Last time I provided a suggestion as to why training and teaching might not be as life-changing as we would like.  There is usually no element of initiation with it.  The information transmitted therefore retains the status of ‘some more facts among many’ rather than initiating a significant shift in attitude and behaviour.

Add to this another point.  When costs need cutting in an organisation, why is it that training is often the first to go?  Because its really seen a a box-ticking exercise that adds little real value or effectiveness.  It is not really expected to ‘work’.  Expectations are low.  How can we raise them?

My solution: by adding elements of initiation into the learning environment.

(1) Instead of giving information, tell stories.  Dan Pink as brought to our attention the fact that our brains require not just data and argument, but also story.  “The essence of persuasion, communication, and self-understanding has become the ability to fashion a compelling story.”

(2) Instead of exercises, have ‘trials’.  Usually in training, exercises are either fun escapist devises that allow participants to change mental gear and physical position, or a tag-on to divide up the material.  They are rarely the point.  But why not?  That would give the information a sense of urgency and focus.  By trials I don’t mean mere tests – they should only be in competition with themselves, and it shouldn’t usually be written or scored.  But it should require effort, and give them a chance to prove themselves.

(3) The teacher must be someone who has attained.  If s/he is initiating them, then they must be initiates themselves.  They must have been there, done that, got the tee-shirt.  Their purpose is to facilitate or guide the participant through this new terrain; they can do so because they have passed the same process.  During this journey, they give their stories as helps and encouragements as required.  And, importantly, they model the desired behaviour continuously.

(4) Physically remove the training from the everyday working situation.  Environment is important in the learning process.  If you want them to learn something new, to think differently, you have to take them out from their workplaces.  And I don’t mean the nearest hotel or neighbouring branch.  If they’re in a city, take them to the country (and vice versa).  If they’re already PowerPointed to death, don’t add to their pain.  Switch everything around e.g. clothes, structures, tasks.  This new context will connect in their brains forever with the new knowledge you provide.

(5) The whole period of training must be divided into two parts: moving away from the old, and  going back into the old (but as a ‘new person’).  This reflects the movement of the whole initiation as one of ‘departure’ and ‘return’.  They are departing from their own thought-and-behaviour-patterns, gaining new ones, and, armed with these, returning to their old environment.  Perhaps this means that the standard 1-day course might be split in half and divided into these two motions.

(6) There must be a ceremony to mark the passing of trials.  I don’t know what this could be yet.  Perhaps it might involve the giving of a gift, or a formal presentation of a certificate.  Or maybe something more radical.  Whatever it is, it must mesh with all that’s gone before it i.e. have meaning.  And it must represent the highpoint of the day, rather than the bit of necessary bureaucracy before everyone goes home.

Can you think of any more?

Image credit: Wonderlane.

Metaphors are powerful.  They excite the imagination.  They illuminate the sense.  They fire up the will.  Even when it comes to a word as initially dull as ’business’.

Management thinkers have traditionally employed two mataphors to explain their understanding of business activity and often justify actions that to others seem unpalatable.  That is why the first has played a part in Business Ethics over the years, while the second has  became a much beloved of motivations speakers and venture capitalists in the 80′s.

Business is a game

This idea has shown itself in different ways.  In 1968, Albert Carr wrote an outrageous and provocative article in the Harvard Business Review called Is Business Bluffing Ethical? In it he justified deception or ‘bluffing’ in business by comparing it to a ‘game strategy – much like bluffing in poker, which does not reflect on the morality of the bluffer.’  Another example of this is the successful cross-over of the activity of coaching from the sports-field to the board-room.  This trend was started by the likes of Tim Gallway (initially tennis) and John Whitemore (racing).

Business is war

Perhaps you’re familiar with this one through the 1987 film Wall Street.  In it the villain of the piece, Gordon Gekko, gives his infamous Greed is Good speech, and spouts quotations from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.  (First Principle - ’All warfare is based on deception’.  Sound familiar?  See above!)  It has provided a rich source of thought for those in corporate culture, both from an office politics and a business management viewpoint.  But the reach of this metaphor is wider than this one book.  Think about the following phrases: guerrilla marketing, ambush marketing, mission statement, marketing blitz, price wars, aggressive trading, brand warfare, bullet points.  OK I made up the last one, but you get the idea.

Business is an adventure

I’m sure you’ve heard of this: business is a journey in which we travel around meeting new people and exploring new ways of getting what we want.  Much could be said on how this is the paradigm of the future, since it encourages innovation, inclusion, imagination, and the other new ‘I’s of 21st C business life.  But I’ve come across a web-site recently that makes explicit connections between entrepreneurship and the ‘hero’s journey’ as described by Joseph Campbell (a main source for George Lucas when creating the Luke Skywalker character).  There is an fascinating piece on Joseph Campbell on Entrepreneurship as well as a bold attempt to link each of the stages of the hero’s journey with an aspect of the entrepreneurial quest here.  It’s not the best laid out site, but browse around and see what you think.

But is business only like an adventure, or is business an adventure?

What do you think?