An aspirant’s WhatsApp ping landed in my inbox, seeking the compass to the “best” SSB coaching institute. Yet, this wasn’t your typical query. He wrestled with an ethical knot – whether coaching tinkers with authenticity or molds genuine leaders. Examine the conversation, explore the nuances, and find your own answer at the crossroads of personal growth and institutional guidance. Join the journey!
Question:Â Sir, I have a confusion.
A candidate is rejected in a SSB interview say 4-5 times because he is not having those qualities which are required to be an officer in Armed forces. After that he joins XYZ coaching and clears the SSB.
Now question is,
1. is it right for an individual who actually does not have caliber/qualities earlier getting selected after being manipulated in terms of thoughts and behavior?
2. Are these XYZ coaching centers showing some responsibility towards nation by getting such candidates selected?
Answer:Â Dear Manish ( name changed), there is nothing like someone “not having the caliber” to join the forces. The defence forces is not looking for people from outer space, they are looking for ordinary human being who can deliver extraordinarily when the need arises.
It is important to understand that all of us keep evolving/ degenerating (in some cases) throughout our lives, depending upon the opportunities that we are presented with and the exposure that we get from the environment in which we exist. If you look at even your own self, you will realize that, the priorities/ persona which you had five years ago is not the same as you have today and the priorities/ persona that you exhibit today will be again very different five years from now.
In other words, our thinking and approach to life keeps changing/ evolving through out our lives.
When you undergo training at Olive Greens Institute, you will find out that we never ask our trainees to mask their personality or give tutored responses by becoming “fakes” (which in any case, will be very easily discerned by the highly experienced assessors at the selection center), but our endeavor is to help the individual to very clearly see his/her ‘true self’ and also explain to the aspirants as to what are the attributes that are essentially required of a potential officer in the forces.
Thereafter, the individual is automatically set on a course of self-correction/ self-preparation and works very hard on his/her personality traits that need a calibration to align with the desired attributes and thought processes of a potential officer. Getting eventually recommended for OGians (last year 375) is merely a byproduct of their improved persona.
For example, a shy person is trained to become more assertive, a person with poor social graces or one who is lacking in tact is taught to inculcate in his behavior more socially desirable traits through deliberate practice and conscious training of the mind. Those who lack general awareness and have poor expression are taught how to acquire these virtues, so as to infuse requisite confidence in their public speaking and improve the quality of their participation during various activities.
We at Olive Greens are contributing tremendously towards nation building by training aspirants to acquire traits that most schools today and even parents in many cases are unable to impart to their wards for various reasons. We have had cases, where parents especially visited the Institute to thank us for how in two weeks their ward has started to look at life differently.
Furthermore, one must not forget that the SSB selection process is time-tested and highly scientific and chances of undesirable and undeserving candidate making it are extremely remote.
It is just not possible to manipulate responses and go past three highly professional and experienced officers who are applying on to you very scientific techniques of testing. We are well aware that percentage of defence officers involved in cases of impropriety are almost negligible. Let me point out that most of these officers took training before their SSB. So, please be rest assured that proper training will only help a candidate to evolve as a person and he/she cannot clear SSB merely because of “coaching”.
Training at Olive Greens entails professional “grooming” and not arbitrary “coaching”.
While talking about the task/ tests being conducted during SSB, we explain to the aspirants, as to how these values can be inculcated by them on a day to day basis in their lives, so that they can reveal their true self during the SSB without any inhibition. Many of our students who could not clear SSB, are doing exceptionally well in various walks of life, who still attribute their success to the grooming that they received at Olive Greens and the role it played in shaping their future.
Coming to the last part of your query, remember that we are simply facilitators, who endeavor to create an ecosystem conducive to learning. The batch strength of 100 that you pointed out, is split into smaller sub-groups of about 15 each for various interactive activities, so that each individual can be given a personalized feedback by an ex-assessor from SSB (we are a team of 15 officers).
However, you can only take the horse to a pond, but cannot force it to drink water. There will still be some students who choose to close their mind to learning or have an angularity that will need a lot of time and rigorous effort to correct. We do counsel such students and suggest to them corrective measures that they may adopt. At this stage, the responsibility to reform himself/herself lies with the student and you cannot ‘shoot the messenger’ for it. There have been many cases of our students who cleared SSB in their 10-14th attempts, after years of personal introspection and focused preparation.
Here is an old message from a SSB cleared OGian that always comes to my mind to highlight what I wrote above:
“Good morning sir,
May 2015 was the time I joined Olive Greens Institute.
That was my 1st approach to SSB. And a journey well begun.
Since then, being a fresher and now being a repeater who attempted 9 times; it has been a wonderful journey.
I continued to take guidance from others as well, apart from Olive Greens, but it all started from Olive Greens and you sir (through your blogs).
Till date I do remember your teaching that “your task is not important but you are”. “Be good first and then be yourself”.
Sir, I thank you for guiding me before joining Olive Greens, during my stay at Olive Greens and after leaving from Olive Greens. If you go through the chats above in the thread, you have cleared even silliest of my doubts.
So, after around 3 years of SSB journey and completing 9 attempts, I have finally got recommended now.
All this happened because of guidance and blessings from more than one source but it did start from Olive Greens Institute sir. And it started well.
Thank you very much sir.
Waiting for merit list now?”