Teaching Lame Crows to Walk

“In your arsenal, do you have anything that teaches lame crows to walk?”

My initial days as an independent consultant. I was in a potential client company with the sales manager discussing training opportunities. This company had once been a market leader but had slipped way down over time. As a result the sales manager had been fired for poor performance and a new one appointed in his place. The new sales manager, who I was having a conversation with, was supposed to be the miracle man with a reputation of turning things around.

“What do you mean, teaching lame crows to walk?”

 “I have inherited a useless team”, he replied. “The morale is down, they don’t have the necessary drive to push sales and they have no impact in the market. They haven’t earned their sales commission in over a year and don’t seem interested in doing anything about it. They hop when they are supposed to be running. The only reason they are still here in this company is because no one else will take them. And the only reason I cannot throw them out is because I can’t get replacements. No one wants to join such a dejected team.”

 “Ok”, I said. “I understand about the lame part. But why crows?”

 “Just a figure of speech”, he replied. “Don’t take it literally”.

 Wow! Calling his team members crows… Maybe a topic of interest for some psychiatrist. But I had other things to worry about.

“So what exactly are you looking for?”

“I need a training workshop that will transform the team,” He replied. “I want them to be up and running. I want a highly charged and motivated team that will conquer the market. I want fighters!”

I went back to my office with a load of questions in my mind. In my conversation with the Sales Head, the impression I had got was that the sales team was the main culprit for all the woes that the organization suffered. But were the sales people really responsible for state of affairs or were there larger organizational issues. Even if they were responsible, what had caused it? And finally, how do you convert so called losers into fighters? 

The next day, I met an old colleague of mine who I shall call Mr. A. He had spent his entire working life in the HR function. Now retired, he still kept in touch with people in the HR community.

 I explained my problem to him, and the conversation that followed was not only interesting, but for me an eye opener.

Mr. A: I have heard you. Now tell me what exactly is your problem?

Me: I don’t know who is responsible for their state of affairs, so I don’t know how to tackle the issue.
Mr A: State of affairs of that company is the problem of people who run that company. What is your problem?
Me: If I don’t know the core issue, how can I address it?
Mr. A: You have been given an issue. You have to teach lame crows to walk.
Me: But I don’t know what has caused them to become lame!
Mr. A: Ok… That’s a constraint. Now what are the possibilities?
Me: The only possibility that I see is that I will not be able to come up with anything concrete, and so will not get this project.
Mr. A: Look around you. What do you see in this room?
Me: I don’t understand…
Mr. A: Tell me what all do you see in this room. Everything…
Me: Ok… I see furniture, books, papers, a computer and you and me. I also see tea cups on the table, some pictures on the wall, a carpet on the floor, curtains, fan……………
Mr. A: Now if we were to remove everything from this room, what will be left?
Me: Everything?
Mr. A: Yes… Each and everything, including you and me. Then what will be left?
Me: Let’s see… The walls of this room…
Mr. A: What else?
Me: The air in this room…
Mr. A: That’s good. What else?
Me: Maybe the echoes of our conversation…?
Mr. A:  Ah! We are now moving to the esoteric stuff… I will accept that. Anything else?
Me: No, I can’t think of anything else.

(I strongly recommend readers to do this exercise before reading further. Make a list of what would be left if all the things are removed from the room you are in)

Mr. A: Interesting how the human mind works… It first thinks of constraints, but it refuses to think of possibilities
Me: I don’t understand…
Mr. A: You saw the walls, but you couldn’t see the door…?

I was silent. The door had not even come to my mind.

Mr. A: Not your fault. That’s how we operate. We think of constraints almost instantly, but cannot see the opportunities. You have to force yourself to stop thinking of why things cannot be done before you can focus on how they can be done. Not an easy thing, but with practice you will be able to do that.

My mind was still reeling. Why did the door not come to my mind?

Mr. A: You are a consultant now. An external person. So you will not get every piece of information that you need at all times. You have to make do with what you have and do your best. For that you have to change your attitude from looking for constraints to searching for possibilities.

Me: So what possibility do you see here?
Mr. A: That’s so simple. You don’t have to teach lame crows to walk. They don’t have to walk. They have to fly…. So teach them to fly.

 The next week we made a presentation to the Sales Head. When he asked, “So have you figured out how to make these lame crows walk?” I replied, “No, but I am going to talk about how to make lame crows to fly.”

It worked. We got the project.

 

 

 

It Is All About Connect...

In my experience, I have come across several people who have given fantastic insights about how a good training program should be designed. To a large extent, whatever I know about training and how it should be conducted, I owe it to them.

 I was working as the head of human resources function of a small organization, which was part of a large group having diversified interests and businesses. Typical to such organizations, I had a dual reporting, one to the CEO of the company and second to the Group HR head.

 This organization was unique in several ways, one of which was the belief that practice of organizational values was the only route to success. This belief was relentlessly pursued and practiced by our CEO. That this company was very successful and profitable only lent support to the belief.

 Every year we had a festival of sorts where all employees were invited to a two days event.  While the main reason was celebration of success in the previous year, we also picked one of the company values to focus on during the coming year. A one day workshop was designed around the value chosen where the employees were explained the meaning of that value in the organizational context. Various events and activities were also announced to propagate the value in the company. In the previous years, external trainers had been chosen to facilitate the workshops.

 That year the value that was identified as a theme was ‘creativity and innovation’. Being the head of HR, the task of identifying an external trainer fell on me. I met several training consultants but was not able to select anyone though I couldn’t place a finger on what exactly was not right. Just to make sure that I was not going about it incorrectly, I had them present their workshop designs to the senior members of the company. The outcome was the same. “Something is not right… The spirit is missing”, was the common feedback.

 The date for our festival was fast approaching, and I was still wrestling with identification of the right trainer. Finally in sheer desperation I went to my functional boss, the Group HR Head. For reasons of propriety, I will call him Mr. A. I explained the problem to him and asked him for help. The conversation that followed is as follows:

A: I think I understand the reason for your problem.

Me: Then please explain. Some of the workshop designs are good, but for some inexplicable reasons, not good enough.
A: What is missing is the spirit that drives your company. You are talking about values. That spirit has to be built into the workshop.

To me it sounded like some esoteric thing floating out there

Me: Spirit? What spirit are you talking about?

A: That value system you talk about is a belief. A belief that is held by all of you. Do any of the trainers you have identified have the same belief?
Me: Of course not! They are external people, not a part of the company.
A: And therefore when they talk about the values, they will talk at a cerebral level, whereas beliefs operate at an emotional level.

 It was making sense at some level, but it still did not give me a solution to my issue.

Me: Ok… But how do we resolve this?

A: Why don’t you conduct the workshop?

It’s quite amazing how bombshells explode in your face when you are least expecting them. I wasn’t even sure I had heard him correctly.

Me: You want ME to conduct the workshop?!
A: Why not? You are part of the organization. You believe in the value system of your company. You have seen it work. You can convey things much better than any external trainer.
Me: Sure, I can convey it much better if I am doing it one on one. But addressing 200 people together… I doubt if I can convey anything at all. I don’t have any experience in training!
A: One or two hundred, it does not matter. When you are talking about things that people relate to at an emotional plane, then you connect at an emotional level. If it was a skill, then you would have to connect with them at a cerebral level.
Me: All that’s fine, but I don’t know how to connect with two hundred people together, emotionally or intellectually.
A: I am sure you will find a way. You still have some time.
Me: But why me? Why not someone else from the company?
A: As Head of the HR function, you are the custodian of the company’s value system. Who better than you?

 When the boss says, you do it, one doesn’t have much choice. But I was not about to give up without at least an attempt to fight.

Me: But I don’t know anything about training!

A: Use your creativity… After all that’s the value you are propagating. You have to practice what you are preaching…

 I was cornered. One last ditch effort

Me: It will be a complete disaster… People will laugh not just at me, but at the entire HR function!
A: Look at it this way… People will enjoy themselves and have a good time. After all isn’t that what festivals are all about?

 Left with no choice, I did work on the design. Of course Mr. A did not abandon me completely. I went to him several times after that to seek assistance in building content for the workshop. But that is the subject of another conversation. One thing that I did learn from him is how to connect with the audience.

 I still remember the two hundred pairs of eyes staring at me when I opened the workshop. After all these years, the memory still gives me shivers. But it gave me great confidence when the first few heads nodded in agreement to what I was saying. At some point I realised that the workshop was actually all about telling the participants that they knew the subject as well as you did, and it was only a matter of realising it.  Once that happened, it was a lot more easier and smoother.

I wouldn’t call that workshop a great success, but at least people were not laughing at the end of it. There is however one important thing that I learnt that day as an indirect outcome of my experience. You cannot be a successful trainer if you don’t believe in what you are telling your participants and you can only connect with them if your belief is genuine. It is this belief that differentiates a good trainer from an average one.