Friday, May 07, 2010

Celebrating the life of a Human Being - my fond memories of Dr.Udai Pareek

The world recently lost Dr. Udai Pareek, the Father of the HRD movement in India. I consider myself fortunate to have had opportunities to spend a few moments with the great master practitioner, every moment of which I learnt something - for life.
My very first interactions with Dr. Udai Pareek were at a psychometrics workshop in Bangalore. I sat in awe and listened as he very simply explained the meaning of the term 'role' and quoted examples from the 'here and now' of Indian life. I had an opportunity to listen to him on the same topic twice more on different occassions.
The next time I met him was when I slinked out of a nephew's thread ceremony to attend a one day workshop on Organization Behaviour. On that occassion, after lunch, I was one of the early participants to return to class when the projector was being set up. If I remember correct, the next session was on roles where the organizers were looking for slides for a projective exercise. With great hesitation, I approached Dr. Pareek, laptop in hand. With much hesitation I shared with him the fact that after the previous workshop I had used many of the psychometric instruments in office after automation and that I had the projective exercise scanned and ready with me. I still remember the pure celebration that Dr. Pareek shared with joy. He called the others and shared information about the automation of instruments that I had done and by that evening, he asked me whether I could guide a student! I still remember the day at Hotel Atria - was difficult leaving the workshop - was so excited!
Later, when work took me to Noida, I had an opportunity to meet him over lunch, during which I got to spend close to 5 hours with him discussing topics as varied as organization development in Kashmir to the concept of the leadership crucible.
Dr. Pareek, then shared that a CD could be made with me as co-author with the automated instruments and that he expected me to accept money from the proceeds of the CD. While the co-authorship itself was something more than I could handle at my age and experience, he also insisted that I needed to accept a portion of the proceeds of the sales if I expected him to work with me.
On my last day at Delhi (before I relocated to Bangalore), Dr. Udai Pareek had included me in the panel of a 5 day psychometrics course that was taking place there. I conducted a one hour session on roles there and was presented a carved keychain and a custom made pen on that occassion. What was more thrilling was the fact that I had to conduct this session with Dr. Pareek in the hall - someone I had learnt the construct from! I boarded the flight immediately after that session to Bangalore. Couldn't have asked for a better kickoff to my next assignment as Head of Learning and Development in Bangalore.
Over the years, I had the good fortune to work with atleast three students whom he referred and build the entire set of psychometric automation with them.
On my last visit to Delhi to attend a wedding, I had an opportunity to look at finishing touches to the CD and at that time, I had the fortune of meeting the maestro again. In fact, I least expected it when he personally came to the guest house where I was staying and both my wife and I had the good fortune of receiving him. Later that day we shared lunch and over lunch I was discussing my scores on the PE scale. I can't forget the few words that he uttered on hearing the scores - 'so confrontation to issues might be an issue'. So True! Earlier that day, I spent a few minutes sharing the steps to automate instruments with students and he was quick to observe that the technique of genuinely teaching something took very little time.
That was the last time I got to spend time with Dr. Pareek. I cherish the mails he wrote to me, each a veritable treasure.
Personally, to me, he was a person I could openly share ideas with and be sure that he would recognise the potential of each and actually help me realize them.
His last wish was that he wanted people to be kind and say good words to each other. A behavioural indicator couldn't be more precise.
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The latest issue of the NHRD Journal on Coaching is dedicated to Dr. Udai Pareek 1925-2010.
Master Teacher,
Mentor and Invisible Coach for Millions
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2 comments:

Himanshu said...

Hi Sir,

Very rightly you have put across your thoughts about Dr. Pareek. A genius and genuine person I came across in my short span of interactions.

Bharathi Raja R said...

Sid, I think, I am slightly late to visit your blog. The backlog would have been less had I visited little earlier. Anyways, things are interesting. Looks like I need to spend some dedicated time on your blog and with you. Hope I make some time for it.