Some 'unintended fun' in the training room

For trainers and facilitators, the training room is surely the most sacred and beloved place. It is also the sanctum sanctorum, where not only are they most comfortable, but confirmed withdrawal symptoms will hit any trainer worth his or her salt if kept away from the room for uncomfortably long spells.

My training assignments have taken me across the length and breadth of the country and in the process, have opened my eyes to the kind of fascinating people this nation has, along with the myriad cultures, traditions and habits that its citizens practice. Though occasionally physically tiring, these experiences have left lasting impressions. The mental rejuvenation, I have experienced at the end of an enlightening day of facilitation is without parallel, as has been the inspiration one gets interacting with and hearing stories from outlier trainees I have met; people with ordinary backgrounds but with talent and grit that helped them fight society, odds, nature and even regressive mind-sets to make some mark of their own in Corporate India.

The process of Training has itself morphed from the traditional (and rightly perceived as boring) `chalk and talk’ methods to a more engaging one which uses myriad techniques to keep the learners interested. Whereas, that has also added an element of fun to learning, it is the unintended `collateral’ fun that we are going to talk about today. Fancy a training room redolent with bridal finery. Or a brush with a gun toting wedding guest in small town North India. Read on.

Let us begin in coastal Gujarat. A Senior Management Development Programme for a large diversified conglomerate’s factory in South Central Gujarat needs me to keep the participants occupied, interested and engaged for not 1 or 2 but a good 5 days at a stretch. The month of May along with the production breakdowns, occasional labour trouble and attendant issues that are seen in any manufacturing location, required me to constantly keep changing and reinventing the wheel in terms of delivery mechanism, modules’ scheduling and activities. All went well till it was time for the last part, which was the handing over of the Certificates and Closing ceremony. Now, opening and closing ceremonies of MDPs and other training programmes at plant locations are nothing short of similar ceremonial events at the Olympics or Asian games; from the lighting of the lamp and the occasional (and to me embarrassing) tradition of garlanding the trainer and of course the speeches. A galaxy of guests available from the Plant Head downwards joins the festivities. If a luckless and thoroughly disoriented Bombay/Delhi based CFO’s or VP (Manufacturing)’s periodic factory visit coincides with these celebrations, he is also roped in. Already suffering from the `red eye’ he has taken and the long drive afterwards from the nearest airport, he has typically a clue neither about the intent nor the content of the programme. However, he quickly gets into the groove and delivers a rousing speech thereby proving his proficiency at adapting to the shifting sands of H.O. office politics.

To come back to our specific programme; on this occasion it was only the Plant Manufacturing Head and the Plant HR Head who were to address the valedictory function. I was of course invited to grace the stage but having hogged it for 5 days, I excused myself and settled in one of the rear rows hoping to watch the fun from a distance. And boy some fun I was about to see. Seated as I was with the other junior HR and support staff who had helped with the logistics and the successful conduct of the programme, all went well as the Plant Head spoke. Then, as the HR Head took charge of the mike and started in a staccato drawl that was at once both embarrassing as well as disturbing, I realised one of the junior HR trainees sitting next to me had started suffering from the after effects of the heavy lunch she possibly had recently imbibed. That combined with the searing 40+ degrees heat outside that she had just endured during the long walk to the training room from the canteen and the cool AC draft that the vent above her was throwing at her, meant she drifted slowly but surely into another world far removed from stuff as mundane as PMS, KRA and Goal setting that her boss was ranting about. I must confess here, that I was envious of this HR Head who had managed to mesmerise his audience to snooze mode in just 5 minutes - something I had failed to do to my trainees over 5 days. Just as her boss set out to call his entire team to the stage to applaud them for their assistance in managing the smooth conduct of the programme, the trainee decided to up the stakes just a bit and I suspect I had just heard the first short snore before her associate nudged her and saved the day (and surely her job as well) for her. Must say that was some drone attack from her boss that she narrowly missed becoming a victim of!!

Talking of taking the stage and delivering speeches, I have always wondered why in Corporate India, otherwise normally good bosses (winners at film award functions are equally guilty), start pontificating in English when the lingua franca at the location is largely Hindi or the local dialect. After all, the audience is the same that you are interacting with regularly, isn’t it? Then again, no quarrels with speaking in English but the message dangerously tangents off on many an occasion. This, then is the story shifting to remote Jharkhand. Again another manufacturing plant of a large conglomerate in the middle of virtually nowhere with the closest airport being at least 7 hours away. I had the fortunate (?) company of the Plant Head the earlier day during my long back breaking road ride to the plant from Varanasi airport where he had also arrived from some place around the same time. We discussed virtually everything under the sun, partaking of the local samosas and jalebis that were our only saviours on the long ride. And as the journey progressed and the car tyres’ connection with tar became less and less frequent, the topics moved to the happenings in the cradle of Indian civilisation; never mind that the cradle slowly started giving way to progressively large craters as we first left behind the GT Road, then the State highway, then a district road and then hit the occasional gravel on pieces of land that presumably made up for what was euphemistically called a ‘road’ somewhere in a dusty file of the concerned PW Department in faraway Ranchi.

Suitably rested overnight after this nightmarish ride, the next morning got off to a rousing start with the ceremonial lamp, garland and attendant paraphernalia with the last item being the Plant Head addressing and welcoming the participants to the programme. He got talking about the earlier day’s enjoyable journey when we drove in together. It was all well till he said the journey was good with a little chatting, eating and snapping! Alarmed, I tried to recollect where I had made the cardinal error of snapping at the person on whom my very peaceful existence was dependent in the Eastern badlands next few days. Till I realised from his further explanations how snapping was simply his acronymic version of ‘short napping’ that we had taken along the way. Relief!!

And to continue about the English connection, there was this Plant Head in Western Odisha who while delivering his inaugural speech spoke with tremendous gravitas while trying to convey the seriousness of the training programme that was to follow. However, that sombreness with his choice of words raised alarm bells in at least part of the audience when he used words like ‘you are the chosen ones’ as that started resembling more like they were selected to meet Mahabharata’s Bakasur that evening. For the uninitiated - read Bakasur’s story here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakasura

Then, there was that story further East in the Salt Lake area of Calcutta in the first session on Day 1 of the programme in an IT organisation. This particular first day pre-lunch session is the most crucial for context setting; and it was smooth going till we were close to breaking for lunch, when a petite girl sitting in a corner and who till then had been absorbing carefully everything happening, confronted me and said “Pravin, all that you have said since morning is interesting and maybe relevant, but what does this have to do with SAP and the implementation partner project we are supposed to discuss?” Flummoxed, I wondered why anyone would take my help to talk about SAP implementation when my affinity for core software development is as much as that of an auto rickshaw driver’s with traffic rules. Till, it became clear after a few points being thrown back and forth that she was in the wrong room altogether. The venue being a training centre with almost similar rooms adjacent to each other, she had missed her allotted room by a few feet and landed up in ours. Why she came into that particular room is even today an unsolved mystery to me. I reassured myself believing it was the trainer’s aura that got her there, but the bitter reality may well be that she actually found the participants in our room better than her allotted room. Astoundingly enough, she took close to 4 hours to realise her folly. Resultantly, another worry that causes me sleepless nights often is the thought about what must have happened to that SAP implementation project that had such a `misdirected’ leader at its helm.

To be continued.....................