So, what do you do?

Dr. A. Kumar Ramlall

Chintan Project: The Human Behavior Advisors™

So, what do you do?

Five small words that somehow strike fear into even the most successful of entrepreneurs. Second only to the fear of public speaking, fear of answering this question leads people to hide from family or social circles, just to avoid answering. Some entrepreneurs are so afraid of confronting this simple query that it affects them selling their services.

How do I know? Because once upon a time, this was me.

Clarity of who you are, what you do, and what represents a fair exchange for your time and services is a vital part of being able to face the challenges that life brings. The words we use to describe who we are and what we do play a critical role in charting the trajectory of our service, and define your ability to grow and bring in new business.

Since the answer to this question is unique to each individual, I will be your personal lab rat, roaming the labyrinth of my own experiences, and explaining how I ended up as a Human Behavior Advisor. My hope is that this will inspire you to find similar clarity and purpose.

At the Chintan Project, we help you to grow your own thinking so that you can grow your results. We tend to work in ‘hard’ industries. ‘Hard’ here means not easy. The leaders and their teams have exhausted their own skills and resources to solve the ‘soft’ problems, the “people problems” which get in the way of growth. “People problems” tend to be issues concerning relationships, culture, conflict, and even leadership. In multiple industries and countries and cultures around the world, these soft problems are rooted in the way people think and interact with each other. These issues cause bottlenecks and make the difference between surviving and thriving, and are the difference between being good and great. This is what we solve at the Chintan Project.

Words and meaning are critically important to us. They reflect and may define the way we think. So I wanted to walk you through some of the words we use a lot, to help you understand how subtle yet powerful their various meanings might be.

What’s in a name? We describe ourselves as Human Behavior Advisors, but what do these words mean to us?

Human is derived from ‘humus’ meaning soil or earth and ‘man’, meaning thinking. ‘Human’ is not a gendered word, signifying ‘thinker of the earth.’ In the ancient world, this differentiated us from the Gods, who were of heaven.

Behavior comes from a combination of behave and avoir, the French verb for ‘to have.’ It literally means ‘to have conduct’. The important lesson here is that ‘behave’ in this context means any action, internal or external, both ideas and thoughts and external actions. It doesn’t come with moral connotations - there are no absolute morals or ethics that are shared across time by all humanity. As we help each individual live a life that is true to purpose, we help them discover and understand how their own personal morality develops.

So, as Human Behavior Advisors we work with the conduct of the thinkers of the earth. So what does this actually mean for our clients?

When we started out, we knew that we were not coaches. Again, linguistically, this is not a role we are comfortable with. Coach implies carriage, and in the context of instructors and trainers, it signified the teacher ‘carrying’ the student through an exam or challenge. As we are confident that our clients are being called to follow their unique purpose, the last thing we want to do is carry them. So we knew what we were not.

Finding further clarity in describing our work proved challenging. For years we referred to ourselves as ‘consultants’ because some of what we do on behalf of our clients is consulting - the proffering of insights or advice. However, we were certain that what we did, and what we had to offer, was more than just consulting.

People seek advice from a consultant when they feel that they need ‘wisdom from the oracle.’ But in our experience the greatest breakthroughs come through facilitation with our clients, through more in-depth questions, and by holding them accountable for their answers. Wisdom and solutions arise from within - they have the tools to solve their own problems. We did not want to rob our clients of their autonomy, and definitely do not wish to substitute our autonomy for theirs. We do not wish to be the author of their lives.

Initially, most clients just want their challenges removed. However, it is important to us, and eventually even to our clients, that they must address and confront the monkey on their back, not merely hand it over to us. After all, if we did take it over, all that would do would make it our monkey! That calls for a different arrangement, a different solution for a then different problem. As we carried out our research, we came to the conclusion that what we offered could most accurately be described as an ‘advisor’ - from ‘avisen’ or ‘visio’ meaning to view or vision. And the prefix ‘Ad-’ meaning towards. As Advisors, we help guide you ‘towards your vision.’ Given our certainty that every individual has a purpose that is unique to them, we are confident that each of you is an individual with a mission and vision that is uniquely yours, and it is our privilege to help you fulfill it.

Human Behavior Advisors seems to capture this well.

What is it that captures who you are and what you and your business do? What difference do you seek to make in this world, and how would you love to be compensated fairly for it?

Each of you has a purpose, a reason for being. As you connect to your unique reason, the foundation of who you are, you are connecting to your North Star.

Amit writes that this connection does provide the gravity to pull you and your boulder up the hill, and the fate of each individual and business that we run is the result of that climb.

Until the next perfect time.

Kumar Ramlall