Crafting Realities: Work, Happiness and Meaning

Course Length     : 6 weeks
Estimated Effort  : 4 – 5  hrs per week

The IIMBx MOOC Crafting Realities: Work, Happiness and Meaning, taught by Prof Ramya Ranganathan, is designed for anybody whose goal is to proactively craft their work experience to be a meaningful one. Drawing upon research and knowledge from the domains of positive psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and philosophy, and weaving them into a series of lectures and experiential exercises, this course is designed to help professionals reinvent the way they approach and experience their work and career.

As it takes an inside-out approach to create change, this course centres around working on the learner/participant’s own mental models and beliefs regarding work, career, success, failure, and identity.

Participants of Crafting Realities: Work, Happiness and Meaning course will benefit at three different levels:

1. At an intellectual level, the participants will learn how the brain functions; how emotions influence the functioning of the brain; and the manner in which the brain receives, processes and makes sense of information. They will understand how ‘sensemaking’ in the brain, directly and indirectly, translates into behaviour, thereby influencing a person’s subjective as well as objective experience at work.
2. At an experiential level, the learners will get to participate in reflective exercises that provide a richer and deeper awareness of their own past experiences. They will be able to identify and understand the influence of their own choices, attitudes, and beliefs in the way their life has unfolded so far. They will also be able to realise the role that other people and society have played in the shaping of their beliefs and attitudes.
3. At a practical level, the learners will be introduced to the tried and tested tools that can help them create the change they desire and craft their own future work experience with greater levels of confidence and effectiveness. These include emotional tools from the field of positive psychology, psychological tools that are used in coaching, and established behavioural tools from the field of organisational behaviour.

The Crafting Realities: Work, Happiness and Meaning course is practical, engaging, and potent in its design with a unique mix of lectures, stories, and reflective exercises. The reflective exercises used in the MOOC are derived from the instructor’s own experiences teaching this material to MBA students and corporate executives over a span of eight years, and are proven to create deep and lasting change in the minds of the participants.