10.10.2008
Visited the factory of Parfetti Van Melle to conduct a programme on “Basic Communication Skills”. The participants were quite young and sensitive to the need for honing their communication skills. As the workshop had numerous “fun activities” the learning was experiential and relevant. Most of the concepts I discussed were based on challenges faced in day-to-day work as an executive.
Mr. Jawahar Michael, the HRD Head gave me a few insights into the particular needs of the target group. This helped me to tune my delivery.
Immediately after the Lunch break, as the participants were assembling inside the hall, I casually enquired if they had found the session, till then had been useful. All of them confirmed that it had been useful. One of the participants, Mr. Mukesh Agarwal, a gentleman from Jharkhand was kind enough to share his experience in applying the learning on the work spot! He is a part of the purchase team and as such was responsible for supplier deliveries and quality. It is a well known phenomenon almost everywhere for purchase to constantly harangue and argue with suppliers. This time Mr. Mukesh took a leap of faith based on my suggestion that communication can be soft yet firm. He reported that when he adopted this approach, the supplier who had hitherto been somewhat unresponsive had replied responsibly and had agreed to a committed course of action for resolving the issue! This, obviously, gratified me a lot as most trainers like me sincerely want the learning from our workshops to be actually applied on the job!
While training, I don’t advocate what I have not practiced myself. When a behavioral approach works, I try to make it generic by identifying the reasons that made the approach work. These characteristics of the solution are then packaged into presentations, activities and usable content.
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