Our GAC group, together with four senior students from the AlphaMax Academy, attended a seminar conducted by Miss Meenakshi Gupta of The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University. Miss Gupta is an experienced seminar presenter from India with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education. She came here to give us some information on how to cope with changes. This seminar was held on Thursday, 8 January, and Friday, 9 January at the AlphaMax Academy from 5.30 pm to 7.30 pm.
On the first day, Ms. Gupta talked about how to deal with changes, why people resist changes and the four levels of change. Dealing with change is not easy for everyone. Some worry about the reaction of others, afraid that they will not like the way they have changed. She focused our thoughts with this quote, “A shift in attitude triggers a shift in one’s behavior. Behavior is guided by thoughts and our thoughts are guided by our behavior system”. To illustrate this point she made us participate in an activity called, “The Change Game”.
On our second day, Ms. Gupta dealt with leadership attitude. She presented a chart that showed how these attitudes develop. She explained that there are eight aspects of leadership attitude. These are listening, availability, acceptance, flexibility, discerning, judging, responsibility and team spirit. She explained each one them with real life anecdotes. She, then, drew a pie chart and divided it into eight sections, each housing one of the points. With this, she showed us how they intertwine and relate to each other.
After that, she showed us which power you have when you are able to do all the eight leadership attitudes. With listening you have, the ability to withdraw; with availability, the ability to back-up; with acceptance, tolerance; with flexibility, accommodation; with discerning, discrimination; with judge, decision making; with responsibility, the ability to face situations; and with team spirit, co-operation.
We are very glad Ms. Gupta came and gave us this seminar. She opened our eyes to perceive things we have not noticed before, but were already there. One important thing that I learned was that we must not ridicule people if they are trying to change. This is usually why they are afraid to change. Instead, give them that boost of confidence that will help their transformation run smoothly. If, however, our friends have bad habits, we should tell them honestly, but in a way that is not hurtful.
Nicole Tjon-Kie Sim GAC 2008- 2009 group AlphaMax Academy
