grown over recent years due to the Internet's ability to connect people from all over the world. Internet companies often set up business leads for sale to bigger corporations and companies looking for data sources. Social media has also made it possible to network with a large number of people within a very short span of time

Coaching helps a coachee who seek a deeper analysis on specific issues. A deadline is set for completion. Coaching focuses on personal problems which may affect his professional life. But in the workplace more stress is layed on how to achieve best results in professional life.
Coaching is just guiding the coachee, mentoring is an instructional strategy designed in order to develop the learner into a competent skilled person, who will be useful in his field and the organization as a whole. It is a vital business tool, where the Instructor shares his knowledge and skills with the learners, monitors the progress and renders the feedback of progress to the learners.

In the world of constant change, creative problem solving and innovative ideas can make the difference between success and failure, but only if you can manage those ideas. Learning to harness the power of your ideas and put them to the right use, at the right time, is the purpose of this two-day workshop
Today business is in constant turmoil. Knowing how to develop your ideas, and knowing how to bring out your natural creativity can benefit anyone in business every working day. If you are part of a team or if you are leading a team, understanding how to develop a practical creative thinking process pays off in better ideas, better management and better results.
 
Program Contents*:
What is creativity? Why be creative? Benefits of creativity; Barriers to creativity, clarifying assumptions, brief history of creative ideas. Testing your creative quotient, Motivating self to be creative, Pain and pleasure principle, Pearls of wisdom, Seven stages of creativity. Building ‘Creative Think’ attitude, importance of questions, exercises to trigger creativity, breaking the rules, flipping modes, changing metaphors.
Metamorphosis, intuition, using dreams, forcing connections, manipulative verbs, generating new ideas, recognizing new opportunities, Idea killers, idea growers, invoking creativity in a group, visual brainstorming, idea evaluation, getting ideas accepted by others, use of subconscious mind, affirmations, recording of ideas, making creativity work for you. Action plan.

You need high levels of confidence whether it is to persuade a customer, give a presentation, face an interview, learn something new, solve a problem, take on failures, assert yourself, take initiative, and achieve challenging targets.
Confidence comes from self-esteem, it is the root of our personality, and most of the problems that we face can be traced back to our self-esteem. If one can understand self-esteem then do something on a daily basis to build it, then most of the problems would disappear.
Self-esteem plays a very important part in the workplace. Conflicts and ego issues would reduce to a great degree. Communication would become open and honest, trust levels would increase, relationships would improve, people would feel good to come to work, team work would become better, customer satisfaction would increase to a great degree and attrition levels would go down.

Non-Assertive and passive-aggressive behaviour can cost a company dearly. People will not contribute ideas in meetings, towards brainstorming, solving problems and developing strategies. Sabotage will increase, more yes-men will be produced, conflict will be swept under the carpet, people will stop being honest and ultimately feel frustrated, out of control and overlooked
Assertiveness, is essential for you to feel better about yourself and develop better relations with others. It could also reduce the unpleasant or discomfort levels to a minimum, relieve stress, and maybe even move your career forward. You stand a better chance to become a leader by learning to become assertive.

Group discussion is a very powerful screening device to judge the right candidate. It si a part of, or a step in the entire selection process. GD is resorted to for the following two reasons 1) to save time - the interview panel can judge many candidates simultaneously 2) it enables the panel to observe the candidates' behaviour in a group.
If the candidate wishes to enhance his effectiveness in GD he needs to work on his personal skills, group skills and leadership skills

Ethics in the Workplace is a very relevant issue for all companies. Teaching staff about business ethics and how unethical behaviour can significantly impact a workplace is an imperative part of employee training. Supplying all employees with a Code of Ethics provides them with a guide for good conduct and a foundation for norms and behaviours. All companies must teach employees what to do when something doesn't feel quite right, or what to do if they're already caught in the middle of a bad situation.
Leading by example is the best way managers can exhibit ethical behaviour to employees. They must be aware of their own conduct and set up checks and balances within their department. Reviewing the ethics policy with all employees and implementing its guidelines in the workplace are a manager's responsibility.

We talk of so many different kinds of management like - time, stress, money, change, hospital, and mind management. The reality is that we can't manage anything unless we manage ourselves. Period.
Good leaders know their own values, strengths, and limitations and are able to control their emotions and behaviours. They must strive for personal development by engaging in continuous learning and being willing to seek help when needed or admit when they have made a mistake. They should be able to adapt to stressful or dynamic situations and be able to maintain a balance between their work and non-work lives.

Where there are people coming together with different experiences, attitudes and expectations, conflicts are bound to happen. However, some conflicts can support organizational goals. Indeed, too little conflict may lead to apathy, lack of creativity, indecision and missed-out deadlines. Clashes of ideas about tasks also help in choosing better tasks and projects. These are ‘functional conflicts’.
The most difficult conflicts are those arising out of value differences. The most important thing is to understand the real cause of the differences. Yet every resolution of a conflict can also feed a new conflict in a group. It is, therefore, useful to see conflicts as a series of expressions of existing differences within a group, having some links to each other. How effectively a group deals with conflict management largely affects the efficiency level of its functioning.

If you boil down all the qualities of an effective leader you are just left with one quality and that is the ability to influence, leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less, this comes from none other than the Guru of Leadership, John Maxwell. It takes confidence, self-belief and excellent communication skills to influence.
The ability to influence is not something that you are born with, though some of us may have a flair for influencing. The ability to influence is a skill and skill comes from drill so by changing your mind set and applying specific skills, you can find your own inner power to influence.
This workshop will be useful to you - if you need to gain willing co-operation from others, you lead projects or teams, you have accountability for getting things done through or with other people.

To be successful, a manager needs to master a number of skills which are at different levels, these management skills build on each other. The basic requirement expected of a manager is just to get the job done. These are the fundamentals of the management job: Plan, Organize, Direct, and Control. Then a manager has to learn skills that help him to develop his staff, skills like Motivation, Training and Coaching, Employee Involvement. A manager also needs to learn to manage self and manage his time effectively. The final goal is to transition from a manager to a leader. This workshop will help you sharpen these managerial skills.

It has become an accepted fact that to lead people the degree of your emotional intelligence plays a significant role.  Emotions are very powerful and by analysing occasions when we have felt extreme emotions, we can assess the positive intention and negative aspects. This self-awareness helps us to be more aware of our own emotions and those of others. E.I. can be improved through a combination of life experience, maturity, conscious thought, and perseverance.
EI can be described as "a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.
EI contributes to the bottom line. EI helps with employee satisfaction and retention. Training dollars are better spent when managers know what they are looking for when improving their intellectual assets. Furthermore, customer service strategies and skills are honed when employees are emotionally intelligent.

Delegation is very essential for successful management. It saves time, results in improvements, is motivating to the team and results in success. On the flip side, it can also cause de-motivation, frustration and confusion about action steps and objectives. This disorientation can contribute to failure in the achievement of the task. Therefore, delegation skills are worth developing and improving.
Delegation is useful for the purpose of succession by planning, encouraging, seeking promotion and the personal development of members of the business unit. As a result, there will be growth in the particular department as well as in the company. The manager to stands to gain  valuable experience allowing them to undertake higher levels responsibilities.
Delegation should be utilized to develop everyone in the business unit including the manager. It gives the manager more time for important issues, and it is a cardinal management tool for execution. Delegation skill in the workplace is at the heart of getting important work done.

Why is it that some people rise to the occasion under pressure — when others choke? Why are some people not only able to survive but thrive when faced with incredible challenge? It’s not because of exceptional skill, talent or knowledge. And it’s not superior training or genes. What they have is mental toughness.
And in this fast-moving, competitive and turbulent world, we all – whether we’re elite athletes, CEOs or first-graders – need a mental toughness mind-set to live satisfying, successful lives.The good news is that mental toughness is not something you have a limited amount of. Instead, like a physical muscle, it’s something you can exercise and develop.
Change is uncomfortable and unavoidable so the only way we can meet such challenges head-on is by mental toughness. A program in Mental Toughness gives people, teams and organisations confidence and a competitive edge. You are learning the attitudes, qualities and skills that enable you to perform effectively and thrive under difficult and challenging conditions.

We have all used negotiation skills since childhood and have continued to develop skills in adult life, with a partner, or with family members or friends or in team activities like sports, social but that doesn’t mean to say we are any good at it. How have we fared and do we know people who seem to “always get what they want” – why is that? Maybe they are just lucky! Or maybe they have subtle negotiating skills. Maybe we cannot resist others negotiation skills tactics.
Although of critical importance, negotiation skills isn’t restricted to Industrial relation disputes or agreements or supplier/customer contracts, every line manager uses negotiation skills in dealing with day to day operational problems and decision making, i.e. Negotiation skills sit at the heart of human relations.
How much better therefore could human relations, productivity, cost control etc. be, if personnel received negotiation skills training? What other skill is so cost effective?

A company cannot become world class if the people working in the company are working in silos. A good team makes a good company and to keep the team well bonded, team building exercises are very important for companies today.
Outbound training is taking people out of the comforts of the conference room, taking them through a variety of experiences; challenge them physically as well as cerebrally. The whole idea is to focus on team achievement. Individual achievements have no meaning if the team as a whole fails. Participants are given a task which they have to work as a team, after the task is over the team sits with the facilitator and share the learning from the activity and how they could apply it in their workplace. Outbound training is experiential and it complements the way adults learn. It builds on the rich experiences they already have.
The training could involve simple activities with almost no resources or with heavy equipment if rappelling, rock climbing, white water rafting, paragliding, bungee jumping, trekking and treasure hunts have to be done. The location for this training could be any open space you may have, or the group could be taken to some exotic locations where they are made to stay in tents with bare minimum resources.
Through such trainings participants can actually experience communication, leadership, problem-solving, decision-making, building trust, interdependence, planning, innovation, time management without any lectures or theory. The training helps to generate fresh ideas, boost team spirit and achieve the mission of the company.

Managing People: It is a strange position in which to find yourself; for example in your own time you socialize with colleagues, sharing their interests and their problems, but during company time you are expected to become their “judges and arbiters.” Also you have to use skills such as planning & organizing work.
The pressures to shelve people management responsibilities and become ‘one of them’ and doing everything yourself are very great, if you shelve your leadership responsibilities you will never be able to ‘manage’ in the real sense, nor will your work mates respect you for it!

There are three "levels" of Mind Power. They are not separate, but blend into each other.
The conscious mind - the part with which you consciously think. You can consciously visualize your mental pictures. Your conscious mind provides the "Management" which decides what you want to become and what you want to acquire, the decisions which you deliberately and consciously make.
The sub-conscious mind - the part of your mind which operates regardless of your conscious thought. Your sub-conscious is in complete control of your life which includes directing your complex bodily functions: heartbeat, breathing, digestion, reflex-action, and everything which your living requires. Your sub-conscious mind sends out powerful thought vibrations, these vibrations start attracting the right opportunities, right events, right circumstances, right environment, right time, right people, to turn your dream or goal into a reality, this mind is not bound by space and time and it works without the five senses.
The infinite mind - is the total intelligence of the universe. Call it soul, call it God. Name it what you will; it is infinite and you communicate with it through your sub-conscious mind with mental pictures. Mental pictures are the most comprehensive form of communication between humans and the infinite.

An Organization’s productivity depends much more on the internal technology of the people who work in the Organization rather than knowledge, technical or professional competence. This programme addresses the internal aspects of an individual’s personality.
Everyone has natural talent, capacity and capability to lead a result-oriented life, but it is blocked by belief systems, attitude, self-imposed limitations, problems and fear. This programme helps participants to look within and discover their precious hidden resources to enhance personal productivity.

We live in a world where knowledge keeps increasing at an alarming speed. Updating your skills and knowledge is not just a requirement, it’s a MUST!! Many people are losing their jobs, simply due to the fact that their knowledge and skills are outdated or done with technology. Though there are plenty of job opportunities out there, most people are not updating their skills fast enough to keep up with those jobs.
Accelerated Learning will help you think, work and act faster. And the quicker you get things done, the more time you will have for other things- be it leisure, more work or personal.  One of the largest advantages of Accelerated learning is the gift of time.
Implementing accelerated learning can help your organization save time and money, build a healthier work force, and enjoy a better ROI, both financially and operationally.
Accelerated learning is effective as it's based on the way we all naturally learn. It actively involves the whole person, using physical activity, creativity, music, images, colour, and other methods designed to get people deeply involved in their own learning.

All 'Change' processes, whether it is downsizing, upsizing, transforming, restructuring, re-engineering or re-inventing have one thing in common: they all impact the lives of people in the organization at all levels. The impact may work in positive or negative ways, depending on how the issues being tackled are managed.
To make change happen, people must first let go of certain dysfunctional old way(s) of thinking, perceiving, feeling and doing things and learn new ones. They should also live through a rough in-between time when they feel confused and frustrated. This psychological transition is the most crucial part of change process, and unless it is managed successfully, nothing will change even with the clearest plan in the world.
When we try to confront change in our organizations we will face some monumental obstacles. How should we face them? It is with full commitment, total focus, wisdom, patience and complete dedication to a clear mission and vision.

There are few businesses in the world that do not suffer from some form of communication problem, yet effective and efficient communication is universally regarded as a key ingredient in success. During this workshop we look at different levels of communication, discuss the basic skills of effective communication, and demonstrate the basic skills including the essential need for good listening. We also explore interpersonal perception, look at the role of communication both within and between teams, and stress the need for continuous, open and honest two-way conduits for ideas and information.
For excellent customer service effective communication skill is a must. So how do we improve, develop and enhance it? This workshop will address that question by providing innovative communication strategies that will give us the edge in both face-to-face and over-the-phone encounters.

Effective facilitation is an essential function of any organisation's team management. It enables team members to own and achieve strategic objectives, to make decisions and solve problems - thus maximising and sustaining productivity. The facilitator's role is vital in ensuring the success of meetings, as they are responsible for the effective planning, execution and follow-up of the meeting, and for ensuring the achievement of overall objectives. This
'Facilitation Skills' workshop will equip participants with the necessary skills, tools and techniques to plan, guide and evaluate effective meetings, and will focus on the important role that the facilitator plays throughout the process.

Whatever your facilitating experience, it is always worth considering alternative approaches to engage and enrapture your audience. Developing your facilitation skills can really help.

In the business world, it is essential for everyone in the workplace to work together to get the job done, and this often involves meetings. For most of us, meetings are a part of the daily work routine, but as often becomes the case, that is what many meetings begin to feel like--routine.
Ineffective meetings are one of the most common time wasters in today's business. This program focuses on what to do before, during and after a meeting to minimize time and maximize effectiveness. We also explore what roles need to be filled, and how to manage difficult people in meetings. Stimulate discussions and participation.

An Organization's effectiveness depends on much more than knowledge or technical or professional competence. Work in organizations involves relationships between colleagues, subordinates and others, both on a one-to-one basis and within a group. The organization's success depends largely on the quality of interpersonal relationship.
No doubt about it: Individuals with excellent interpersonal skills rise to the top - in their careers, in their organizations and in life!
You've probably seen it happen time and again. Take two people with similar skills and knowledge, but one of them has enviable people skills while the other's interpersonal skills are only mediocre. Which one gets ahead faster and goes further? You know the answer to that one - no contest!
What you may not know is that effective interpersonal skills can be learned - just like any other skill

“It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go.” ~ Bertrand Russell
 Anger is an emotion that can play havoc at home and at work and anger at one place can affect the effectiveness of the person at the other place. Anger can give rise to other negative emotions which can destroy coming up with new ideas, team work, relationships, communication, customer satisfaction, productivity, quality and safety.
 Anger is something that can be understood, directed, channelized and dealt with constructively.
 Your anger can give you the opportunity to gain more clarity about what’s most important to you, and lead you to solutions that will be much more satisfying in your life. Choose to apply consistent, focused attention on what you truly want in life, rather than becoming angry and upset about what you don’t want.
 As soon as you make a conscious decision to turn your anger to your advantage, it will begin to improve your life.

What separates top performers from those who achieve average results? Why does one team, department, or unit consistently out perform all other in the Organization One of the answer is effective leadership. Leadership is a skill which can be learnt. Leadership is the decisive force behind every organization. It defines the quality of business life, the corporate culture and especially the bottom line.

An interview is a face to face meeting between two person or groups for the purpose of assessing the suitability of candidate. All parties to the interview have a stake in the interview. Human resources are the most valuable assets of an Organization. Thus it has a big stake in the interview, so they are keen on making the right choice. The candidate of course, has a very high stake in the interview. Therefore, a partnership approach, a give and take attitude is the best approach toward an interview.
In an interview, the candidate needs to sell himself/herself, they need to match their qualifications, skills, and personality to the requirements of the job, they need to stress how they can contribute towards the company's objectives. The candidate should be able to make an impression in the first 60 seconds by making proper use of body language