Bridge-building in Bangalore

I had the pleasure last week of spending two days in Bangalore with Robert Bosch India Ltd, running a number of seminars and workshops on different aspects of Knowledge Management.  One of the highlights was a bridge-building exercise designed by Learning to Fly co-author Geoff Parcell, during which the participants apply the principles of learning before, during and after, and captured knowledge to demonstrate an improvement in performance.

The picture below shows the new record span in this exercise – congratulations to the associates at Robert Bosch!

It was my first trip to India, and, although I was warned to be ready for an “assault on the senses”, and it certainly was – especially the traffic. I’m still getting over it – a whole new take on choas and complexity…

What struck me most though, was the insatiable appetite for learning and improvement demonstrated by my companions for the two days.  Robert Bosch India is already a strong performer in knowledge management, but their dissatisfaction with “good”, and unswerving desire for “great” made them a charmingly demanding client to spend time with.  There aren’t many companies in the West who could fill a conference room at 18.30 on a Friday evening for a two hour seminar on”creating a learning culture”.  Watch out Buckman Labs and Novo Nordisk…