Preface… Making of a reluctant trainer

I started my career in the Human Resource Function in an era where everyone begins at the lowliest of jobs and then worked their way upwards. Consequently as a fresh management trainee, I started in the time office and then was rotated through other departments of the function. For some reasons the training function in that organization was removed from the mainstream and operated as in independent activity. Therefore I never got any exposure to training activities in that organization. Even later, when I changed jobs, by sheer coincidence, my work had nothing to do with training and development. So over time I began to develop an aversion to it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I believed in training as a useful tool to improve performance. The defence services do it wonderfully. Even in business organizations, technical training does impact the performance of people. It was only behavioural part of the training that I had an issue with. For me it was something that people went to, preferably off site for a couple of days. You spent the daylight hours passing time where the facilitator tried his level best to connect meaningless exercises to real life situations. Being led blindfold through a maze was supposed to build trust and team work. One really had to stretch one’s imagination to see a connection. And how would it make a difference back at workplace? It was the night time where the participants really came alive… music, liquor flowing and fun. In my mind that was what training events were all about – partying late into the night.

I remember one workshop where I was invited as an observer. It was about Customer Service. The facilitator asked me to open the session by addressing the participants. I stood in front of the thirty participants and asked, “How many of you know that good customer service is important for the business of our company?” Thirty hands went up. I looked at the facilitator and asked, “They already know it. So what are you going to tell them now?” I don’t know where  this incident travelled in the organization grapevine, but I never got invited to another workshop for as long as I worked in that company.

In an anecdote narrated by Training Head of a large multinational, the Chief of Operations called a bunch of fresh management graduates and gave them the operations manual. “This is the way I want you all to do work”, he told them. “Any one deviating from this manual will lose his job”. The most effective ‘training’, wouldn’t you say?

In yet another company, I saw this poster on the wall in their office, “We are a service company, and as an employee of this company, you will deliver to the customer efficient, timely and courteous service. You shall do it again and again, for every working day of your life in this company or you will not be here.” Can you think of any training program which will better motivate the employees than this simple and effective statement?

So you can understand why I had this attitude bordering on disrespect for the Training function of any organization I worked for. But things have to come one complete circle. What goes around comes around. For me disaster struck when I was transferred as Head of Training and Development of an organization.