We’ve all been there — yawning, fidgeting and day dreaming in cold boardrooms as speakers display slide after slide and reel out technical jargon. You can’t escape and you hardly end up learning anything. Organisations are waking up to these facts and, where the training industry is valued at a whopping `5,000 crore, what its employees imbibe through the workshops cannot be taken lightly. Corporates are therefore turning to unorthodox means to train their staff, using experts from the field of arts. So, where there were PowerPoint presentations, now there are power-packed performances of plays, where numbers were being crunched, martial arts moves are making a mark and where notes were being jotted down, musical notes are being sung in harmony.
And if you think they are just gimmicks, hang on. These workshops not only break the ice among employees but build team spirit, bring out leadership qualities, help shed inhibitions and make the participants open to new ideas and changes in work patterns, engage in better communication, add their input to the ideation process and build confidence, which is the aim of any organisation.
Paul Mathew, founder and facilitator,CorporateTheatre
Innovative trainer Paul Mathew gives us a startling insight, “Studies show that the exertion or stress a body goes through during a theatrical performance is as severe as that of an accident victim. And yet, theatre artists say it’s fun. Mountaineering is an activity where life and death is a hand/foot hold away, and yet, mountaineers call it exhilarating. So why is it that people don’t find their jobs as exciting?” he asks. “The idea is not to change the person; it is to change the attitudes and environment,” he explains.
No matter what their USP or what technique is employed — be it theatre, music, martial arts or poetry — the positive results and repeated requests point to their success.
Under the watchful eyes of the experts, you learn to let go of the corporate strait jacket and laugh, play, act and sing and get in touch with your inner child. The goal is simple: to create an experience that leaves you with great insight in to yourself and your job.
For someone who has been involved in theatre since his school days, the power of team dynamics was one Paul experienced on stage. “An effective individual, team, or organisation has to be in a state of constant adaptation and response, for which one needs to be constantly learning.,” he says.
A former Army officer, Paul led teams as regional manager for Godrej and realised that his teams could benefit from the dynamics of integration, collaboration, communication, creativity, discipline, customer focus and pressure management – all qualities naturally developed in a good theatre group. He began to experiment with theatre workshops for the teams at his workplace and found that employees began to enjoy their work in spite of the pressure. This spread to other teams at Godrej, and, slowly, other organisations. That is when he decided to take the plunge into training through theatre full-time and started ’CorporateTheatre’.
A motivational person, Paul says, “The awareness and confidence that we need to deliver excellence and enjoy it under changing and challenging conditions is already immediately, abundantly, and instinctively available with us right now. The workshops help one tap into these resources and also explores what one needs to do as a leader to create and sustain a strong team environment.”
CorporateTheatre’s methodology being experiential, its impact is fully understood by experiencing one of their workshops. To give a gist, there is no hierarchy followed at the sessions, no cell phones allowed and everyone is encouraged to shed their inhibitions with what Paul calls “silly, sillier and absolutely silly games”.
“CorporateTheatre uses theatre tools to put participants in touch with their immense possibilities as individuals and as teams and to deliver excellence and enjoy it, under changing and challenging conditions,” he says.
Over 1,800 workshops and 39,000 participants stand testimony to Mathew’s ‘silly games’ since 2002. He insists there are no lectures or presentations or handouts during the one-day workshops – just simple fun, where he is also a participant. His methods are inspired by ‘The Wisdom of Teams’ by Jon Katzenbach, and Douglas Smith, published by Harvard Business School Press, which studied the critical ingredients of high performance teams across a wide variety of organisations and work environments.
For a team of 25-35 people, CorporateTheatre workshop costs around `80,000. Paul’s clients include Airtel, Standard Chartered bank, Cognizant, Polaris, Hyundai and HCL Technologies. More on Paul’s methods at www.theatreforlearning.blogspot.in.
Shihan Hussaini, Martial arts
President of the All India Isshinryu Karate Association, eighth degree black belt in karate, fifth degree black belt in taekwondo, an archery enthusiast or toxophilite, kick boxing champion and teacher, Shihan Hussaini believes that self defence and martial arts can instill in anyone the qualities needed for success in corporate careers. He observes, “There seems to be a high percentage of corporate employees who aren’t motivated, aren’t achieving peak performance and feel stagnated in their careers; and a huge chunk of the demoralised population seems to be women! They have something called ‘soda bottle enthusiasm’, one that fizzles out after the initial pop.”
Martial arts is a tool that makes a person stronger, courageous, focused and motivated and help them make gains that are sustainable, says Hussaini prescribing the cure for the malady.
Be it the workout exercises or clapping, the group exercises in his workshops aim to help people break out of their shells and focus on sustaining their strength till victory. “Apart from recognising their strengths and weaknesses, one must also be able to gauge their opponent’s strength. They say you should know yourself and your opponent well to improve your chances of winning,” says Hussaini.
When he urges people to indulge in sparring, the chink in their armour is discovered. He then trains them to convert their mind and body into a weapon because, “in daily life or at work, women seem to be under a lot of pressure as well as threat. They must keep strengthening their ‘astram’ (weapon) and treat pain as an ally.”
Hussaini also engages the 200-300 participants that attend every session with the Buddhist singing bowl which, according to ancient wisdom, helps tune the mind. “IT professionals become tired and disillusioned. So every martial arts session begins and ends with meditation. Confidence and inclusion are extremely important for women in any working environment. I help them with that,” he says.
TCL, HCL, Perot Systems, Infosys, Cognizant and Ajooba are some of his clients. He charges around `12,000 per group. Contact him on (+91) 9841618386.
Freddy Koikaran, Jumpstart Creative Consultancy
A hardcore theatre enthusiast, actor and director, Freddy Koikaran has had 23 years of experience on stage. Summing up what he thinks is the purpose of corporate training, he says, “As a naval officer friend of mine once said, ‘It’s better to sweat in peace than to bleed in war.’” This is applicable to hard (technical) skills or soft skills. In my case, I’m a soft skills trainer, and I firmly believe that topics and sessions that work towards personality development help make participants become better people, and not just better employees. So it’s a win-win.”
As people are the core of strong organisations, it is critical to focus on people-centric skills. Theatre gave Freddy the confidence to speak clearly and effectively, he says, – a skill that has a direct and positive impact on people. “It was a natural and logical conclusion for me that this could be a methodology that people would find engaging, and because of its opportunity to be interactive, I also realised that retention levels would be high. With my professional interest in music, it also made sense to start conducting sessions using music as a medium as well,” says Freddy.
According to him, there are seven styles of learning, namely, visual or spatial, aural, verbal, kinesthetic or physical, mathematical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. For a workshop to be effective, it needs to be able to integrate as many of these as possible, he says. “I may use a variety of methods to achieve my objectives. Using slides, giving workbooks for participants to fill out, assigning “homework” are some methods but I lean towards kinesthetic methods (learning through physical activities), as I believe it’s an easier way to keep people engaged. I focus primarily on team building, motivational training, customer service skills and leadership skills.
“I love interacting with people, so it all comes together during a session, and I think the proof is in repeated assignments from clients,” remarks Freddy, who charges based on client need, duration and preparation required. He charges around `5,000 per hour.
“However, when I conduct music sessions as part of team building, sessions cannot last more than 60 – 90 minutes at a stretch, simply because of fatigue levels. So I’ve conducted sessions as quick as 10 minutes or as lengthy as two days! It all depends on the time commitment that the participants (and the organisation) are willing to make,” he says.
While Freddy has a regular assignment as a consultant with a design solutions company called 2adpro, he has also held workshops for the Residency Group of Hotels, Club Mahindra, Airtel, Witco, HCL, Real Image, Cognizant, the American International School, and others. He has also done stand-alone sessions for SIFY, Vodafone, Vijay Shanthi Builders, Standard Chartered, Lawrence and Mayo, TCS, Visual Graphics (McKinsey), GFK Mode, and Ericsson, to name a few.
Freddy has a busy future in training, having developed two theatre-based programmes. One is called Spotlight, and focuses on theatre as a craft, through which parallels can be drawn for project management.
The other is called CenterStage, where he has taken five topics pertaining to theatre and drawn a correlation for each one to a professional skill. For eg, skills required for acting can be converted to those needed for public speaking and presentation, direction skills are similar to those needed to be an effective leader, brand promotion can translate to project management and customer service, scheduling for a play would be similar to time management skills at work and lastly, managing the intricacies of stage management I similar to conducting effective interpersonal communication.
“I also have a programme called iDrum, which uses drumming as an opportunity to build high-performance teams. I’ve conducted this for a few clients in Chennai, such as Sathyam Cinemas,” he says. More at www.jumpstartcc.weebly.com.
Sunil Vishnu K, Karthik Kumar,
TM Karthik – Sideways training
Belonging to a similar school of thought that believes in looking at training from a different angle, their venture is aptly named, Sideways Training. “Just by making people experience an art form, you can change the whole process of learning,” says Sunil Vishnu K, co-founder of Sideways Training. If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, this three-and-a-half year old venture has around 75 clients like Google, Vodafone, Cognizant and Accenture and offices in Chennai, Bangalore and now Singapore.
Started by Sunil, Karthik and TMK, team Sideways now has six members who come with corporate/business experience combined with a degree of interest in performing arts. The guys behind Evam Entertainment, Sunil and Karthik, have implemented various tools to train – theatre, music, dance, simulation games, cooking, even golf.
“We are very methodology-driven. We integrate several tools if necessary. The content is developed by experts and built to be engaging; participants learn by doing. We have developed around 45 modules at all levels from induction for freshers, brand value building among mid-level managers, time management, conflict resolution, breaking silos, leadership principles and strategy for top-level managers,” says Vishnu.
Their workshops vary in duration – from half a day to a one-year continuous programme with multiple interventions. They even teach managers how to do performance appraisals and deliver feedback in a kind and effective manner, and try to cultivate a culture of innovation among participants.
“A common concern we have seen is one of inclusion and equality in corporate spaces to accept and support women. We have worked with several groups like Standard Chartered and Accenture to develop confidence among women and empower them,” he says.
Techniques that lead to the creation of a story or actor can be used in the corporate world and this can give rise to some good practices – open communication, ownership, empathy, trust — and can help people work with egos.
Sunil believes there is a lot that can be done in this space, like promoting the use of technology to make workshops more effective. They charge around `85,000-1 lakh per day for a batch of 20-25 people. Alternatively, they also offer to spice up conferences by creating an activity centered around a theme to liven up the audience for 45 minutes and create a point of reference to the theme of the conference.
They also work on removing the language barrier by using the local language (mostly Tamil or Hindi) and also employ cricket analogy for participants to relate better. Get to know more at www.trainingsideways.in.
Mishti Varma Thapar, Inner Katha Interventions
“Learning is a dynamic process and people learn best when they are actively engaged and involved in the learning process. Instructional methods of learning are more passive methods, where the learner only listens and receives information,” says founder Mishti Thapar. Inner Katha supports a dynamic fun-based learning through forum theatre, poetry jamming, movement and expressive arts, coupled with structured time-tested corporate training techniques. “Theatre and expressive arts have tremendous transformative power. These methods facilitate deeper self-awareness and personal development, in a therapeutic, supportive environment,” believes Mishti, who says they encourage sharing, feedback, free expression, action and goal setting in their programmes.
Based in Mumbai, their programmes focus on soft skills and self-development for three groups, namely, women, corporates, and students and children. They are currently working on a first-of-its-kind theatre project on gender diversity and stereotypes with eminent theatre personalities like Tom Alter. Inner Katha’s workshops cost between `55,000-1 lakh, depending on the techniques used, group size and other factors. Face the Raavan is a theatre-based module for conflict management, Navrasa and I-Self leadership with emotional balance is for middle management, apart from which there are sensitisation workshops to counter biases and to enable inclusion.
They also engage with B-school students in a programme called, “Making of a corporate”. Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore, has also utilised their services. Their corporate clients include Genpact, Hexaware, Mahindra and Sony Entertainment Television. Details at www.innerkatha.com.
Shankar Mahadevan Academy, Bangalore
Designed by the award-winning singer, ‘Let Go – Ji Bharke Jiyo’ has three modules – training for executives, team building and new employee induction through music. They also conduct in-campus programmes for corporates and online modules for employee appreciation. Music enthusiasts stand to gain from this methodology. Write to info@shankarmahadevanacademy.com for details.
— preethi@newindianexpress.com