Trivializing Training: BY LATIKA KAUL

Imagine this:

Your friend gets a brand new car and invites you for a drive. When you reach his house, you are awestruck at the sight of his brand new car. It’s shiny, black spotless paint is almost blinding and the smell of the interior leather is immensely inviting. You both finally sit in the car and your friend puts his key in the ignition. The roar of a new car. Wow! You relax and stretch yourself on the passenger seat and casually ask your friend.

“You didn’t even tell me, you were learning to drive and now suddenly a new car and license”

“I don’t have a license.”

“You don’t have a license?”

“No bro. Don’t know how to drive only, how will I get a license!!”

“WHAT?? You don’t know how to drive?”

“Nah. But I have played enough GTA, so don’t worry”

What will you do next?

If you will not leave the fate of your life in the hands of an untrained driver, why risk the life of your company?

Even though my experience in the training field is very limited, I often wonder why organizations even conduct trainings in the first place….

• Is it because while recruiting, employees were promised growth and development?

• Or, because they have some funds allotted for L&D, which need to be utilized?

• Or better yet, because of certain mandates?

The answers to all these questions should be a big NO, but sadly it isn’t.

Today, many organizations conduct trainings largely for the above reasons and in doing so they rob themselves and their employees of the many benefits an effective training program can offer. 

 Training will develop your employees’ skills. Skilled employees:

- Make lesser mistakes

- Require minimum supervision 

- Are better equipped to handle challenging situations. 

 Training can not only become a recruitment tool but also an effective retention tool. The youth today is not satisfied with a big paycheque. They want to develop and grow. As an employer, this trait can actually make your work even simpler. These employees will be more eager to attend training workshops, which will develop them and your organization. 

 An effective training program can help build trust of your employees in you. This, in turn, increases their job satisfaction, loyalty and reduces attrition. 

 Training can also add flexibility and efficiency. Employees can be cross-trained to become proficient in the different aspects of the organization. This will help keep them interested and will be extremely useful during times of vacant positions or absenteeism. 

 Training has become essential for knowledge transfer. In-house training, or trainings conducted by an experienced member of a team will ensure that there are enough people to take charge if the particular experienced person leaves the company. Mostly, trainings assure that both employees and organizations are not stagnant but always emerging and growing.

These benefits might provoke you to conduct trainings for the right reason. But that is not enough.

Trainings will be of no use until they are executed perfectly. This execution begins from initial planning but does not end at the completion of training. Yes, there is more to training than just arranging for a trainer and holding a two-day training workshop. Training continues even after the workshop is over, but not many organizations help in driving the post workshop training.

Even during training, employees face challenges such as:

- Urgent calls or emails

- Arriving late or leaving early due to work commitments

- Sudden meetings or clients that need to be attended to

- Attending programs which are not relevant for their particular roles

Training needs to be planned keeping the employee’s roles and competencies in mind. They need to be prioritized and arranged well so that the employee can attend the program without any baggage from work. Another important point that needs to be addressed is that of management and staff support. An employee can harness all the benefits of training only when his colleagues and his supervisors support him. These employees can be supported by:

 They should be able to focus on the training with undivided attention. This means no work related calls or emails.

 The management has to support the employees in practicing what they have learned in their training. This could mean giving them assignments that will help them inculcate their learned skills or behaviours. They need to be given time to effectively apply all that they have learned.

 Employees can be assessed on how well they apply their learned skills. This well help in keeping them motivated and can also provide a chance for the organization to assess how cost-effective the training was.

By considering the above points, a training program can be made more successful and valuable to the employees and to the organization. 

So, let us not trivialize a training program by conducting substandard TNA’s and hiring unqualified trainers.

Let us not trivialize a training program by randomly selecting a date for the workshop or by completing it as a compulsion.

 Let us definitely not trivialize a training program by trivializing its importance. 

Conducting an effective training program is a huge responsibility which if shouldered correctly will reap your organization a sizable yield. This responsibility will obviously require a great deal of effort. There is a 100% certainty of headaches and maybe some ulcers and perhaps what organizations avoid the most- “spending money”. But, once again please imagine this situation:

CFO asks the CEO: “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?”

CEO: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

Leadership- Nature or Nurture - By Shohrat Shankar

I have spent many years researching “Leadership qualities” by attending programs, reading various authors, articles, studying models, having intense discussions with some people (especially my father) and finally consolidating them into a 12 point list. Though everyone might not agree with this list, I feel there would not be many who would completely disagree.

The qualities are listed below:

Passion
Honesty & Integrity

Visionary

Empowering

Optimism

Role model

Engaging

Influencing

Empathy

Learning Mindset

Flexibility

Self- awareness

The question however is; are people born leaders? Or can Leadership be developed?

Many people say that we have certain qualities or personalities and no matter what we do, these qualities cannot be changed. This is the eternal debate between Nature vs Nurture.

The point though is that can we nurture a child to have a head start with some Leadership traits?

Can we Nurture a child to have:

• Passion for things that he does?

• Honesty & Integrity ingrained as a part of life?

• More optimism and courage to take things into their own hands and be the “Masters of their own fate”? 

• A dogged and persevering approach to convincing and influencing people?

I believe that some of these traits might be natural; however, need to be developed and nurtured. If not done, then a child with potential might never fulfil his or her destiny.

Passion

Do we as parents let our children explore their passions, do we help them choose and chase what they desire? Or is it what “we” desire? 

Do we demonstrate and inspire them by showing how passionate we are about things? Can they see the Passion for achievement, success and most importantly “Life”, in all that we do?

Or do they see someone working hard and toiling listlessly, not knowing what they are aiming for?

Do they see fun, excitement and enthusiasm in our eyes when we talk about our work or the drudgery, fatigue and stress? 

Can they sense and understand what drives me as a person? Is it me “the parent”, “the spouse”, “the bread winner” or just “ME and My Passion for Life”?

I wonder ….. I really wonder….

Honesty & Integrity

Many of us would want our children to be honest and have integrity, yet do not want to take the effort to instil those qualities.

How many times have we seen parents make small false promises to their kids? I’ve heard parents say, “Let’s go home and I will give you a chocolate”, even though they have no intention of doing so.

Or something simpler where they will promise to take the child for a movie the next day, just so that they keep quiet now.

In fact I could go on and on…. I’m sure many of us could.

Now what happens when promises made to a child are left unfulfilled, what happens to his sense of trust and belief? How much is he driven to keep to his promises and commitments?

From experience I have seen my son tends to listen and accept when I say “When Daddy makes a promise, does he always fulfill it?” he doesn’t really have much to say, nor does he throw a tantrum when he is sure that what is promised WILL happen. 

This teaches him the importance and necessity of sticking to his word and commitments.

The other day while riding on the bike with my son, he suddenly started   saying “Come to your side, come to your side” at first I didn’t get what he was saying. On asking him I realised we had crossed slightly onto the other side of the road and I was on the dividing line. It seems he had learned in school about rules of the road and some do’s and don’ts. I immediately apologised to him and came back onto my side of the road. 

Now in this case some parents might have justified what they were doing or even mocked what the teacher said or just ignored the child and continued to drive the way they wanted. 

Any behaviour the child sees that clashes with what he knows to be right can cause him to question what truly is, ‘the right thing to do’? It then leads to a dilution of right and wrong in his mind and that further magnifies as he grows up.

What we need to ask ourselves is….. What value system are we nurturing and developing in our children? What values are we demonstrating? Are we strengthening their sense of what is right or diluting it?

Optimism and “Masters of their own fate”

When my son had just learnt to stand and walk…I saw him standing in front of a pretty high stool one day. I could see that he wanted to get on top, but wasn’t too sure. I remember saying to him, “you can climb and you will surely reach the top”. He looked at me and tried to tell me that he wanted me to put him on top. Now that was the easy option!

Instead I told him to climb and showed him where to put his first leg, next leg and pull himself up. With a little effort and a few slips and falls he managed to get up (I was there to save a big fall, the little ones I let happen).

On the top he looked very pleased with himself, but soon he wanted to get down. Getting down looked really scary to him and just then my wife walked in and told me to “Put him down this instant, he can fall and hurt himself.” 

I believed that as he had learned to climb by himself, he would do it more and more often and maybe sometimes when there is no one there. Keeping that in mind it was necessary for him to learn how to get down on his own. That way he is less likely to hurt himself when we are not there. So I taught him how to get down and like any good kid, he immediately practised going up and down a few times. Much to the dislike of my wife.

Now what would some other parents have done? 

•  Stopped the child from climbing for fear of him hurting himself. Told him not climb as it is risky and he can get hurt.

•  Picked the child up and placed him on the stool

•  Then lifted the child down

In doing any of these behaviours repeatedly in different situations, how does it affect the mind-set of the child?

•  Does he start doubting his capabilities?

•  Is there a chance that he will grow up unwilling to take risks?

•  Will he always be scared of falling and hurting himself?

•  Could he always expect people to do things for him?

•  What would happen to his Locus of Control?

Influencing people

How much do we as parents encourage our children to discuss, question and negotiate with us? I agree it is exhausting and tiring, yet if we do not what could the long term outcome be?

Have we seen people at work bend their heads and quietly accept whatever a person in authority says? No matter whether they agree or understand.

Where does this behaviour come from?

I believe it comes from the nurturing received at home and in school. It comes from how much the child is allowed to express himself and most importantly how we interact with him when there is a disagreement or a clash in views and wants.

A child always looks for a WIN in any discussion that he gets into, what happens if we do not give him that WIN and enforce our view instead.

A child used to a LOSE-WIN or WIN-LOSE during his childhood grows up expecting or behaving in the same manner when he grows up. This is better explained in “Transactiona

l Analysis”.

Do we:

•  work towards WIN-WIN negotiations with our kids

•  treat our kids as equals 

•  value and respect their views, needs and desires

•  discuss, debate and be willing to negotiate with them today so that they have the skills and the mind-set to be able to do it tomorrow

Do we introspect enough about our behaviours and actions with our kids and how they will influence or impact the kid in his or her journey as an adult?