APRIL 27 — Like latte, corporate training is conceptually simple but comes in many forms. Some workshops are truly, madly and so deeply technical even Nobel Laureates would leave with their brains leaking from their ears.
Some are more accessible to average folks, although I always wonder if these same folks should simply Wiki the topic, or buy the book and save on the fees.
Some seminars are entirely centred on the superstar trainer (like Anthony Robbins, Tony Buzan or, if you’re flat outta luck, a Cabinet minister); these sessions are like concerts with notes.
Some conferences exist for marketing divisions to peddle their wares and every session is a thinly veiled commercial. And some seminars are only good for the coffee and chicken wings (more on this later).
There is corporate training where everybody is from the same company and it’s done in-house (except there’s a risk of boredom and people complaining about their jobs). Or there are public seminars open to the public (in which you meet folks from other companies and try to impress them with your job).
In a twisted sense, all the above can be umbrella-ed under “corporate training” i.e. any kind of institutionalised adult learning not associated with “obtaining an academic qualification” (see Note 1). But enough with the definitions.
The good
Corporate training sessions can showcase a lot which should make schools and colleges go green (with envy, not with trees). First, the learners are usually super-attentive (at least on the surface – in truth, they could be on Mars or Old Trafford, but they’re better at pretending).
Many people in seminars or forums demonstrate out-of-this-world enthusiasm, perhaps because a) the fees are sky-high and b) their bosses are nearby.
Still, learner participation in a corporate setting is usually a professor’s wet-dream. Even when the learners are on their smart-phones, it’s done “politely” and facilitators don’t usually throw all the devices out the window.
Also, the table arrangements and conversations are more conducive for interactive learning and group discussions. Compare these with the factory-like seating of the average classroom – are we manufacturing products or taking exams? (Or maybe it’s the same difference?)
The bottom line is that if you’re a corporate trainer, the need to grab the attention of your audience is much less urgent than if you’re giving a Business Studies 101 lecture to a bunch of 19-year-olds.
But my kudos more or less stop here.
The not so good
Fundamentally, a lot of corporate folks mirror the same mistakes made by Harvard professors: They equate teaching with talking and listening with learning. There is just so much jabber going on I sometimes wonder if this is a ceramah or what?
Worse, given the attention to decorum and formality, many corporate trainers print out their slides and give them out (in the form of a phone-book-thick folder) prior to the session. The rationale for these forest-killing binders is that participants can better “follow” the presentations.
Honestly? That’s a load of crapola. If the presentations and audio-visual stuff are top-notch, a separate write-up for participants to “follow” only produces distraction. It’s like if Steve Jobs is speaking, do you really need an outline of his speech?
Third, you can surmise the priority of a workshop by what’s on the table. What do we usually see? Sweets. Mints. Water. Huh? What would help a lot more? Marker pens. Graphical templates. Post-its. No? I thought we were trying to learn something, as opposed to enjoying Candyland.
One conference in Glasgow set up a Tweet tag with a prize for best tweet – how cool is that? Participants were encouraged to share on-the-spot ideas, potentially inviting outsiders to comment, creating a virtuous cycle of socially mediated learning.
But you know this won’t happen too often in Malaysia because a) wifi in training rooms is as rare as the Sumatran Blue Rhino and b) trainees usually use their data plans not to report on the workshops but to comment on how the beehoon lacked salt.
Which brings me to my next point: Surely the insane amount of food is worth reflecting on? A hundred varieties of kuih muih, a boat-load of popiah and enough pizza to give Papa John a heart attack – and all before lunch. Is this a tea-break for a hundred executives or supplies for a million refugees?
This is why for many workshops, the immediate two hours after lunch is impossible. If the trainer talks about “service streamlining”, all everybody hears is “siesta dream-landing.”
Protocol, learning and catastrophe
Yes, protocol. With children or even some young adults in college, honesty and straight-forwardness is a common thing. Students may not always ask nicely but since there are usually exam scores at stake, the questions tend to come fast and furiously.
But in corporate training? You sometimes get the impression that people are more concerned to jaga their corporate image/status than they are to learn. This is especially so if more than half the participants are wearing jackets.
The “play it safe” mentality tends to overrule the “let’s ask hard questions to get a totally new mind-trip” one. Even if questions arise, they’re almost never boat-rocking.
The problem, of course, is that education in the corporate world tends to echo everything else in that same world: High-ranking folks are usually expected to challenge the status quo, whereas mere mortals are expected to simply nod and act inspired.
Perhaps this is also one reason why, in corporate seminars, there is a palpable reluctance to discuss failure. Companies (and families, schools and nations?) prefer to overload themselves with talk of success and greatness, to the point that very few people understand how to deal with setbacks or catastrophes in life.
We love talking about “how to avoid disaster”, but this is a very different topic from “how to cope and adapt when unexpected tragedy hits.”
Many things hit us in an unpredictable way, beyond our control or even avoidance (think natural disasters, difficult relationships, financial scandals, etc.). How can this insight enrich the dimension of training? How may the knowledge that life and work is more erratic than we think help improve our corporate education?
For starters, maybe facilitators should give up more control. Forget about nailing down facts and info – that’s a lost cause (and “success” is deceptive).
What about creating a space where “anything” can happen and anyone can learn or teach anyone else? Boundaries can be set, of course, but learning flourishes best when freedom (to try, to play, to work, to fail) reigns.
Unless we’re talking about writing in Chinese or marching in a band or regurgitating dogma, learning is best done when we say to participants, “Make this yours, own it and go make a dent in the universe with it. Try hard, try smart, try again. Succeed, make a wrong move, succeed, fall down, get up again, keep working, succeed – that’s what it’s all about.”
Note 1: There is of course the open secret that many corporate training sessions are really about business networking and nothing else.
But shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… it’s a secret.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
