 Good morning from the platform of IIT Bombayak. I welcome you all for the second face-to-face interaction. We would be talking about group discussions and interview skills, but before we really move on to that Let me just ask you for a commitment that we are going to have for the next four and a half hours. This is our short-term goal But even before that let me wish you all a very happy and engaging morning. This group discussion and interview skills. For this, we all of the students, they are normally petrified. You would have had several questions in your hearts when you walked into your centre for this interaction. So before we really start interacting, let me ask you for a brief exercise. Belayi. Good youth. Good morning. Can you hear me? Good morning ma'am. Good morning. How is the morning there? Mumbai has a beautiful morning today. Well, it's beautiful over here. Students are still coming. A lot of number is there. We have arranged in two classrooms. One is here. Nearly a capacity of 40 and the other is in a seminar hall, which is having up to 250 capacity men. Okay, lovely. So we are going to wait. But you know what? That gives me an excellent opportunity to talk about being late a little bit. So these things would definitely matter. Good morning ma'am. This is a course coordinator from Belayi Institute of Technology, R C I D 1166. Oh lovely. May I know your name please? Myself, Professor Dr. Arpana Ravel. Oh wow. Dr. Ravel, it's a pleasure interacting with your group. We'll move to some other centre and wish them a very happy morning. Sholapur. Very happy morning. Good morning ma'am. I'm Professor Lobu, LMRJ. I'm coordinator for this particular workshop and we have a very good response for soft skill workshop. Almost 1137 students have enrolled. Oh lovely. So we have almost six venues and all the venues are as full as you can see. Oh well. Welcome and I look forward to a very engaging discussion today. Yes. All are enthusiastic to interact with you. Yes. Lovely. So since I see so many people out there, we will begin this session from Sholapur itself. You all must have come up with several queries in your mind, the students. So before we really move on to those questions, I want you to do a simple exercise for me. I would want all the students to take a deep breath and feel themselves within. They don't have to think about anything right now because they do have their questions in their mind. So this is a simple exercise which I want every student at all the remote centres to do for me today. On the call of one, we shall take a deep breath and then exhale all our anxiety out. So three, two, one. Take another deep breath, inhale and then exhale your anxiety out. Why did I ask you to do this? Welcome as we progress in this session. But before we really begin, since we have such a fantastic gathering out there, may I ask you all what are the queries that you are looking forward to? What are the queries that have bummed you for all these time? Students. Ma'am, the first query that came into my mind is that right now the meditation, it's a practice of meditation that you gave us right now. So how it helps us directly for the whole session as we are moving towards, it's a whole day session. So how it helps us right now? Can I take the question a little later? Or do you want me to answer right now? It's up to you. You can. Okay, let's take it this way. I shall come back to it again. Let's take it this way. When you breathe in, you are at peace with yourself and then perhaps in the middle of group discussion, you have suddenly lost thread and you do not know what to say. When you breathe in, it hydrates you. The air gets into you. That deep breath would help you organize your thoughts over there. And this becomes very helpful in your interviews because when you breathe in, you take some time. And in that particular three seconds, four seconds, you can actually come up with an answer. And that is why I said, I'll take this question a little later. Students, please tell me the moment you hear about group discussion, what comes to your mind? When we talk about the group discussion, the first thing that came into my mind is we need to come to a solution of a problem or a topic what has been given to us in such a way that all the members should agree upon at a situation and it would be a healthy discussion that comes in my mind. Okay, even before you go for that group discussion, what is the psychology? What is your behavior pattern? How do you feel? The first thing I feel is that whenever we'll be starting, so the whatever discussion will be going on afterwards, the topic should be clear first of all so that each and every person should understand that. And along with that, one thing is that sometimes some people speak and some members do not speak. So that should not be done. So that comes in my mind. Is there an anxiety? Any kind of fear? Yes ma'am, definitely when it's a competition kind of thing then where GD is as we take as a competition. So there is some part in our mind that whether we'll lose or whether we'll win. For that reason, we'll have an anxiety. Otherwise, as a personally, as I am interested in GD, so definitely that anxiety will be overcome by my confidence. But yes, some kind of anxiety is there definitely. May I ask some other students also to share their feelings about GD? Immediately before they walk. Good morning ma'am. I personally think that one should not go on rattling the points. There should be a key point which must be given for the topic and let the other members speak about it so that others also get the chance of speaking and not only the one person is going on rattling the points and the another point which I think is important is that listening. Listening is very important in group discussion. Are we a keen listener? Are we giving a patient listening to the other? That is very important ma'am. Thank you very much. And many such key points. Thank you very much. Lovely points. Lovely points that have come to our play. We'll now go to some other centre. Good morning. Hello. Good morning ma'am. This is RCID 1192. Lovely. Lovely to see so many people around. So, it's nice interacting with you. Thank you so much. We are looking forward to a fruitful and engaging discussion. May I now ask the students about their feelings immediately before they walk into a group discussion. So, will the students share their view on it? Before they go for the group discussion, they have fear in their mind that would they able to communicate well in English. That's the first point that they... In English. In English. Are you highlighting in English? Yes ma'am. Okay. So, please let the students talk about it. May I request you to let the students... So, they are very eager to interact with you. Some of our students right? Thank you so much. Over to you. Good morning ma'am. So, my question is what type of attitude and communication skill is required for while appearing for the group discussion? Over to you ma'am. Thank you very much. What type of communication skill is required when you interact in group discussion is one of the question which has been asked from one of the centres, MGM Nandesh. Well, communication skills is extremely important. But when we talk about communication skills in GD, we also mention that content is very important. So, there are times when you may not be able to put your points in the language required which is more or less always English. So, you should have if I am connecting with the remote centres and if the students feel that they can communicate better in some other language. Personally, I would say it is all right. But you know what happens when you are trying to communicate in other language. Maybe there are people from different states. They will not understand your language. It could be that the moderator may not understand the language you are most comfortable in. So, what I would like to say at this point in time is try to talk, bring out the content clearly, forget the grammatical errors that you may feel seeps into your language while communicating. And you know, we do not hire only for multinational. We do not look for jobs only in the metropolitan where English is a very important language because we have people from all over the place. We hire for other places also. If you feel that you have a very good knowledge on that particular subject, it is only the communication. It is only the language which is inhibiting you and the rest of the people in your group would understand your language. You may first excuse yourself, seek their permission and then go ahead with your point. Is that okay? Does that suffice you? You know what happens? Yes. If you do not talk as it is, you are not going to get any marks, right? Yes, ma'am. You are not going to get any marks. Yes, yes. So, it is good to risk this particular thing. Now it would depend on the selection panel, how they go about it. And many a times it so happens that if they feel that you have an urge for learning, it is only that there are some certain things which needs to be improved in your English. But you have a sound knowledge of the subject. You have shown a logical progress throughout the GD. This will not inhibit them from selecting you. So, you must always take a chance. Yes ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Hello ma'am. We have a director with us, Dr. Ladka ma'am. She wanted to interact with you. Oh, yes, sure. Please go to her ma'am. I just wanted to request you to give some tips about how to open and how to close the GD. Okay. Yes. We will definitely take care of it. But before we really move on to this particular thing, let me just tell you one thing. Our students when they walk in for a GD, there are three or four emotions they go through. They fear it first and foremost. They fear it a lot because they feel if they have somebody who can outsmart them, who is a better speaker in the group, their chances are nil. Please do not go in with that particular emotion. There are so many things which matter in a GD and you must have gone through my slides. We have mentioned everything. So, even if you feel that your communication skills is in that great, it should not stop you from talking in a GD. The fear of anxiety, if you are anxious, the fear of depression, it sets, you know, the onset of this feeling, whether I would get in, how would I fare there. All these things should not matter to you once you know that you are going for a GD in the next 10 minutes. Over there, what matters is breathe in, calm yourself completely and wait for the topic to be given. Right? Why? Because they do not conduct a GD to eliminate you. They, even the people who are there, they want to know what exactly and how exactly you proceed in communication, in a group communication. They would like to know what your body language is, how you would interact in a group. It is a process to initiate you into group dynamics. So, always be aware of the group. You know, we immediately wish to plunge the moment the moderator says, at the moment it is said that the group discussion is now to begin. We just want to plunge into the group discussion thinking the initiator will give us, initiating the group discussion will give us brownie points or will make us the leader of the group. It does not happen that way. So, what needs to be done over there is, walk into it. When you know the GD topic, just think what all points can you talk about. Take a note of what all points you could talk. It always helps to have a notepad. They may or may not provide you with a notepad out there. So, it always helps to have a notepad handy and a pen handy with you. Go there. Now I am going to give you, as you said, give us something, how to open a GD. So, it is the job of the initiator. But you do not know who the initiator is out there. Anybody could be an initiator. To be an initiator, what needs to be done is, try to get the essence of the topic. So, if I say hard work versus smart work or if I give you the topic red, how would you go about it? Children, there is a formula P-E-S-T-L-E. I repeat, P-E-S-T-L-E, special, the mortar and special. So, you need to go there and you need to get the juices extracted from the GD. So, what is this special concept? P stands for politics or political. E would stand for economics. S would stand for social. T would stand for technology. I am sure most of you are technology experts. Now there would be technology experts. So, T would stand for technology, P-E-S-T, political, economic, social, technological and then we come to the legal aspect of thing and post that we come to the environmental aspect of thing. I will give you an example out here. We keep on getting abstract topic. So, let us suppose I give you a topic red, how would you go about it? Let us move to some of the centres. How do we go about it? Good morning, Knowledge Institute, Tamil Nadu. Good morning. How is the morning there? I hope it is not raining. It is sunny day here. Oh, lovely, lovely. As bright as your smile, as bright as the smiles of our students are. So, we were just talking about the petal style of GD. How we should interact in a GD, how we should get points in a GD. So, I said, petal would give you an idea as to how to go about where P stood for political, social, political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental. So, now if I give the topic red to you, can we have a couple of answers? How would you tackle the GD topic red? May we have the students talking about it? Yeah, good morning ma'am. Good morning. I know your name please. I am Javed. Javed, lovely, lovely. So, tell me Javed, if you have to talk about red, abstract topic red, what would you do? About the danger, I will take the environment issues. Okay. I will talk about the negative points. If you had to initiate, what would you do? I will just talk about the love of the nature. Oh, lovely. Love comes in various shades. Right students? The red rose. How many of you get roses on the Valentine? I am not in the public. Not in the public. Keep it in personal. Okay. So, over a cup of coffee sometime. So, red is definitely. So, what we do, may I request another student to throw some more light on it? Javed, you did an excellent job. Wonderful. Thank you. May I have another student talking about red? Morning ma'am. Good morning dear. What's your name? Gautama Priya. Gautama Priya. Lovely Gautama Priya. So, could you throw some more light on red? I will talk about traffic lights. Lovely. So, that's the technological thing. Lovely. And what else? So, I think the topic will a bit change the scenario of GD, I hope ma'am, because taking this traffic light will change the scenario, because here we talk about the nature's love and something. So, it will give a different dimension for the GD. So, it is also a starting point I hope. Beautiful. This is such a fantastic explanation. Gautama Priya just now said that Javed had talked about love. Javed had talked about danger. So, now when she brings in the traffic lights, this would give a different dimension to the GD. This is how we progress in our GD. The initiator's task is to present a wholesome description of what the word is. The ambit around which we could discuss the particular word or the topic. So, if I say bullet trains in India. So, it would be the initiator's job to define what bullet train is and what could be a couple of, not all, a couple of ramifications which he thinks are important in this process. But explaining the concept of bullet train becomes very important here. The initiator's job is to introduce the topic and then perhaps a couple of points, not more, because you cannot let the card open. You won't have anything else to say later. So, the initiator does the introduction in such a way that every member of the group understands the topic. That is how we'll begin any topic. Now, it is not necessary that if one person has initiated, he becomes the initiator. It could just be that we have been given a topic red and we are going to discuss this topic. I feel it symbolizes love. Someone else would come over. Another person perhaps would introduce it as we have been given the word red which has several ramifications. And we can explore, when we sit to explore an abstract topic, we can get into so many directions. It could be political, it could be economic, it could be technological. So, we have a lot of things to talk about the topic red. I personally feel red is a sign of love. Now, what happens in this case? Students, let me remind you, we are in a college to corporate program. In a college to corporate program, while we are readying you to do well in your selection process, we are also trying to prepare you to do well when you join the corporate world, when you join your jugs. So, the second kind of initiation invites people into the group discussion and that is the kind of initiation we look forward to. We would be taking questions. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, ma'am. Good morning, dear. So, do you have any question for us? Yes, ma'am. I have one question. Ma'am, always before going to GD, I have one question in my mind that in a GD, if I stated some positive points later on, can I add negative point to that point or to that topic? Lovely dear, lovely dear, let me repeat the question for the rest of the centres too. So, if you begin, if in a GD, you begin at a positive note, can you shift to negative notes later? This is the question raised by one of the remote centres. Before I answer this question, I would like to ask the lovely lady, what do you think? I think we can discuss both the points. As in GD, it's a general discussion. So, we should include both the sides of that topic. But earlier in one GD, I had included that. So, some of my fellow participants had objection about that. So, I have doubts about this. Friends, very early in my slides, I had mentioned that GD is not a debate. In a debate, we need to take sign and then switching over is not possible. But a GD is not a debate. It is just how you make that switch that would make a difference. So, I had mentioned that if you have talked about points which you felt were right in the beginning of the discussion, forget about the positive and the negative. Now think that you can make a switch or rather you feel that whatever you said, perhaps need some change, some attitudinal shift. So, you could always say, perhaps I took a micro view of the situation. Looking at it from this angle, it felt that this is possible. Now looking at after the discussion, I feel that we can go about it in this manner too. And then what you should do is, there must have been something which has brought that change in you. That attitudinal change in you. So, mention that particular point and expand on it. So, now what happens? The other members as well as the moderator would feel that she is flexible. There is flexibility. She is not rigid. So, that works well for you. And then what you have done, you have talked about those points, you have developed those points. So, that comes as a team player. So, have I answered your question dear? Yes ma'am. Thank you ma'am. Pleasure dear. Any other question from your centre right now? Yes ma'am, I also have a question. Basically, when we participate in a GD, it's like more of discussion of members. Like we don't get a chance. Like we can't cut the point of others. So, how effectively we must put forth a point so that we get a chance to speak in a right manner means we should not cut the point of others. That is what my question is. Like how we should effectively get a chance to speak? Lovely. I am sure you would not face that problem. You have such good communication skills dear. So, you have just asked the question, how should we state a point when we are not getting a chance. We are trying our level best, but we are not getting a chance to interact or to present our points. Am I right? Is that what you... Yes ma'am. Yes. So, you know what? A group discussion is a place where we share ideas, we explore ideas and we can only explore ideas when we bring them on the table. So, it is extremely important for everybody to make their presence felt, to bring out, contribute to the group discussion. It does happen especially when it is for the selection process that there may be in a group of six or eight, there may be two or four people who would dominate the group discussion and others may be trying to get into it, but because of the exertion or aggressive nature of the group, of those team members, they find it difficult, they are conditioned by the sense of modalities. Over there, what you should do is, you should start raising your hands. You should start raising your hands and your body language should be, you know, forward. Leaning forward, you should just say, may I? Don't think about the modalities, about rudeness, about anything because your good behavior, your listening skills, nothing would get your point out there because for listening skills also, you need to have active participation. So, it is important that you participate, no matter how. So, when you raise your hand and you raise your pitch a little bit, may I? I have something really important to say. So, for a moment, everybody would be taken aback. Now, here there is a play. What happens is, while some team members would be like, you know, this would be the expression, some would be like, go ahead. All these expressions of other team members are working for you. Because in a group discussion for selection process, the moderator is not just watching for content, that is knowledge or your communication skills. He is also watching you for your body language. And if they are still not giving it to you, you could just shout at the top of your voice and say, I have, you could, I mean, I would, I wouldn't mind you, you know, just thumping the desk a bit and say, please give me a chance. Because eventually, if you don't speak, you don't fare well. You are nowhere. So, once you have got the chance, you should speak sensed. You must have all the points that you had wanted to say. So, over there, the trick lies in putting your point forward and then perhaps building up if you are in consonance in agreement with someone else's point also, you can build up on that other person's point as well. So, here what happens? The moderator gets to know that even in a very aggressive group, overzealous group, let me say, aggressive is not the right word, overzealous group, you can make your presence felt, you talk sense, and at the same time, by building upon other people's concept, you prove yourself to be a team player. Okay dear? Do I satisfy your pleasure? Thank you, ma'am. Pleasure dear. Yeah, sure, ma'am. Pleasure dear. Thank you so much. Best of wishes. Well, let's move on to some other center, please, Shostra University. Good morning. Good morning, ma'am. Good morning, good morning. How's the morning there? It's very pleasant here. Oh, lovely. Mumbai too, you know, we have a sunny weather outside after some long spell of rain. We had rains yesterday night, so now it's pleasant. Oh, lovely, lovely. Any questions for us? Okay, I have a question, ma'am. In a group discussion, say, if all the participants are trying to act as a leader after the initiator have presented the idea or the topic of group discussion, how do you think it should proceed? The question asked by Shostra University is, if in a group discussion post the initiator has introduced the topic, everyone tries to be a leader, how should the group discussion progress? Well, let me go back to the same center first. You tell me who is a leader, who emerges as a leader and what, in your context, you may have had mock GDs, you may have faced some of the GDs. So where did you think the leadership qualities lay? After the initiator has introduced the topic, the group discussion proceeds on as planned without any conflicts or something like that. Say, for example, you have a topic which is prone to conflict like political topics or something like that. A leader whose sole role, which I think is that the aim of the group discussion should be fulfilled, that is a conclusion should be drawn in the end without digressing from the actual topic of the group discussion. So any leader who is acting as a leader without being appointed should ensure that there is no digression or there is no conflict. I mean, in the sense, it should not turn into a debate. I feel that this is one of the roles a leader should have. So you have just said that for the role of the leader, we should be able to see that the topic, the GD, the discussion doesn't digress and everybody should participate in it. Do I get it right? Yes ma'am. So if everybody in that particular group is behaving in that manner, I think kudos to that group. There have been instances when students have come up to me and said, oh, we had such a fantastic group discussion. I made, in 10 minutes, I had made 7 points, but we did not get selected. And there have been occasions when people have come and said, you know what ma'am, we did not get selected and that entire group, that particular company, walked in and they took the entire group away. You know what may have happened out there? Everybody out there was not a leader. Everybody out there was a team player and they were donning the role of a leader as and when necessary. You need to have a leader. There emerges a leader when perhaps we have a conflict in personalities and viewpoints. At young age, there is a conflict in personality. Later in the corporate, we choose to believe that there is a conflict in viewpoints. Over there, somebody who himself has knowledge of the subject, who has credibility, established his credibility, who can see that every participant gets a chance to speak and who performs very well in dealing with hostilities will become a leader. The real test of a leader come when they are hostile opinions in the group. So if I give you a topic which is very controversial, over there, perhaps we may have political people from several political leanings and it would get the GD may not be able to maintain its decorum. Over there, if somebody is able to bring them on the same page with conflicting opinions and yet on the same page, bringing out their points, exploring the points, that person would emerge as a leader. We have one more question to be posted. Good morning ma'am. I have a question. Suppose during a group discussion, if say example me, I am I, I am going for the interview and the round two, it's GD. So what if I don't know any point like I'm not able to do well, not even well, I don't know anything about that because say I'm not a good follower of the newspaper, it's about current affairs. So I don't know anything. What should I do? Like should I just be open and say I don't know anything about this? Or should I just struggle and you know, stagnate on the point and try to say at least something? What's your opinion ma'am? I would say if you do not talk, you do not get, you do not score, right? So how to proceed like I don't know anything about that. Should I just say, yeah, this is good. This is good. Like that or let me repeat the question for the benefit of other tech centers also. We've just had a question from one of our remote centers saying if we do not know anything in a GD, how should we proceed? Should we just keep on nodding saying, yeah, that's good. That's fair. Or should we not say anything? Since you are all technical graduates, I presume. It's a technical institute, right? It's a technical institute. All of your engineers out there, budding engineers, right? Yes, ma'am. Yeah, so all of your budding engineers. So what happens when you are given a topic, try to link it to at least one of the concepts in the PESEL formula. Always bear in mind the PESEL formula. Have you, what's that formula which I gave earlier in the session clear to you all? P-E-S-T-L-E. P-E-S-T-L-E. Yes, right? The PESEL formula. So no matter what the topic is, you may not know anything about the topic. And there always are six to eight people in a GD, right? So do not rush to make a point. Wait for the initiator to introduce the topic. Okay? Now, let us suppose the topic doesn't get cleared in the initiator's initiation, introduction. That means that the initiator has not done his job properly. Wait for the second person to talk about it. If that person also doesn't talk anything about it, you know what? Rather than keeping quiet, raise the, again, raise the voice and say, may I request you all for a proper introduction? May I request you to let me know a little more about the topic? Could it be on these terms? So apply your creativity and ingenuity and just throw it on them. Could it have a political impact or could it have? So you would get the lineage. You would get which side this topic is moving. So if it is finance, so you could just say, what are the financial applications or implications? Could you give me a history about it? So there definitely would be some people, okay, you do not know, okay, find the history is this, this, this. So you have given, you are given some background, provided some background by one of the people. So this initiation you shall have to ask, okay? So when nobody knows anything, when somebody does not know anything in the group discussion, it is important that the person ask. Because in that case, it is the initiator who has faltered. The role of an initiator in a group discussion is extremely important and therefore do not rush thinking it is going to get you brownie points. Please, the initiator, it lies on the initiator that he presents a wholesome idea about what the topic is. Please do not keep quiet. Maybe you will make your entry, you will be the last one to make an entry. Maybe some people have started repeating their points. By then you may have gathered certain things and you have kept quiet all these long. So you could just again raise your pitch and say, may I, I do have, I think I do have some brilliant ideas now. Please give me a minute or maybe 60 seconds to talk about this particular thing. So now that you have specified and you have not spoken for all those time, you know, they would be, they shall have to give you that particular time to talk. Students, the bottom line always is in a group discussion, you have to participate. If you do not participate as it is, you are not there. So why not try hard, okay? The thing is, many of my seniors, they've just come from the the group discussion and said, I did extremely well and all those stuff. But unfortunately, they don't end up in the selection panel. What are the reasons, ma'am? We think that we've done well. I guess you've probably discussed this before, but what are the reasons, ma'am, that we think we've done well, but just that we don't make it through the selection panel? What is the reason? The question just asked was that we feel the students feel that they have done extremely well in the GD and they don't end up being selected. What could be the reason behind it? So it happened. I'm going to cite a personal example at the institute I teach at IT itself. So we were just introducing and we had some very good students. So they just came over and post my session on group discussion. They just came over and said, ma'am, I think we did extremely well in a GD and yet we did not get selected. So I said, okay, fine, let's have a GD right now. So we had a group of students over there and the peer group was recording them. So it was a mock GD. We did it as it is done in the selection process. So once it was over, I did not give any opinion. I asked the peer group to talk about them. So what came across was that all those people who did not get selected, but they thought that they did extremely well in the GDs were people who were very aggressive. They wouldn't let other people talk. Not just that, what would happen is they would be in their own stream of thought. These are the points I have noted down, C-E-H-T-L-E. So for every acronym, letter in the acronym, I have noted one point and I have to say, I am not going to build up on anyone else's point. There may be other people doing the same thing in the GD. So what is happening? Are we having a wholesome discussion out there? No. There may be someone else who may have made three entries in a 10-minute GD. He may have come up with two solid points and in the third entry, his point may not have been a major one, but what he did was he built up and gave an internal summary of what was happening out there. Not only that, what he may have done is when he was about to end his discussion or rather his point, he may have focused on that team member who had not got a chance to speak them. And these people who have been over-jealous may have not watched his body language and he had not taken that snatch that time out from there. So what happens is if we are looking for a team, we wouldn't want such aggressive people in our team. We are looking for people who have the intelligent quotient and the emotional quotient as well. So what I would suggest is, you know, when you prepare for your GD for the selection process, always go for a mock GD and have yourself recorded. When you go back to those recordings, you will realize what behavioral changes you need to make over there. The tone, the aggression that keeps in when somebody rebuts your point or somebody builds your point in direct contrast to yours. So that facial expression and then you would realize why you have not been, why you need to go for another group discussion. Does that suffice you? Am I clear? Yes, ma'am, you are. Any other questions? One more question. Yes. Hello ma'am. Hello. I have a question. Suppose in a GD, another person actually says something about a topic, but my views are totally opposite of what he says. How can I actually interrogate him and say my points are right? Over here, what you need to do is, it would depend on your personality. One thing you could say, oh, that's a very interesting point that you've made. But I beg to differ. My view point is this, this, this. So you do you think we can do a roundabout and go tangent about this particular issue? Should we think about this particular issue from this point of view as well? You know what happens? We are very straightforward. So when we are straightforward, we tend to make groups within the group discussion. Rather than doing that, try to use the model. Should you? Would you? Shall we? You know? So introduce your sentences or your point of view from this point. Okay? This is not a debate as I have previously said. In a group discussion, there has to be conflicting views. Unless and until we have a conflicting views, unless and until we have brainstorming, we cannot do well in a group discussion. And there is always place for conflicting views. Because it is only then the leader will emerge. He will collate everything. He will try to bring everything on the platform. We will churn. You will explore what you have been doing. All the points. And then perhaps you will come to a conclusion. If we go about it in black and white, we cannot have a fruitful GD. It's just the way you would oppose a particular point is not opposing. It is bringing in a new point. Okay? And it should always be done. Thank you. Be sure. Do I satisfy your answer? Question? Yeah. Lovely. Shall we go to some other centre please? Kerala. God's own country. God's own world. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, dear. Good morning. How is Kerala this morning? Okay, let's go to the question. Whatever I want to ask is during GD views, body language, like moving your hand like this and that. So is it good or bad? The question you asked was, is it okay for us to gesticulate in a GD? Is that it? Okay. It's absolutely alright to gesticulate in the GD till the time you do not bang the desk. A throttle somebody. Okay? You don't need to throttle somebody. You don't need to bang the desk. But when you gesticulate, when you lean forward, when you look into the eye of the people and talk, it shows that you are an engaged participant. But a lot of gesticulation, there are some people who would go ahead doing this, this. You know what? This is what happens and you know we need to do this about it. So when the gesticulation is more than the point, when the gesticulation is more than what you are saying. Got my point? Right? Then it is. So we need to gesticulate less, not much. But we must use our hands because many a times they speak more than us. They deliver our passion. They deliver our commitment, especially in a selection process if we are using our hands. Okay? Not in the aggressive manner but in order to make our points. You know it shows the engagement level of the person. Now let us suppose this is a this is a kind of group discussion and I make myself comfortable like this and I don't use my hands. I don't use my eyes. I start looking down and I start talking to you. Do you feel it is right? Do you feel that we have the kind of passion, we have the kind of energy level that is required for a GD out there? No. So that is why body language believe me for an interview skills or a group discussion your body language is a very important aspect. So if watching over you are three people in a group discussion believe me there'd be one who would be watching you for body language and therefore appropriate use of your eye contact, your nerves when you are in concurrence with somebody's point all these things would matter in a group discussion. Any question? Good morning ma'am. Well lady what's the name? My name is Minnu Simon. Lovely miss Simon. Please go ahead. When we are participating in a group discussion what are the important points to be remembered when we are concluding a group discussion? You know there are two ways some company would give every person every participant a chance to summarize while some would ask for the conclusion for say wearing only one person just as there is one initiator there would be one person who would conclude. So when you conclude whatever has been said you present a brief summary of that in your group discussion you may be tempted to add a point but please do not do so because the conclusion is a place where you summarize whatever has gone by in say quick 40 seconds to a minute. Okay now if you are given a chance if every single person is given a chance to talk that person should also talk about what the conclusion has been in a GD. Let us suppose in a GD you have not reached at a conclusion and you are not supposed it's not mandatory that you need to come to a conclusion some volatile politically volatile topics some social topics they may not even some abstract topic they may not warrant a conclusion. So don't ever go to a GD thinking oh we need to have a conclusion and don't ever come back feeling let down that we did not have a conclusion right but the conflicting views which were presented were they resolved towards the end and if if they were not resolved that needs to form the basis of your conclusion okay. Thank you ma'am. Does that satisfy you? Good morning ma'am. Good morning ma'am my question is like if I feel that the initiator has misinterpreted the topic what are we supposed to do as a participant? Okay if you feel now let me first address the word misinterpreted okay so yes there could be a chance that the topic had to be conducted in a different manner you felt that it had to be conducted in a different manner but the initiator presented his own interpretation. So what you could do is you could whenever you get the chance you could be the second person and you could say oh yes I think that could be a see if it has a bearing if that particular explanation has a bearing you could say that okay that could be an interesting way to move forward in a GD but we can also explore the GD in this particular manner. So now what you have done is you have given the group two dimensions. Now let us suppose that the group felt that the first initiator that the first explanation was a misinterpretation they will go ahead with your interpretation but it could be that you may have interpreted it in a different manner. So now going by the group you can talk about certain things here there is one more point it could be that you have it is not a misinterpretation but you have a different point of view you thought that the topic has been so framed that it can have that interpretation also. So in that case when you have spoken about it with concrete points and why you wish to talk about that particular topic in that particular manner. Now let us suppose the group doesn't go by your way or it doesn't go by the other person's way in that case do not keep coming back to that particular point only if you have more points to add to your viewpoint only then come into the GD and try taking it in a to a different truth otherwise if you try to come back with the same point in a GD you would be reiterating the same point and you would not let the GD move forward. Okay is that clear? One more question. Okay just a minute so we have right now addressed the question which said what if the initiator if one person in the group feels that the initiator has misinterpreted the topic in that case you can go ahead with your own viewpoint out there on the topic that could be like a second initiation and the group may take whichever way it wants to go forward. Now let us suppose the group takes your way forward so now the correction has been made perhaps if it does not feel that your interpretation is right do not keep coming back with your point the same point into the group all the time because you would create a vicious circle out there if you still feel that your viewpoint is valid come with stronger points with facts with figures with quotes relevant to that topic so that you can mold the group's opinion towards your viewpoint and now we are going to take another question yesterday. Kerala welcome back. Hello ma'am. Hello. Can you tell us the pre-preparation for a group discussion? I would say that we are very do you read newspapers do you watch news so before the selection process begins be on the lookout for news be on the lookout for the newspapers apart from the books that you have to read another thing this would be kind of you know a long-term preparation well students I'll get back to this in a few minutes from now we have Professor Fartak with us and he would like to address you all. So a very good morning to all of you once again I note the great pleasure and pride that more than 19,000 students are enrolled for this soft skills course I'm also very happy to announce that IIT Bombay is designing and conducting this program in collaboration with a corporate house that I mentioned last time well I can now indicate the corporate house we are doing this course in collaboration with JP Morgan Chase we are very happy to announce this collaboration as the course unfolds further I'm sure that you will have more activities and you will benefit much more as I said not only by attending these face-to-face sessions but more so by actually carrying out activities at your own place individually and in groups I just wanted to take a few minutes to tell you how important the command on the language that you use for communication is we use English as medium of instructions in most of our higher educational institutions however English is not the native language for most of us by the way like many of you I also studied my own I did my schooling in Hindi and I was not well versed with English when I joined college I had lot of difficulty in understanding the proper use of English for which I had to struggle a bit at the beginning however I have understood one thing when people say that they have a weakness in English because it's a foreign language the weakness is not because English is a foreign language the weakness is because we have not trained our minds to be disciplined in use of any language I would like to illustrate this with an experiment which I did when we were conducting empty commissions not only based on the gate score in our school of IT about 15 years ago but based on gate score plus internal test for the shortlisted candidates I used to give a very simple question which said describe you and your family in 20 sentences when people answered that question the next question on the next page was rewrite your answer in your mother tongue now this is what we noticed consistently over four or five years the people who wrote in poor English had also lot of mistakes when they wrote in their native language as well which told me that people have not disciplined themselves to write correctly in their own language if you have disciplined yourself to be very correct in the usage of your own language believe me you will intrinsically be careful while writing in any other language including English what is true for written language is also true for spoken language we speak but we rarely correct ourselves we rarely note down our mistakes this is where the group activity at your own colleges would help I would sincerely request you to try and speak to each other in English independent of the prevalent language in your region I know for example that when I was studying my engineering in Indore most of us used to speak in Hindi with each other outside the classroom some of us formed a group and said we said to each other that we will practice speaking in English and when we did that we found out the errors that we were making not because each individual speaker could find out one's own errors but because others in the group were able to find errors often we were helped by faculty colleagues who went out of their way to correct our mistakes and to tell us what is the correct usage of any phrase and how to use those phrases in English why I say this is that going forward as you know the communication skills are intrinsic part an essential part of the soft skills you will find the usefulness of your language skills even in the workplace communication indeed good communication is actually almost always very important in all aspects of life including your own activities and therefore you need to master the language that you are going to use we have decided to introduce a course in basic English which will form a beginning part of the college to corporate program from next year onwards this course we propose to put as a MOOC course and it will be available free of cost to all participants but we will insist that all participants in future should do this course first before joining the college to corporate program I will not take much of your time because you have to have your tea break at 11 o'clock we still have seven minutes so maybe I will go over to a few remote centers but before that I wanted to make an announcement that I have decided to personally visit as many remote centers as possible I am still drawing up a chart as to where to travel in the next one and a half months it will be maybe Lucknow and Agra in the north or maybe Shastra University and Meph Kushlenk and some colleges in Tirunel valley I do not know really but it is a much greater pleasure when I meet people face to face personally and physically of course we are able to interact through this technology which is very useful I will let the corresponding workshop coordinators know about my visits at least one week in advance and if you are free I will make these visits on the working days if you are free I would be very happy to spend 20 minutes to half an hour personally interacting with you and to get a first hand feedback from you on this course by the time I visit you the course would have been at least three weeks old which means you would have had a much better understanding of how this course is benefiting you and how you are working for this course I will conclude by saying that I am extremely indebted to our corporate collaborators Mesa's JP Morgan and Chase and my colleague faculty members in IIT Bombay as well as the large team which is working behind the scenes to make this interaction and the other activities of the course possible. Since we still have about five minutes for the break let me just go over to one of the institutions preferably one which we had not visited last time we will go over to Gujarat Sarvajani college that is Surat right hello Surat over to you if you have any observation to make please go ahead yes I am giving mic to one of our students good morning sir good morning go ahead coming to the point during the group discussion for example there are six members and three are discussing and three are silent so what to what should we do to be the three silent to join the conversation. In the actual group discussion you cannot do anything because it will all depend upon the individual initiative but when you practice group discussion it is important for the coordinating person to prod these three people and make sure that they speak it is absolutely essential that this fear of speaking in a group is removed from everybody's mind please understand that a group is only as effective as the sum total of all individual members contributions so if three people are silent and only three people are participating those three might appear to be noticed very prominently but as a group you would have failed completely and that is the reason why you should use this opportunity to conduct mock group discussions in your own institutions anybody who is silent should be prodded to speak in fact it should be made obligatory so one punishment which we used to have in my own communication skills course in such group discussion is that the people who are silent during group discussion are silently noted by me and my other colleague and then we will make all these people make a public presentation for five minutes to the entire class this is just to remove their fear of speaking please note that as individual students including those who are introverts or shy actually are as capable as any others it is only that they have not discovered their own capability now they will they will discover this and only when they are encouraged to speak so if i am a shy student in your group and you are very active and you notice that i am not speaking you must hear a phatak bolkuch say something you should insist on me saying something and if i don't say that you give me a slap on the back like my teacher professor Isaac used to give when we would not answer questions in the class so don't let anybody remain silent that is the joint responsibility of the entire group in my opinion thank you so much let's go over to one more institution before we break NK arcade college solapur boy this college also has a very large number of students very happy to see you over to you okay good morning sir good morning i am a coordinator for this college and i'll leave it to the student who wants to ask a question yeah sure good morning sir good morning say i want to ask question when you start a gd it most of the time turns into a debate what are the key aspects that gd doesn't turn into a debate very interesting question if it gets into a debate the debate may degenerate into sort of fights between two or three individuals so you must avoid that at all costs there is no standard method or a well worked out solution to this problem all individuals participating in the group must be aware of what is expected of each one of them but if say two people start getting into a debate of some kind the others must ask them to shut up first politely and then forcefully there is no other solution you see the group must take the responsibility jointly of disciplining itself unless you want the external observers to notice that as a group you have failed please remember that when you are assessed you are assessed not only individually but even collectively as a group so individually let us say a few students speak very well but they get into debating without permitting the other group members to participate in the group discussion then the external assessor will invariably note down that while individually some people might have done well as a group you have failed and if it is a interview gd process for example the external assessor may simply fail the entire group independent of how forceful the individual debates have been so once again to conclude I will say that getting into debates individually and within two or three people in a group is a very bad habit it may happen however because some of us may feel so aggressive some of us might want to command the entire time and might want to push forward only our arguments it is only the collective wisdom that will prevail I would like to also advise those who are naturally aggressive in speaking and would like to put forward their point more forcefully than others to be very patient to be very polite and to be very humble it is the responsibility of every individual member of the group to ensure that not only he or she is able to speak his or her points but to make sure that all others get an equal opportunity to put forward their own points that's all I would say thank you sir thanks a lot thank you I think we are at 11 o'clock and I don't want to come between you and the cup of tea so thank you so much over and out