Over the years research has been continuing as to what could be the best leadership style. Irrespective of what style the leader adapts, a successful leader always needs three essential attributes, Perceptiveness, Empathy and Direction (Vision)!! Plenty of research has been conducted on other attributes and there is enough material available on them, but none has contributed in this area except David McClelland and Dr. Udai Pareek to a certain extent. This interview is based on personal experiences and not on any empirically documented research. Students of behavioural psychology and even management may find this as an unexplored area for their research projects and may therefore start on a 'greenfield' research project.

1. Perceptiveness
- the other attribute
An interview with Dhruva Trivedy,
Chief Interventionist and Promoter,
PERCON
THE STRATEGIC INTERVENTIONISTS

2. Who is Dhruva Trivedy?
• A practising ‘Change Management’ Consultant for over
24 years
• Rich experience of corporate interface for more than 40
years
• Has cross cultural expertise of addressing change and
change-related issues
• Is a passionate trainer on behavioural matters
• Has been delivering lectures with practical allusions to
real life situations
• Has had fundamental educational grooming in premier
institutions, such as St. Columba’s High School, New
Delhi, Hindu College, University of Delhi and the Tata
Institute Social Sciences, Mumbai
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3. Would you state a few things, as to how you have
worked your way into becoming a successful
change management consultant? 1
I do not know if I have been successful or not, but I can
surely tell you how I have reached where I am. To cut the
long story short, let me confess that I felt too tied down
to a straight cut 9am to 6pm job, even though the
challenges were many, the decision making was without
keeping the future trends in mind. Globalisation was
nowhere in sight. But I kept sensing the onslaught of
competition with the Japanese major Suzuki making its
entry and eventually ancillary units became my target
audience, after I quit my last job. While dealing with
them and setting up their HR systems, I discovered that
quality training in basics of management and behavioural
skills was required at all levels.
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4. Would you state a few things, as to how you have
worked your way into becoming a successful
change management consultant? 2
I was conducting training sessions once in a while and I
realised I had a potential of being an effective trainer and
here was an opportunity that I could cash on. I started
being busy training at all levels, from Operatives to Vice
Presidents. Soon I realised that it was only creating a
hype with a lot of appreciation coming in. But the effects
were not sustainable. That is when we found a more
pragmatic approach of addressing transformation – a
blend of TQM and OD and we decided to call it
‘Morphing’ a word coined by Dr. Deepak Chopra and
borrowed from IT. The product or service was found to be
ideal for the SME sector and we had a great experience of
success in implementing the processes and approaches.
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5. What has inspired you to the concept of
perceptiveness?
• The marked distinction between Transactional
Leadership and Transformational Leadership
• Interactions with corporate leaders in a majority
of cases, have revealed that they would rather
confine themselves to a transactional role and
not venture out to taking risks. They would
relatively await that nudge to come by, when
they would ‘make believe’ to shake up
everything.
• We are not talking about them!
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6. What are the attributes a Transformational
Leader essentially must possess?
• He has to be a visionary
• He has to be proactive*
• He has to possess a risk taking ability*
• He has to be a great empathiser*
• He has to be extremely perceptive
 Although these are characteristics like many fundamental ones, such
as communicating or motivational abilities etc., that ought to be
found in Transactional Leaders also, we are mentioning these
specifically, because they need an added reinforcement for this kind
of leadership and are usually found to be intense.
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7. Why did you choose only
perceptiveness and not the others?
• I think enough has been said about the
others, while discussing leadership traits by
different management ‘thinkers’ both in public
forums and in classrooms
• Many organisations and many educational
institutions have conducted intense surveys on
‘empathy’, for instance
• Very little has been said or researched about
perceptiveness particularly in the organisational
context
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8. Who inspired you to think about this
concept?
I got drawn towards the in-depth
understanding of this concept , when I first
administered the Personal Effectiveness
Scale designed by a behavioural
scientist, the late Prof Udai Pareek.
Later all contributions of Prof Pareek left
me spellbound and I became his ardent
follower
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9. Perceptiveness
– defined by Prof. Udai Pareek
The ability to pick up verbal and non-verbal cues
from others indicates perceptiveness……………………….
………………perceptiveness can be used appropriately or
inappropriately. If a person is too conscious of others’
feelings, he may inhibit his interactions. Similarly, a
person who is too conscious of his own limitations will
tend not to take risks. Effective perceptiveness can be
increased by checking others’ reactions to what is
said. A person who does not do this (in other words, if
he is not open) may become overly concerned about
the cues he receives.
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10. What according to you builds perceptiveness? 1
Many years ago, when I was a child of five, my elder sister who
had been an alumni of the Convent of Jesus & Mary School in
New Delhi, took me to St. Columba’s School for admission.
While she was talking to the then Principal of the
school, Reverend Brother Ponies, I actually swayed away from
where they were standing and got closer to the large window
panes that were coloured and were translucent. The
conversation didn’t interest me but the coloured panes did; at
the same time I was not oblivious to the fact that serious
conversation was on, between the two elders that was
concerning my going to school.
Obviously the conversation on admission did not inspire me
because I was only 5 years old, but I did not undermine its
importance - that was perceptiveness.
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11. What according to you builds perceptiveness? 2
The great story writers and the great poets are live examples of
perceptive people. Recapitulate the works of famous classics of
Jaishankar Prasad, Rabindranath Tagore, Ernest
Hemingway, Anton Chekhov or even William Shakespeare.
Don’t you find their minutest of observations narrated in the
most exquisite style? In his short story ‘Puraskar’, Jaishankar
Prasad talks about ‘Aardraa nakshatra’ or the wet star. When
does one see wetness in stars? Just after the rains in the midst
of the clouds!
The following lines from Old Man and the Sea of Ernest
Hemingway, “He hears the leaps and whirs of the flying
fish, which he considers to be his friends, and thinks with
sympathy of the small, frail birds that try to catch them.” This is
an observation at sea. Witness the details he has gone into.
What do you think the writers are reflecting? Nothing but
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12. What according to you builds perceptiveness? 3
There are two ways of answering your question:
1. Discuss as to what were the essential ingredients that
helped to build perceptiveness and
2. Discuss the process by which perceptiveness could be
built.
Let me take them up one by one:
The essential ingredients as I see them are:
Sensitivity, Attention, Consciousness or Awareness. Each
leads to the other.
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13. What according to you builds perceptiveness? 4
The most understandable definition of sensitivity would
be to describe it as that sense, which feels the presence of
a stimulus and responds.
Attention refers to the process by which we consciously
select a subset of information from that stimulus and focus
on it for enhanced processing and integration
Once such information is processed and integrated, such
information becomes part of the repository of awareness
(consciousness, knowledge)
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14. How would you take a closer look at these
ingredients? 1
The process in general:
Daniel Goleman in his book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ (1995)
talks about self awareness that leads to better self
management, which in turn shows the way to better social
awareness and which eventually helps in building great
interpersonal abilities. The question we need to ask is, as to
how do we generate this self awareness?
Our discussion on the ingredients would in fact guide us
through. We have to be very sensitive in the first place and
be able to filter what should catch our attention. This is a
strong interplay of logical reasoning and emotional feelings
and we have to judiciously practise what we wish to
register. Results are visibly pronounced.
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15. How would you take a closer look at these
ingredients? 2
Had the opportunity to make a short trip to the Martin
Wickramasinghe Museum at Galle. Looking at the collection
of artefacts and going through his ‘Aspects of Sinhalese
Culture’ made a phenomenal revelation that all great
persons significantly possessed the element of
perceptiveness, without which they could have achieved
nothing.
Martin became self aware through his surroundings, the
landscapes of the sea, lake studded with little islands, the
flora and fauna, the forested hinterland, and the changing
patterns of life and culture of the villagers. From the age of
five he traversed the alphabets of Sinhala, Devanagri and
English and finally even gave up schooling, only to become
a great scholar, philosopher and inspirational writer,
gathering a sense of pride for Sri Lankans.
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16. How would you take a closer look at these
ingredients? 3
Similarly in another part of the subcontinent was Kazi
Nazrul Islam, who on his own, grew out of fundamental
Islamic education, working as a muezzin, into a popular
writer with a secular understanding of the Bengali culture.
Nazrul began learning Bengali and Sanskrit literature, as
well as Hindu scriptures such as the Puranas. He was under
tremendous pressure because of his father’s early demise
to earn a living for himself and the entire family. But his
passion was to become a litterateur and therefore, even
though having worked as an actor in the village theatre
troupe, as a cook in a bakery or having joined the British
Army and elusively not taking the matriculation
examination he survived to become a great literary
personality and eventually the national poet of Bangladesh.
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17. What according to you is the connect?
Noticeably in both cases we see exposure to myriad of
experiences, not pursuant of formal education, passion to
collect facts and figures and eventually giving them
expression through reasoning and emotional content.
These two personalities as examples only go to confirm that
the process of perceptiveness builds on
•Sensitivity
•Filtered attention
•Conscious awareness of self and surroundings
helping them to manage their own selves and sustain their
popularity (relationships)
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18. How do we build our perceptiveness? 1
We go by two important sayings, “practice makes a man
perfect” and “attempting to do multiple things at a time”
The first practice:
Doug Blackie, the leadership expert from Canada suggests
that real leaders were consistent leaders…he goes on to
say, “by and large, effective leaders are those who bring
consistency to their vision, priorities and decisions” What
we are referring to is consistency in attempting to practice.
How does it feel if we do not brush our teeth in the
morning or let’s say we have forgotten to brush? Miserable!
Isn’t it? For those of us who do not rely on e-news but on a
real newspaper, it’s the same feeling that we land ourselves
in, that we have missed out something in the day! Why do
we feel that way?
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19. How do we build our perceptiveness? 2
The answer lies in the fact that since childhood we have
been advised to do so and have developed them as habits.
When we grow up, nobody tells us and we succumb to the
situation for the want of a habit or the presence of it. We
get caught unawares and get hit by a drunken driver, if we
had not noticed him well ahead of time or we continue to
restrict the growth of our organisation and let the
organisation die its own death for want of diversification
and growth, because we missed out on our competitors
doing it, or may be someone else doing it in another
unrelated vertical. Perhaps having to be watchful pays off.
What is this watchfulness? Sensitivity + Attention +
Awareness – again, being perceptive….not once….but by
consistently and consciously practising them! Habit!!
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/18-tricks-to-make-new-habits-stick.html
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20. How do we build our perceptiveness? 3
The second practice:
How do I pay attention to an unrelated event or a
situation, when I am focussed into an action at a point in
time? Do I lose focus? Does my focus get divided or diluted?
When your wife or your mother is cooking, because you
were going to have guests and she has five dishes to serve.
Does she lose focus or is it even diluted? What helps her do
that with the kind of dexterity we get to see? And to add to
that, if she has been a dedicated housewife, are tasks
related to washing clothes, mopping the floors, dusting and
dishwashing! Having seen my mother do all that, in
retrospect, I realise that it was the order in every house and
she was no exception, perhaps! Even today they performed
this role with an unquestionable adroitness. How?
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21. How do we build our perceptiveness? 4
How did the bread or the rice never get burnt? How did the
stew or the curry never get too thick? How did the omelette
not have eggs that were left behind raw? Alertness in
different dimensions? Are they similar to jugglers?
Alertness again = Sensitivity and Attention. But what about
such alertness in different directions with the right kind of
priority every time? Perceptiveness again!
We get to see two new dimensions in this practice, besides
what we have discussed in the first practice.
•Acting simultaneously in different directions which
requires multi-skilling
•Prioritising initiatives with precision and accuracy which
requires tremendous amount of self discipline
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22. How do we build our perceptiveness? 5
Without going into details of consistency in conscious
practice, let us talk about simultaneous multi-dimensional
approaches. Just as cooking different dishes and preparing
for it, the recipes have to be on your finger tips to deal with
multiple situations if you were a leader and then practise
‘cooking’ them simultaneously. Sensitivity, attention and
awareness would undoubtedly be utilised consistently. You
have a customer coming in to inspect your
infrastructure, you have a serious issue confronting the
quality of your operations because of inconsistent power
supply, because of the harvest season you have a shortage
of skilled manpower and to top it all your dispatches that
were to occur have got delayed because your outsourced
logistics is facing a strike. Here jumps in the problem
solver, the trans- www.percontsi.com

23. How do we build our perceptiveness? 6
actional leader, who does not have an extraordinary sense of
perceptiveness. He would perhaps want to set things right
before the arrival of the customer and raise his anxiety levels
trying to fill in the gaps with short term solutions, so that
apparently everything appears to be right. A perceptive
transformational leader would on the other hand anticipate
the strike and make alternative arrangements for shipment of
goods, also create a pool of skilled workers to be outsourced
during the harvest season, which he knew came every
year, try and arrange a captive power generation unit and
also try to buy some time from the customer if that was
possible, so that everything appears normal even if there was
a sudden announcement of his arrival. This would actually
mean acting in different directions and prioritising every
activity. www.percontsi.com

24. In order to conclude what advice would you leave
for the younger entrepreneurs and managers?
I have two things to say:
1. Acquire self discipline, by scheduling activities and setting
alarms for reminding , so that the activities can be taken up
on time. A conscientious person would not need all this, but
what is significant is that practising has to become a habit.
Practising to develop alertness and multi-dimensional
approaches.
2. Keep yourself and your five senses awake all the time. If
need be one could seek the assistance of meditation. This
would also help developing a passion for knowing.
It was wonderful giving an expression to my thoughts. Thanks!
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25. A presentation by
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