:: Lt Gen (Retd) Arjun Ray ::

Sports for Leadership

01-March-2017

It is common to hear people say that sports keep the body and mind healthy and fit. This is true.

But more than that, sports also make us leaders.

21st Century is an age that is complex and full of uncertainties. No one can say what will happen tomorrow and no one can solve all the problems on their own. They need the help of their team. Working in teams is a key requirement of today and in the future. Sports teaches us:

a. That the team is more important than the individual. In life you cannot win alone. You need the support of your team.

b. The principles on how to deal with failure:

Welcome failure.

Do not be afraid to fail.

If your do not fail, you cannot succeed.

Life is not about winning and losing; what matters is the effort you put in.

Winning is a byproduct.

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)

Reading Habit

01-February-2017

1. To succeed and flourish in the 21st century, the reading habit is a must. Parents and teachers are mandated to ensure children go even beyond into deep reading, reading with the purpose of transforming oneself to be a good person, and being prepared for a future we do not know.

2. We have entered the age of a-literacy wherein individuals are consciously exercising their choice not to read. The latest reading statistics from the US are disturbing. 33 percent high school graduates never read a single book after leaving school. And 42 percent college graduates do not read any book after graduation.

3. The book-reading habit must start with teachers. The following book-reading strategies will help:
Step 1: Daily goal of reading 20 pages for 8 months.

Keep a log and use a habit tracking app like catch.me.

Logs ensure accountability

Step 2: Always carry a book or a Kindle.

Step 3: Select a particular time in the day to read - morning after exercise is preferable.

Step 4: Eliminate distraction by muting the mobile.

Step 5: Read liberal newspapers, watch selected videos, and read quality magazines like The Economist, Time and Wired.

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)

International Mindedness

01-December-2016

The 20th century was concerned more with knowledge about and scholarship. In the 21st century the emphasis has shifted to the application of classroom learning to solve real-life problems in a creative manner. The ability for such application is dependent upon the quality of one's core competencies.

Future teachers will not be teachers of literature, history, mathematics and the sciences. In order to fulfill their mandate of unlocking potential, teachers will henceforth:

Become their students, and students will become their

teachers through self-directed learning, thus narrowing down the

present gap between teachers and students. This is the essence of

lifelong learning.

Not teach content. Instead, they will teach and practice the students in developing core competencies; using their subjects of specialization as a medium. For example, the language teacher will now primarily teach critical thinking, living with diversity and persuasive communication. Students will learn the language with some assistance from the teacher, some from self-directed learning, and the rest with the help of robot teachers. However, about 30 percent of content will still be taught by the teacher.

Not teach physics and history, but teach students how to learn

physics and history. This will be the #1 pedagogy in 21st century schools,

the mega transition that must occur - from teaching, to how to learn.

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)

International Mindedness

01-November-2016

We need to redefine international education and international-mindedness, exemplified by the International Baccalaureate. First, an international syllabus is a leadership curriculum, and Indus goes well beyond the IBO mandate by incorporating the following four key features:

a. Fulfill the purpose of education by preparing children to lead from tomorrow, a tomorrow characterized by uncertainty and volatility. To achieve this vision, cognitive competencies alone will not help. School education must imbibe critical competencies in a child such as critical-thinking, creativity, collaboration, persuasive communication, problem-finding and living with diversity. In the 21st century these competencies or life-skills are more important than academic achievements.

b. From a leadership perspective, every leader is a teacher and every leader is a teacher. The role of the teacher has remained unchanged over centuries. They have a common role: to unlock human potential, theirs, and the students they are responsible for. This is, indeed, a formidable challenge.

c. Localism is the rock foundation of international education, namely, act local and then think global. The millennial or me-generation, lack situational awareness, with total apathy about what is happening around them - their culture, history, traditions, community and society. It is localism that gives them a reference point towards international-mindedness. The failure in the classroom is because teachers do not practice students in using classroom learning to solve real-life problems. Everything is knowledge about and scoring high marks for entry into prestigious colleges and universities; not knowledge about, and knowledge to be.

d. Innovation is the #1 leadership competency.

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)

Indianness

01-October-2016

In today's day and age international schooling has very less to do with racial, and cultural groupings, having or having the IB syllabus, or being for-profit or non-profit. Of 112 IB Schools in India (2016) just about three or four IB schools teach the 'IB Way'. In my view, international schooling must be re-defined as offering any curriculum that must serve two purposes:

a. One, preparation for life that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Academic excellence alone will not fulfill this objectives. Academic rigour must be redefined to include critical cognitive and non-cognitive competencies like.

Character

Vision Innovation

Empathy and compassion

Critical and strategic thinking

Collaboration

b. Two, teachers must be capable of unlocking their potential, and that of the students they are responsible for. Most of us operate at 8-10% of our potential, the rest lies buried undiscovered. Our potential comprises our:

Signature strengths

Creativity and critical thinking

Higher order emotions like love and compassion

Talent

Divinity - be good and do good

c. Three, be local first before thinking global. In order to be innovative, we need to know a lot about our roots - spirituality, philosophy, science, history, customs and traditions. For Indian IB Schools, I will call this Indianness.

I will use three words to desirable international schooling: unlocking human potential. In a strict sense, the focus is, therefore on the teacher and not on the syllabus.

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)

5 Golden Principles

01-September-2016

Every leader is different - no two leaders are the same. Irrespective of whether it is at home, in academics, sports, arts, business or governance, they share some common traits. These are the 5 Golden Rules you should remember.

1. They have a clear vision of what and where they want to be, and in what time frame; and how to achieve their goals. Success is not a random occurrence. Your vision will ignite your motivation and unlock your potential.

2. Success does not happen on its own, you need to set challenging goals. Challenging goals are goals that have a 50% probability of failure. What you become as a result of trying to achieve your goals is more important than achieving the goal. We must, therefore, welcome challenges as a means to learn and grow.

3. Welcome failure. You only learn when you fail - failure is the first step for success. What is important is how you deal with failure. To deal with failure you need to have grit:

Tenacity - patience, doggedness and determination to hold on to long-range goals despite all odds

High motivation to accept failure, and continue working under severe pressure

Mental toughness. Life is about mind over matter

Bounce back after failure

4. Visualise success every day with all your senses. Value the process of success rather than the outcome. This is controllable. What also matters is the effort?

5. Deep reading, deep thinking, deep experiencing and deep learning.

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)

power of the digital revolution

01-August-2016

Notwithstanding the awesome power of the digital revolution, there is an urgent need to revive the habit of book reading. Deep reading is not restricted to text or digital reading. You need paper and plasma together to create a bi-lateral brain.

The digital page helps in surfing - accessing knowledge, concepts and ideas. The paper page helps the reader to dig down and reflect.

The revival of the book reading habit depends solely on the teacher. She must inspire the children to read, to think, to critique, and to apply the concepts in our lives.

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)

Continuous Growth

01-July-2016

The Japanese Kaizen Way or continuous growth is an excellent quality improvement model to go by. This is especially so for all-inclusive schools wherein we have student-intakes from varied academic background.

The concept of continuous growth is founded on the principle of growth-mindset as opposed to a fixed-mindset. The latter believes that talent and IQ ae fixed at birth. Growth mindset, on the other hand, is based on the scientific belief that, man is born potential, and with the right environment and positive nurturing, an individual can discover his talent.

In our scheme of things, a class teacher who brings about continuous growth in a student from say 50 to 55%, is a better teacher than one who has a student at 90 and remains at 90 or 92. The latter shows no growth.

Continuous growth can be brought about by

Concept teaching

Deliberate practice

Feedback and assessment for learning

Personalized attention

Hypothetical model of excellence to increase the class average

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)

Life is to be a great teacher

01-June-2016

The best decision a teacher can take in her life is to be a great teacher.

A great teacher having a calling, is a rare species these days. She is great because of her mastery in education. Her attributes are phenomenal:

The ability to unlock a child's potential.

To liberate the minds of her students.

Teach what Google cannot teach.

We need great teachers to build character, creativity and risk-taking. This is what Indus and the Indus Training and Research Institute are working towards - our mission, our manifesto. It will be a long haul but the journey has started.

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)

The traditional model of leadership is Newtonian

01-February-2015

The traditional model of leadership is Newtonian; and this is why love, God and leadership are the most misunderstood words in all languages and cultures, this is also a primary reason why the world faces a leadership crisis. The Newtonian model of leadership was designed for a stable, predictable and hierarchical environment that could be controlled. This model is:

a.Deterministic - based on laws of cause and effect. This is a Western scientific viewpoint which legislates that, the search for truth is based on reason, observation of facts and analysis, leading to principles. Consequently, the argument is straight forward: if you apply these laws, you can be a leader. Nearly all self-development books are deterministic. This explain why 95% of leadership books are written by people who are non-practicing leaders.

b.Reductionist, namely breakdown complex problem into smaller and simpler parts, and then study them under a microscope within local conditions. This is unworkable as the sum of the smaller parts is less than the whole.

Leadership at Indus is inspired from the scientific laws of quantum mechanics, complexity science and chaos theory. Quantum leadership is suited to today's and tomorrow's world, a world that is unstable, unpredictable, interconnected and messy world.

There are 1500 definitions of leadership and over 40 concepts of leadership. Overwhelmingly, they are Newtonian, and aim at exercising influence on outcomes in relationship, friendship and decision-making.

At Indus, we define leadership as the discovery of one's potential, which in turn leads to transformation of the child leading to transformation. Transformation occurs when we are able to discover our human potential. We define potential by other names also.

Self-actualization

Happiness

Self-awareness

Motivation

Regrettably, the large majority of humanity uses just about 5-10% of one's potential. Most of it lies buried like the iceberg. Potential comprises:

Talent

Signature Strength and weaknesses

Values

Higher order emotions like love compassion and respect for life

The divinity within us

At Indus we believe that man must be what he can be. The leadership curriculum and the whole-education syllabus are designed to bring out the child's potential; and we showcase this on Indus Day, Sports Day and the Leadership Summits.

Leading for the future

Leading from the future

(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)