Gurukool - The beginning

Gurukool: A system of education in ancient India where in students lived with their teacher during the period of education. The bond thus created between the students and their teacher wend beyond the conventional relationship.

 By now readers of this blog will have concluded that though being part of the function, I have always viewed training with a (un) healthy amount of cynicism and scepticism. And rightly so. However there is one instance which forced me to abandon my cynical approach and actually see the power that a properly designed and executed development initiative can unleash. A development initiative called Gurukool.

 As I sit down to write about Gurukool, I am experiencing a block. Writing about the events that led to creation and execution of this initiative is fairly simple. But how does one write about the emotional upheavals that we as the training team went through? How does one describe the personal growth that the facilitators experienced when delivering the workshop?  It was indeed a rollercoaster for we practically participated in lives of more than a thousand people in the three years we ran the program.

 It is also difficult to write about Gurukool in one single blog. The events, experiences, realizations and associated learning are too many to fit in a single article. I have therefore divided the entire experience in three parts. How it all began, how the design was created and lastly about conducting the workshops. While writing I also realize that it will be impossible for me to convey all my thoughts and feelings related to Gurukool. I accept this limitation and ask you, the reader to please bear with me.

 It all began with annual business review in the company I was working for. Ours was a retail organization with a large number of frontline sales personnel. In fact these sales people constituted nearly 70% of the total workforce in the company. Typically they were high school pass outs in the age group of 18-24 years. Unable to continue further education due to family reasons, economic and otherwise, they found this as an opportunity for gainful employment as the job required no particular prior skills or experience. We provided them with on-the-job training for about a month before putting them on the shop floor.

 One of the issues that was discussed in that review was to do with high turnover and poor service delivery among the frontline staff. All kinds of retention and performance bonuses had been announced, but they didn’t seem to work. Very often the sales employees just didn’t turn up for work leaving the poor manager completely clueless about manpower deployment and work planning.

Discussion on the issue was like a hockey game. “This is serious. You need to find a solution to this problem.” said the managing director, as he passed it to the business head. The business head did not keep it with himself for long, as he deftly deflected it to the HR Head. “You need to come up with some plan to solve this problem”. The HR Head was equally adept at the game. She passed it on to the recruitment head, “Is proper staffing an issue?” The recruitment head expertly deflected it back. “No, there is no problem with recruitment and staffing. The issue seems to be of retention.” Back to HR head, who now passed it to where there would be no comeback. “I think we need to find a solution to this problem through training.” “I agree”, concurred the managing director looking at me. “Nitin, please come up with a development plan to address this issue.” Every one nodded. The issue had been discussed to every ones satisfaction.

Every one’s except mine. I was upset and angry. How come such issues always seem to land at my doorstep? If it works, it’s someone else’s great idea. If it doesn’t, well, training didn’t do a good job. And it was with this frame of mind I met my team of eight trainers (T1, T2, T3……….. T8) the next day. After I had explained the situation, the conversation went something like this:

T1: I don’t understand… what are WE supposed to do?

Me: Find a solution to the employee turnover and service quality issues
T3: We could do service training, but what can we do about employee turnover?
T4: Yes that’s an HR problem. Why has it come to us?
Me: Doesn’t matter whose problem it should be. It’s our problem now. So let’s have some suggestions
T3: We first need to find out why the problem exists
Me: Great! So how do we do that?
T6: We should conduct an employee engagement survey
T2: That will only tell us what is the level of engagement, but it will not answer the why.
T5: We will have to do some kind of research to find the root cause of the problem
T6: What kind of research?
T5: I don’t know… there must be something
T4: Why us? It’s not our issue!
T1: Because someone out there hates us…

 We weren’t making any headway. And then T8, the newest member of the team came up with an idea

 T8: Why don’t we go out and find out?

 Everyone looked at her incredulously.

T2: And how are we going to do that?

T8: We are eight of us. So we can cover eight cities. Let’s spend time with the frontline staff and find out from them
T3: And what makes you think they will answer our questions?
T8: I wasn’t thinking of asking them… more in terms of working with them.

 Total silence. Work with them? No one had done that before. But it made a whole lot of sense. So at the end of some resistance and further discussions it was decided that they would spend a week on the shop floor in different cities. I was to hold fort at office. At that time I was not sure what would come out of it. But I was certainly sure of one thing. At that moment, T8 was definitely the most unpopular member of the team.

 One week later

 We met in office on Monday morning. Something was different. Everyone was subdued. No bantering or jokes, as was usual in our meetings. I waited for them to open up, but there was silence. I had to prod them.

Me: So how was it?

T2: (After a long pause) It was different.
Me: How so?
T2: I don’t know how to explain… but it was different
Me: And how has it been for the rest?
(All together): Different!
Me: Have you people discussed this before coming in?
T3: No, we just met in office
Me: But you all will have to tell me more about this ‘different’. Just saying it was different doesn’t help!

Another long pause

 T4: Let me try and explain what I felt. I felt that all things that I worry about, everything that I get stressed about are so meaningless.

Me: Please elaborate…
T4: These youngsters are fighters. They have such a tough life, and yet they manage to laugh and smile…
Me: Anything else?
T1: The  most amazing thing for me was that in spite of their origins, they have dreams to better their lot. And in spite of hardships they are not willing to give up their dreams.
T2: But it’s sad to see them get bogged down with their day-to-day struggles. Some of them are intelligent enough to be in the top colleges.
Me: Anything else?

I knew I was provoking them While they were sharing their feelings and emotions, I was sounding like an emotionless b*****d. But I was doing it on purpose. I somehow knew that the answer was in the feelings that they were sharing, and not the experiences themselves.

 T4: One customer came in with his wife and son. They wanted to shop for their son’s birthday. After they left, this sales guy cane to me and said, ”you know they spent more in 15 minutes than what I earn by slogging for a month.” It was heart-breaking.

 Aha! The first clue was here.

 T7: I went with one sales girl to her home. The entire family of five people live in just one room. They don’t have much, but they made me feel so welcome. I doubt if I can ever match their hospitality.

Here was the second clue..

It went on for some time. Finally I had to conclude.

 Me: I hear three things. One, dreams, and a desire to rise above origins. Second reconciliation with the fact that they work in an environment where people are spending more money in minutes than they earn in a month and third, adjustment to the reality of working in an environment which is more luxurious than where they live. Have I missed something?

T4: No that about sums it up.
Me: So now can we work on an initiative that can address all these three issues?

Normally when we designed any development initiative, there always was a certain amount of excitement. But this time it was different. It was almost like a missionary zeal. It was like suddenly they had an opportunity to do something about a situation which till then they had just helplessly observed. This time the excitement and energy was unbelievable. I guess each one of them had also grown through the experience.

Our Gurukool journey had thus begun.

 To be continued

 

 

The 'Hanging' Organizations

About four years ago, I quit my corporate job to begin as an independent HR consultant. In the course of this period I have interacted with the CEOs, Business  and HR heads of a number of companies for exploring business opportunities. Some of them have worked out, while some have not. I have categorized them as ‘Go’ and ‘No Go’ organizations. There is however a third category, that I call  ‘Hanging’ Organizations. One is never sure if you are in or out with them. And they never tell. It is almost as if informing you whether you will be working with them or not is violating some provision of the Official Secrets Act.

Each one of these organizations has a unique way of keeping you hanging. Ultimately there is closure. Either one just gives up and stops following up, or they will come around reluctantly to tell you, “Sorry we don’t have the budgets”, or “we have postponed the project to next year”…

However there is one experience which has become a case study in perseverance to see who will give up first. This organization is in a highly competitive industry in the IT sector. I am giving below a chronological sequence of events:

 Day 1

I get a call from the Training Manager of the company. He has got my reference from someone and wants to meet me in connection with a training project. We set up a meeting three days hence.

 Day 4

I meet the Training Manager. He tells me that the employee satisfaction survey has thrown up an issue regarding internal customer service. So they would like to initiate development program for support functions for improving internal customer service. We discuss the issues involved. I need to get back to them with a proposal and program design. They need it fast as they would like to launch the project by the next month.

 Week 2

I send the workshop design and proposal to the training manager.

 Week 3 & 4

No response

 Week 5

I call the training manager to check. I am told that he is trying to organize a meeting with the business HR Head, who is also the process owner for this project. He will call me as soon as the meeting is fixed.

 Week 6

No response

 Week 7

I get a call from the training manager. The meeting with the HR Head has been fixed for next week.

 Week 8

I meet the training manager and discuss the program design. We discuss the need to meet with some of the internal customers and service providers to get a deeper understanding of the issues involved. The training manager has to organize the meeting

 Week 9

No response

 Week 10

I get a call from the training manager. The meeting will now take place only with the service providers in the HR department.

 Week 11

I meet the service providers in the HR department. Based on the interactions, I send a revised program design. I am informed that someone from the purchase department will contact me for the price finalisation.

 Week 12

No response

 Week 13

I call the training manager to check about progress. I am told that the purchase department will get in touch shortly

 Week 14

I get a call from a person from the purchase department. The gist of the conversation between me and the purchase department representative (PDR) is given below:

 PDR: I understand that you are being considered as a vendor for a training program by us

Me: That’s right

PDR: I am looking at the rate that you have quoted. It’s too high.

Me: How do you decide if the rate is too high or not?

PDR: We have got quotes for training from other vendors and your quote is much higher.

Me: Have you got quotes for the same program for which I have given?

PDR: No but that should not matter. A training program is a training program.

Me; So you thing there is no difference between one program and another?

PDR: What difference? It’s like buying a printer. You have so many brands, but they do the same thing.

 I give up. What can I explain to the PDR? Explaining the difference between training programs would entail conducting a full fledged training workshop for him.

 Me: This is my final quote, and I cannot reduce it.

PDR: Then it will be difficult for me to give approval. But let me discuss this internally and we will get back to you.

 Week 15 & 16

No response. I conclude this is one of the ‘No Go’ interactions. How wrong I was.

Week 17

I get a call from the training manager. The quote has been approved. He will now finalise the dates and get back to me

 Week 18 & 19

No response

 Week 20

I call the training manager and am told I need to meet the Training Head. When I ask the reason for the meeting, I am told that this is a very important initiative and cannot happen unless approved by the training head.

 Week 21, 22 & 23

No response

 Week 25

I get to meet the training head. A brief meeting where I am told that I need to do a mock run of the program in front of a few people including the training head. It is only after this they will decide whether to work with me or not.

 Week 28

I do the mock run of the program. Attendees are the training head, the business HR head and one business head. At the end of it I am told that we are going ahead. The training manager will now finalise the dates.

 Week 29, 30, 31

No response

 Week 32

The training manager informs me that someone from purchase department will get in touch regarding issuance of a formal purchase order.

 Week 33 & 34

No response

 Week 35

I get a call from the Purchase Department Representative (PDR). The conversation goes like this:

 PDR: I understand that you are being considered as a vendor for a training program by us

Me: That’s right

PDR: I am looking at the rate that you have quoted. It’s too high.

 I am speechless for a moment.

 Me: But we had agreed upon the rates long time ago.

PDR: Yes more than six months ago

Me: So why are we re-opening the topic now?

PDR: Exactly for that reason. Six months is a long time. We have to renegotiate.

Me: I repeat what I said then. I will not change the quote.

PDR: Then I will have to speak internally and get back to you.

 Week 37

I call the training manager to ask about renegotiation of rates. “What can I say”, he says. “We have a new training head. This is a very important initiative and she wants to be involved in it.”

This probably means that we will go through the whole cycle all over. Who knows, by that time the training manager may quit.

 I should have given up on this project a long time ago. But I was curious. I want to see where it heads towards its logical ending.

I am sure more than 7 months ago someone had decided that this project was important for the business.  And I am equally sure that the same person must have forgotten all about it by now.

And then my fellow trainers wonder why their function does not get the respect it deserves in organizations.

Trainers or Enter-Trainers?

The sales head of our company sat next to me in the cafeteria during lunch break. “Nitin, we need your help. We need a training program for our frontline sales force”. A business head asking for assistance from the training function! A new experience… I forgot my lunch and perked up. “What kind of training?” “I don’t know”, he replied. “Anything… team building, customer service, leadership, it doesn’t matter. But it should not be for more than 2-3 hours.” I was perplexed. “What is the training need?” I asked. This got him upset. “Isn’t it your responsibility to provide development for the employees of this company?” he asked crossly.  “Yes, but I need to know what is it that I am supposed to develop.” “You figure that out. But we need a training program. Please let me know by tomorrow what you are going to do.”

I was really confused. I figure it out? How am I going to do that? It was his team. He would know best about the development needs of his team. And what was his team size? And three hours??!! I spent rest of the day mulling over the issue and finally before leaving for home, I went back to the Sales Head. “Look”, I said. “I have been wrestling with this issue for better part of the day and I cannot figure out what needs to be done. So please help me out”.

He was silent for a few moments then as if enlightenment had dawned upon him, he smiled. “Oh! I forgot you are new to this function. Ok, then let me explain. My sales team has been working hard to meet the targets for last quarter. I want to give them a break. I want to take them outstation for a night so they can party. But you know how the budget constraints are. No one will approve the expenses. But if I can call it a training workshop, then I will get the approval. But I don’t want too much work. That’s why I don’t want it to be for more than 2-3 hours. Make them play a few games. Give them a little gyan… They can have fun for rest of the time”.  

I should have been furious with this. But I was not. I was amused. A little upset perhaps, but more amused. So this is the role that the Training function has to play. The role of an entertainer, or rather enter-trainer. But I was not going to let it happen. At least not on my watch. So I refused. Very politely. “I am sorry but I will not be able to help you in this. If you have any development need in your people, where an intervention will help improve business then let’s talk. But not for this”.

The word got around. And people concluded that I am not a “Team Player”. The best part was when in my annual appraisal, someone mentioned in the peer review section that I needed development inputs in ‘team work’. Since peer review is  anonymous, it is not possible to find who it was. But I am quite sure it was our Sales Head.

Trainer Group Meeting - My First and the last

Time and again I would get invites from various trainer groups to become a member and attend their periodic meetings. There are quite a few in the city. For a long time I resisted. Mainly because I was still trying to come to terms with the function, and believed that being a rank amateur, I would actually be a misfit. But then there were a whole lot of questions that were piling up in my mind, and so I decided to attend one of them. Primarily, to see if my fellow professionals could help resolve some of these questions.

There were about 30 people who had come. The meeting was held in a conference room of a company whose training head was the president of this group. The meeting began with every one exchanging visiting cards. An effort at networking, you might say. Then one of my fellow trainers was invited to give a talk.

“Training function is a stepchild in most companies”, he began. “We are the least respected department. Whenever there are financial constraints, our budgets are the first to get axed. We never get invited to any strategy meetings. We have no say in the future of the organization…” It went on and on and finally concluded on a very sombre note, “Training departments in companies have the most useless people. It is high time that managements gave us the respect and importance that we deserve. After all we do play an important and useful role.” Everyone clapped. There was an indignant look on almost everyone’s face. How dare the management treat us like that! What ignorance! Don’t they realize the noble work that we are doing? The philistines!!

The moderator then asked if anyone had anything to add. I should have kept quiet, had my tea and gone back. They say fools rush where angels fear to tread. I guess I am the biggest  of them all. I rush where even other fools fear to tread. But then in my entire work life, no one had called me useless before.  And so I walked up to the head table and to say my piece.

“I am not a professional trainer. I come from HR background and all my previous experience has been in that function. Nothing to do with training. I didn’t volunteer to be transferred to this department. My company asked me to go there. So by your definition, my company decided that I am pretty useless to them. But my question is why would a company want to spend money on something that is useless? Why not just throw me out? No business organization exists for charity. At the end of the day all companies are looking for profits. You say management does not respect us. My question is, what have we done to earn that respect? No company that I know of has ever cut budgets when it comes to technical training. Maybe that’s because they can see a direct impact of that training on the bottom line. Maybe they have not been able to see the impact that behavioural training can make. Maybe we have not really made the effort to show that impact. Maybe we ourselves are not convinced that it does make an impact. No company or its management in its sound mind will ignore something that helps improve profits. So maybe we need to look inwards before we start blaming organizations and their management for our woes”.

I walked back to my seat. Needless to say, there was no clapping this time. Complete silence.,.

Networking is a great thing. The word must have gone around. I was never invited to any of these trainer group meetings again…