Indus Leadership Forum is a non-traditional model of leadership designed to bring diverse partners together to solve social problems. It is a consensus-based collaboration of organizations and individuals. The Indus Leadership Forum is a professional consortium that works collaboratively with existing leaders to shape the future in our current environment of fundamental change and spiraling complexities.

These are times of collaboration. Collaborative leaders must in the final analysis develop, polish, and combine their collective skills for public good. There are implementing and process skills that are extremely valuable, like working with the media, learning to building local coalitions and collaborations, and being able to mobilize people for action. These can be learned, but they must also be practiced. Collaborative leaders must shed the mantle of the “one” leader and think of the “many.”  After understanding the scope of a particular issue in a community, groups often have a clearer picture of who might be credible partners.

The pilot project initiated by ILF is in active collaboration of NDMC. The following will briefly state the purpose and challenge that we plan to undertake. A training programme/workshop is being held on the 17^th October,2002 at the NDMC  premises.

   
Aim of the project
To upgrade the quality of education and optimally utilize the available resources in Municipal schools of Delhi. Also to enable more effective transmission of knowledge and Values.

Purpose
To develop team building and sensitivity to professional tasks among Teachers, school authorities responsible for imparting Education with the help of a collaborative and Creative Problem Solving program.

Methodology
Developing Creative Problem Solving Process skills through specially designed modules.

Outcome
Gen Apte started with a brief introduction of the Creative Problem Solving Process developed by him and how it can transform individuals and organizations using the problem-solving route, towards any chosen
goal. He quoted many examples of such transformations while solving problems using creative processes in over 15,000 workers and manager during his consultancy assistance to Indian organizations. He explained how the CPS process dissolves mental blocks, moves people from their stuck mindsets, so they can see a problem situation from different perspectives. The negativity in the problem is reversed to stimulate vision of opportunity and many solutions. Through case examples and exercises he showed the techniques of creative problem solving and internalizing our own unused wisdom to bridge our knowing doing gap by our creative power. This was thoroughly enjoyed by the stimulated participants. He also narrated his rich experiences in his stint in Nigeria as Productivity Expert.

The Creative Problem Solving (CPS) showed the participants, a process of which they were to be a part. The NGT (Brainstorming) session in the afternoon brought out that about 40% of their problems in their organization were within their own control. This is much better than the 10 to 15% in the industry. After bringing out causes for own ineffectiveness in the NGT everyone admitted that they felt very light, as they had truly unburdened themselves. The ideas proposed to this group for proceeding towards a desirable outcome together using CPS were received most enthusiastically by them for implementing in the immediate future, as Phase II. The aim would be to train them as problem solvers themselves. This CPS process is very wide and has to be tailored to the educational system. We hope to achieve a collaborative process to work, in the long run, towards a better system of education, administration and basically, developing good, durable relationships. Towards the end of the workshop when asked:

Have you now moved out a little bit from where you were in the morning?

The answer was a very enthusiastic YES! 

Gen. S. S. Apte PVSM (Retd.) is a world renowned authority on Reliability & Maintainability Engineering & Total Quality Management. He was the Director General heading the army's equipment management organisation. He specialises in bringing about Organisational Transformation through Creativity, Innovation & Problem Solving. General Apte worked for the United Nations as an ILO expert in Nigeria. He has been a consultant to Bharat Heavy Electricals, Coal India, Indian Petrochemicals Corporation, Damodar Valley Corporation & several other well known organisations such as Centak Chemicals Ltd, J K Cement, Samtel group of companies, Maharashtra State Road Transport, & Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board.

For the past forty years, he has addressed management training programs at almost all the prestigious management training / development institutes, such as –

Tata Management Training Center,
Administrative Staff College of India,
Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of
Public Administration, Indian Institute of Public Administration ,National Police Academy, National Defence College, College of Defence Management, Military College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and staff colleges for industry,

Banks, public utilities, service organizations; institutes of public administration for the State Governments,

Indian Institutes of Technology at Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi.

He has been or is regular visiting faculty to

Delhi University, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon;
APJ School of Marketing and Management, New Delhi
Institute of Technology and Science, Ghaziabad for Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) or similar programs.