Gurukool - The Execution

The date of 4^th September 2006 will always remain etched in my mind. That was the day we launched Gurukool as a workshop with the first batch of 30 participants.

A lot of planning and preparation had preceded the launch. The first hurdle was getting the participants to attend the workshop. Most of them, aged 19-24 had never stayed out of their homes. Their parents were a bit apprehensive about letting their children be away for five whole days. This was especially true for the girls. Their parents wanted assurance about their safety and security. “I have never had an experience in any corporate training where participants will not come because their parents won’t allow them”, rued T1. “I think this is going to be a frequent occurrence, so we better get used to it”, shot back T3.

The second challenge was the venue. It had to have enough accommodation to house the participants as well as the facilitators. Second, it had to have large enough open spaces for various activities, a room large enough for the participants to spread out. It had to have adequate security and finally it had to be reasonably priced to fit into the budget we had been allocated. The Administration Head threw up his hands in despair when I gave him the requirements. “You must really hate me to do this. You are asking for a Mercedes Benz for the price of scooter! This is impossible!”

But he did the impossible. He had seen a place which was about two and a half hours drive from the city of Delhi. Three of my team members went to check out the place. It was perfect. When I went to thank the Admin Head, he smiled. “You cannot even begin to imagine how I managed to get the place. I never thought I would be able to do it.” Well, Gurukool had not even started, but it was already making people do the impossible…

Finally the day arrived when thirty participants along with three facilitators, T1, T4 and T8 boarded the bus. I was accompanying them as an observer. The idea was that I would sit through the five days to see how it all went and then suggest course correction that may be required.

The journey was quite interesting. We had thirty excited people who had no clue about what they were going for, except that it was some kind of a training workshop. For most of them, it was the first time they had ventured out of home for such a long duration. Then we had three very nervous facilitators who were either looking at each other or staring into space, and finally there was I. Calling myself nervous would have been an understatement. Even otherwise, launching a new training initiative did give rise to a certain degree of apprehension, but this was crossing all limits. I have heard about how soldiers feel just before the battle commences.  I can now empathise with them.

The workshop began that afternoon, with T1 telling the participants that the program had nothing to do with their work, rather it was all about them. Immediately there were a few chuckles and some side whispers. Each one of the participants was looking at T1, and one could sense their cynicism and disbelief. How could a company not talk about work and business in a training workshop?  Breaking barriers would be much more difficult than we thought…

Later that day, T8 asked the participants what their dreams were. Two participants sprang up. “Why do you want to know about our dreams? Anyway what’s the use? We live in the real world! There is no place for dreams!” T8 persisted. One person stood up and said, “My dream is to survive in this world.” For the first time I saw T8 at a loss for words. Then T1 came to rescue. “If you got the means of survival, would you still not have any dreams?” The participant thought for a while and then replied, “Maybe then I would be able to dream about other things…”

It took a large part of that day for the three facilitators to get the participants to talk about their dreams. A couple of them opened up at first. Then a few more and finally the dam broke. One person had a dream of completing college. Another wanted to become a dancer, and yet another wanted to open his own restaurant. Some had dreams about being rich and successful, one wanted to be a good son to his parents and another wanted to be an artist. These were people who had dreams like the rest of us but had kept them locked because their circumstances did not allow them to dwell on them. T8 handed each participant a huge sheet of paper and colour pencils and asked them to express their dreams in a visual form. These then went up on the walls where they would stay as a reference for everything that would be done in the workshop.

At the end of that session, one of the participants walked up to T8 and said, “This is the first time someone has asked me about my dreams and this is the first time I am sharing my dream with someone. Please do not break them…” It took a lot of effort for T8 not to break into tears.

The next four days was all about reinforcing the belief that in spite of all their constraints, their origins and their issues, they had it in them to achieve their dreams. The day would start at 6.00 a.m. with long walk followed by yoga. Meals were planned using the same ingredients that they would normally have at home. Meal time conversations included giving information about nourishment and how to use the ingredients to make meals wholesome. During the day, it was all about activities and conversations. We talked about fears, strength of self-perceptions, possibility-search attitude. In the evening, we would have an open session called soap box, where the participants could express themselves in any way they felt like. Some sang songs, others recited poetry. Some talked about their future plans, and what they were going to do. We watched movies, staged plays and danced. To an outsider, the entire thing would have seemed like a total chaos. But there was a method to the madness. To a participant, who had not experienced anything beyond the daily grind, being able to sing in front of an audience and being applauded meant something that was extraordinary. Slowly but surely a change was taking place. The participants were experimenting with thoughts, ideas and actions. Where one of them faltered, the others rushed to give support. They were pushing themselves beyond what they thought were their limits, and they were forcing us to do the same. We developed a mantra, which would go on to be the credo for all subsequent participants of Gurukool.

Every Day in Every way, I am Getting Better and Better

In the five days, they shared their innermost secrets with each other. They shared their dreams, their fears, and their joys. They discovered that they were not alone in their circumstances. And suddenly their issues and problems halved. They were forming bonds that would hold for times to come.

“Dare to dream, dare to try, No goal is too distant, no sky is too high”, coached a young poetess participant to her colleague.

Every night when the participants had gone to their rooms, the facilitators would meet to discuss the days’ events. But beyond experiences and feelings, there was nothing more to talk about. No conversations about the workshop design or ways of improving it. We were no longer in control. It was as if the participants had taken over the whole program and were directing its course. As T4 remarked, “I no longer feel like a facilitator. These people are giving me much more than I can even think of giving them!”

As for me, the noble intentions of being just a silent observer just disappeared. I was participating as much as anyone else. I just had to live the experience. It was too precious not to do so.

On the final day, we referred back to the representation of their dreams. During the five days, some of them had undergone a change. The intention was to connect their dreams back to the real world. We need not have even tried. They were two steps ahead of us. They spent rest of the day planning on how they would go about the task of achieving their dreams in the big bad world!

Between 2006 and 2009, 2200 sales persons went through Gurukool. To make sure that other development initiatives did not suffer, we created a separate team to manage the sessions. This team was headed by T8.

The organizational response was astounding. I would get calls from the managers asking what magic we were doing. One of the managers sent a mail, “I really value you. I don’t know what you did in the five days, but I have never seen such enthusiasm and energy in the team before.”  Another one remarked, “It is always a manager’s dream to get a high energy and highly motivated team. Well, I have got it but it’s going to a problem for me. It is going to be a challenge for me to keep up with these people!”

For the facilitators, rewards were in the shape of small poems and notes that the participants wrote during the session. In one of the session, the participants were watching a movie, ‘Iqbal’. The story is about a deaf and mute boy named Iqbal who aspires to be a cricketer, and finally does so after a lot of struggle. At the end of the movie, T8 walked up to one of the participants who had a dream to become a cricketer and told him, “From today onwards, you are my Iqbal.” From that day, that boy signs his name and then adds Iqbal in brackets in all his communications. When somebody asked him the reason, his reply in Hindi was, “Is naam ke saath mere sapne bandhe hain aur mein inhe kabh bhulana nahi chahta hun.” (My dreams are tied to this name and I don’t want to forget them ever in my life)

I still have the notes that were handed to me during the workshops. Two of them are very dear to me.

Patthar ki murat sa

Khud ko apne mein liye

Bahar se anjaan
“Main” khud mein khoya baitha
Suraj ki abhed kiran bhi
Na chu saki mujhe
Khud se mein anjaan
Mein khoya baitha
Par
Ek muskurahat si awaaz
Ek kiran sa mukhda hai
Saamne aa khada
Baarish ki halki puhaar
Mitti ki bhini si mehak
Jagati hai mujh mein ek vishwass
“Hum” bhi ek jaan hain
Hum bhi ek kiran hain
Ab khud se anjaan nahi mein
Ab mein bhi akela nahi

Translation

A statue of stone

Keeping the ‘Me’ in myself
A stranger to the outside
I was lost in myself
Even the piercing rays of the sun
Could not touch me
A stranger to myself
I was lost
But
A voice like a smile
A face like the sun ray
Standing in front of me
Like a drizzle of rain
Like the soft scent of wet soil
Gives me a confidence
‘We’ are also life
‘We’ are also like sun rays
Now no longer a stranger to myself
Now no longer alone

Nirasha ke  ghere me asha ki aas liye,
Andhkar ki raat  me roshini ki pyaas liye,
Ulaahas  purn  tum atal vishvas
Khade raho jeevan ke taruvar mein…

Translation

With a desire of hope in the circle of hopelessness

With a thirst for light in the darkest of night
With joy and an unshakable faith in your heart
Stand in the waters of life…

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.