Making of Managers - 17 ::: "Solitary Tree maketh avenue"

Prelude :: This could be a long posting....and particularly important to us and can remind me of a decisive step in my Training Career......Beware.......and Read through with some focus.....!!
Dear Gowri
One of the famous utterences of Sadhguru was that "society is a big lie".....He goes to explain that it is the individuals who make the society and he justifies his yoga program that it is the individuals whom should be targetted instead of crying hoarse about the society and the horrible state that it is in right now....!!
Perhaps you could have seen me oozing out similar kind of thoughts in our Vanagiri Adventure too , let me candidly admit that this particular thought got injected inside me too much and with the open mind that I listened to his magical voice (during oct 99....when I went to Isha for the first time to attend the BSP class.....Before our classes commenced in the evening around 5 PM, participants like me were wandering the Ashram as we had reached there at 7 AM in the morning.....there had been a group of foreigners to whom he was speaking in his typical dias....who seemingly sought a meeting with the God Man inside the place - who were basically tourists to Ashram......the meeting with these people happened in a hall which was having thatched roof...and I could over hear him telling them...."Tell me is there any thing called Forest ?? I can only see Trees".....), it got internalised into me in a deepest way possible and I consider this particular situation quoted in bracket above as a "initiation experience" to me !!
Well, coming back to the main subject that I wanted to write today which is ofcourse on my training initatives, yesterday, I went into a session which was done by another girl ...as it was a new syllabus that is being launched during July.....I am supposed to do the session for the first time (on Teleconferencing) tomorrow and hence I thought I can have a first hand experience on the BIG role play that was given in our materials......I am yet to go through the same and was hoping to learn things easily by observation and reduce my preparation time....This particular session is quite important for us as it is meant for people who are Team Leaders and with some experience....
I entered the hall only at 6.30 PM (the session started at 2 PM itself...and this role play was the last portion...which is scheduled for 1 hour), the role play was half way through already !! I went calmly towards the last few seats without disturbing the session ... and looked at the trainer with a question mark in my eyes...As the role plays were going on, the trainer reached out towards me to explain that she could manage to cover the syllabus without much hiccups and is expecting to complete the session in next 20 minutes....!! I was personaly aghast...but did not show much emotions...and was observing the session till it was all over at 7 PM...
After the session was over and the hall was emptied, the Trainer was magnanimous enough to share the Feedback forms submitted by the trainees...and we could see many of the participants have given adverse feedbacks....on every aspect of the training program....I could see that she was in a defensive mindset (forgot to tell, this is the pretty girl with whom I had a mail interaction which was shared with you also...Dont want to mention the name here...but she is the one who was an observer in one of my earlier session of Telephone Handling (without teleconferencing) which was for junior team members) and was telling that "arrangements were not proper...
When I asked for more clarity, she told that the participants were bit restless because no "biscuits" were kept....and many of them felt that the role plays and activities were too silly....and were quite vocal in telling her that they knew many things already.....With due regards to their seniority , I smelt that perhaps the INTRO session was not prepared and handled properly which could have avoided most of the resentment....and told her in a friendly tone about few mistakes / areas of improvments observed by me in the last 20 minutes...There were couple of guys who were continuously in side talks who could have been checked in the earlier part of the session itself....AND it was required to say a few words of hype about the training modules before the feedback forms were distributed....AND it is important ethic for a Trainer not to read the Feedback forms and show all the expressions in the face while few of the participants have not completed their feedback forms..and still in the hall..!!..
I could see the girl was bit demotivated and later when we reached and had a talk with the Co-ordinator at HR(I will zero in on this lady later ...few things to tell about her), she literally told her that she is not able to handle this "advanced" session meant for the seniors....!! It appears that there were few problems encountered when the trainer girl tried to put an audio clipping and despite of desparately calling, the admin support came very late....I was talking to the Coordinator after this girl left....and here we reach the abstract contents of our conversation...
This person, who is in mid thirties, was picked up quite recently (less than a year) and is extremely friendly and had been the anchor for the entire modules development and two dozen of us getting trained as trainers....Regards to her and all her initiatives, but there were few concerns in the manner the whole idea is getting diluted which I had voiced to her already....In fact our GM organised for a meeting to hear me in the presence of the HR manager and this person....I explained few important things to be done like monitoring the trainer's performance by surprise visits to the sessions, giving some inspiration by circulating some of the best feedbacks received and one to one discussions.......!! 100s of things could be done... but unfortunately she did not have the time or energy or interest to do all these...
In that particular conversation a month back, I Could clearly sense that I was not understood properly and I decided to play cool with only few points expressed....making it a point to communicate very few good things too....(like extension of time from 4 hours to 5 1/2 hours for each module which all of us really feel great).
Now, yesterday I got a clear signal that I have to take up this corporate initiative in my own hand (to the extend I am permitted) with a historic statement made by this poor lady...It was when she lamented that the seniors are not attending the session and the absentee rate is around 50 % and the feedback from the participants too were not encouraging both for emails session and phone calls session, I was the one to get amused....!! though I am yet to make a debut on this particular module, I got raving feedback on both of my earlier sessions to the seniors on emails...I got infact feedbacks from friends --> friends --> friends who had taken part in my session and was talking about me and the session for close to "1 hour" reportedly....!!
There is some thing seriously going wrong and the lacs of rupees spent on us may get wasted upon if an impression gets created that we are ineffective....!!
Coming back to the historic statement of this lady, when I asked this person on what is her plan to cover the left out people (absentees) when we have the target to complete the first round of excercise before 31st July, she told me "I will die committing suicide".....!! it was meant for fun of course...but she made me lot more intense by her next statement which was a sort of challenge for me....."Can we exchange our roles....I can come and SIT at your desk...will you complete these absentees yourself...organising the whole thing ?"....
IT was one of the poetic moment when Baba spoke to me through lesser mortals....and I was so aware about it instantanously...I played it cool and was making fun if I should organise biscuits for my session myself.....instead of people complaining like yesterday's session...(by the by, I have never even motioned people towards the candies / polos kept in the corner...they have never been made an issue by my trainees until now....if you keep them gripping, will they have time or need for biscuits ??)
BUT, I am quite clear on things to be done next...I have already drawn a mind map on things to be done from course materails perspective (corrections, improvements....), trainers perspective (as mentioned above, some coaching, monitoring their live performance, getting into the details of their scores and segregating them, one to one sessions), management perspective (pump data on the alarmity, seek management clarity on handling the absenteeism)...AND future prospects of the bunch of trainers (other avenues on engaging them - few other soft skills training modules & re-trainings).....Really there is too much to do....and I would like to make a humble request if I can take charge of this from now on...
Perhaps it could be a comical thing for a finance professional to get into an aspect of HR but there is no point to hold myself in an area where I dont have much interest....and it is difficult to tolerate things are not done properly.....I dont mind even if few of the people laugh at me, I can keep many of them smiling at me in amazement and my commitment level...
I already have dreams of expanding our network and providing training to our flagship company...and me getting personally enriched with attending more and more sessions as a trainee from experts...
Perhaps, I may be brushed aside and my proposal might be turned out...WHO can stop me tapping the door with lot of preparation and intensity.....Am I doing any thing myself...and my own interests.....its just that I am following the light shown by Baba....
was this posting too long ??? want biscuits ???
suchoo