The Village Idiot Studio
Every laid off professional hangs a shingle, setting up shop as a consultant. An average consultant has above average domain expertise. A good consultant also knows how to engage, facilitate, advice and mentor the client. A great consultant has been around the block so many times that he knows almost every possible pathway to success and failure. A great consultant is able to share with the client the lessons he has learned from his mistakes as well as successes. As my client you will receive the lessons learned from:
My name is Ashok Panikkar, and I live in the Greater Washington DC area. I am a diversity and conflict management consultant with three decades of international experience. I am delighted to offer your organization a specialized and very timely service: Strategic Diversity Advisory (SDA).
As you are well aware, after a few decades of ascendency, there has been a concerted backlash against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Organizations have responded to this by (a) eliminating these departments; (b) scrubbing websites of any incriminating language and vocabulary; or (c) continuing to promote these initiatives quietly, while waiting for the storm to pass. If your organization falls into any of these categories, I’d like to suggest that you can do better. In our increasingly fragmented and unstable world, organizations require an intelligent and strategic approach towards managing diversity.
As someone who anticipated and warned clients of the coming blow back against diversity and aggressive minority activism (even as early as the late-Nineties), I am uniquely positioned to advice AWS on how to navigate this turbulent moment. In hiring me clients get the benefit of a consultant who has extensive experience cutting across fields as diverse as conflict management, consensus building, pluralism, democracy, and geopolitics.
Our Strategic Diversity Advisory is a long-term and strategic approach towards nurturing and managing diverse work forces and stakeholder communities. Unlike conventional approaches that:
Naturally this will require moving beyond superficial metrics, political fashions, or narrow compliance concerns to create an organization that is able to respond quickly and even anticipate the major technological and economic shifts coming your way. SDA will help you design and institutionalize the kind of standards and practices that will allow AWS to build the kind of team that has the intellectual and viewpoint diversity, creativity, competence and collaborative capabilities needed in the mid-21st century. If you are interested in advice that can help build innovative, collaborative teams that are equipped to navigate the challenges that arise from a diverse workforce, give me a call at 202 440 2523 or ashok@village-idiot.com to arrange a time for a conversation. I look forward to the possibility of collaborating to create an intelligent, responsive and dynamic workplace for your team.
I have been teaching Critical Thinking since 1988 in the US, India and elsewhere. I am delighted to offer your organization a highly specialized service: Critical Thinking Advisory (CTA).
We do know that even if mammals, especially primates, are capable of basic problem solving, the idea of applying logic and complex reasoning are uniquely human capabilities. And even amongst humans thinking is not intuitive and requires much effort, skill and practice. When I started teaching critical and creative thinking in 1988 to adults (engineers, accountants, lawyers, professors and even homemakers), I was not surprised to discover that while most educated adults could think logically under what I call ‘normal temperature and pressure’, creativity was a bridge too far. It took me a few more years to realize that most adults also struggled with complex reasoning. In the last 20 years I have discovered that even those whose thinking skills were well above average forty years ago, were frequently sounding befuddled as they tried to make sense of the information overload of the 21st century. Worse, corporate and non-profit leaders as well as those who graduated from highly rated schools while they came across as confident, competent and often well-informed seemed to have trouble interpreting the flood of information coming at them. Their understanding of why things are the way they are; how the world worked; and how seemingly different concepts (politics, economics, society, culture) were connected to each other was peripheral at best.
Meanwhile as a response to the increasing messiness and complexity of our world, people seemed to be retreating into the weeds- getting more specialized, going deep into details- even as they glossed over the connections that might exist between concepts. Even when they sought connections they seemed to be hovering towards conspiracy theories and scandals- anything that could help them make sense of why things were happening. In our increasingly fragmented and unstable world, I’d like to suggest that we can all do better.
Our Critical Thinking Advisory is a long-term and strategic approach towards developing both individual and institutional creative and cognitive capabilities. It is based on a tried and tested approach designed to help teams and leadership:
Naturally this will require moving beyond superficial metrics, political fashions, or narrow compliance concerns to create an organization that is able to respond quickly and even anticipate the major technological and economic shifts coming your way. CTA will help you design and institutionalize the kind of standards and practices that will allow you to build a team that has the intellectual and creative nimbility and flexibility to respond to unprecedented events and changing conditions. If you are interested in advice that can help build innovative, collaborative teams that are equipped to navigate the challenges that arise from an increasingly fragmented world, give me a call at 202 440 2523 or ashok@village-idiot.com to arrange a time for a conversation. I look forward to the possibility of collaborating to create an intelligent, responsive and dynamic workplace for your team.
My name is Ashok Panikkar, and I live in the Greater Washington DC area. I am a diversity and conflict management consultant with three decades of international experience. I am delighted to offer you a highly specialized consulting service, Strategic Conflict Advisory (SCA).
Since its heydays in the Eighties and Nineties, the world of Non-Adversarial Dispute Resolution based on modalities such as mediation, negotiation, consensus building and dialogue facilitation has seen better days. The whole premise of the non-violent dialogue-based model was dependent upon three key factors: 1. The existence of the liberal world order. 2. The robustness of multilateral institutions and their influence in persuading member states to comply with their guidelines and diktats. 3. The presence of the USA as the global hegemon that both backed the liberal order, and wherever possible used its power to get nations and corporations to adhere to it.
I have been warning the conflict and peacebuilding community for years that they are increasingly in danger of becoming extinct as the world veers away from open and free societies to more authoritarian and even tyrannical states. Dialogue and Consensus Building were not designed for anarchic systems, let alone the jungle. And yet as the world becomes even more fragmented, xenophobic and volatile, organizations are called upon to manage internal and external conflicts without necessarily having the support of liberal institutions or even rule of law.
As someone who has anticipated and warned clients of the coming breakdown of social and geopolitical cohesion, I am uniquely positioned to advice your organization about managing seemingly intractable conflicts. In hiring me clients get the benefit of a consultant who has extensive experience cutting across fields as diverse as conflict management, consensus building, pluralism, democracy, and geopolitics.
Our Strategic Conflict Advisory is a long-term and strategic approach towards nurturing and managing diverse work forces and stakeholder communities.
By hiring me you get the benefit of my four decades of experience working on:
Your organization deserves systems and competencies that can allow it to respond intelligently and in a timely fashion to internal and external threats. SCA will help you design and institutionalize the kind of standards and practices that will allow you to build the kind of team that has the intellectual and viewpoint diversity, creativity, competence and collaborative capabilities needed in the mid-21st century. If you are interested in advice that can help build innovative, collaborative teams that are equipped to navigate the challenges, give me a call at 202 440 2523 or ashok@village-idiot.com to arrange a time for a conversation. I look forward to the possibility of collaborating to create an intelligent, responsive and dynamic workplace for your team.
My name is Ashok Panikkar, and I live in the Greater Washington DC area. I am a diversity and conflict management consultant with three decades of international experience. I am delighted to offer your organization a specialized service: Strategic Negotiation Advisory (SNA).
The coming of Donald Trump and his assertive/ transactional approach towards negotiation should be a wake-up call for all those of us who were weaned on the Harvard/MIT Interest-Based or Principled Negotiation model. When Trump tells Zelensky “You don’t have the cards” he is emphatically rejecting the non-adversarial model of dialogue, negotiation and dispute resolution- all in one blow.
Welcome back to the jungle- where the strong dictates the terms and the weak suck it up. Trump Tariffs which were mocked across the board are now being ‘negotiated’ effectively with Japan, the EU and next probably even India. China may hold out, but then China has strong cards to play- the rest of the world doesn’t. And most importantly China may be perfectly ready for a new Cold or even Hot war and doesn’t need the USA.
What does this have to do with your own organization or company? Of course there is a place for interest-based negotiation, but we must also be ready to play hard ball or pitch the odd curve ball.
As someone who anticipated and warned clients of the changing climate for negotiation especially in inter-cultural situations, I am uniquely positioned to advice your organization on how to structure aa negotiation strategy when dealing with particularly difficult clients or donors. In hiring me clients get the benefit of a consultant who has extensive experience cutting across fields as diverse as conflict management, consensus building, pluralism, democracy, and geopolitics.
Our Strategic Negotiation Advisory is a long-term and strategic approach towards staying afloat and competitive in a fast-changing and unforgiving environment. Unlike conventional approaches we will help you:
Naturally this will require moving beyond a focus on immediate gains and short-term relationships- even if that’s what the environment supports. Every negotiation should be viewed as an opportunity to increase value for all parties concerned- even if the other party seems transactional. Remember everything is changing and your problems are most likely mirrored by your counterparts. SNA will help you design and institutionalize the kind of standards and practices that will allow your team to plan ahead for an unpredictable world. If you are interested in advice that can help build innovative, collaborative teams that are equipped to navigate the challenges that arise from a constantly changing environment, give me a call at 202 440 2523 or ashok@village-idiot.com to arrange a time for a conversation. I look forward to the possibility of collaborating to create an intelligent, responsive and dynamic workplace for your team.
My name is Ashok Panikkar, and I live in the Greater Washington DC area. I am a diversity and conflict management consultant with three decades of international experience managing complex relationships. I am reaching out to you to offer a specialized service: Strategic Relationship Advisory (SDA).
We humans have a social code written into our DNA. Without the ability to build and sustain relationships we wouldn’t have been able to build complex societies and civilizations. And yet, the last 100 years of ‘progress’ in transportation, communication and globalization have seemingly done the impossible- it has effectively erased this code from our latest generations. Young people fed on a diet of social media, text messages and hyper-connectivity have lost the capacity to develop deep and long-lasting relationships. With people job hopping and city hopping we’ve lost the opportunity to develop communities and neighborhoods. People don’t know how to approach strangers., talk with members of the opposite sex and struggle to date. People are either not getting married, or they are divorcing in droves. If any of this sounds familiar, I’d like to suggest that you can do better. In our increasingly fragmented and unstable world, individuals, families and organizations all require help figuring out how to build and sustain effective relationships. As someone who anticipated and warned my students of the coming ‘death’ of relationships, I am uniquely positioned to advice you and your groups how to develop the skills and dispositions necessary to navigate this danger. In hiring me clients get the benefit of a consultant who has extensive experience cutting across fields as diverse as conflict management, consensus building, pluralism, democracy, and geopolitics.
Our Strategic Relationship Advisory is a long-term and strategic approach towards nurturing and managing complex and vital relationships. You will:
Naturally this will require developing and reviving human skills that we had taken for granted. SNA will help you build the kind of team that has the intellectual and viewpoint diversity, creativity, competence and collaborative capabilities needed in the mid-21st century. If you are interested in advice that can help build innovative, collaborative teams that are equipped to navigate the challenges that arise from a diverse workforce, give me a call me at 202 440 2523 or ashok@village-idiot.com to arrange a time for a conversation. I look forward to the possibility of collaborating to create an intelligent, responsive and dynamic workplace for your team.
30 minutes initial Consultation: Free
