Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL
Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL
Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
time. As an American proverb says, ‘Even nine women can not give birth a child in one<br />
month’. Training is a process, which requires to be developed <strong>and</strong> completed in respect of<br />
each planned change that should happen in participants’ minds. It takes time.<br />
Officials (in countries without wide underst<strong>and</strong>ing of the nature of training events) often try to<br />
include in training programme more topics, than it is actually possible to process within the time<br />
allocated <strong>for</strong> training. They often think they are smart enough <strong>and</strong> do not need long<br />
explanations. Just briefly, tell them, what they should do. It may be difficult to resist to their<br />
request to exp<strong>and</strong> the agenda within the same event. However, it is impossible to have a<br />
satisfactory result just saying to participants, how they should work, <strong>and</strong> live. They will listen,<br />
underst<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> agree, but do not change. The changes may happen, when certain idea come<br />
not as trainer’s statement, but has aroused as a discovery in trainees’ minds. It requires<br />
relevant time <strong>for</strong> getting certain experience <strong>and</strong> processing it by the intellectual work of<br />
participants. It requires even more time <strong>for</strong> the repetition <strong>and</strong> trans<strong>for</strong>ming new underst<strong>and</strong>ing<br />
into new skills.<br />
For example, theoretical explanation of what may be called a problem takes about 20-30<br />
minutes, including review of the most common mistakes. After that all participants are happy,<br />
they say it is interesting <strong>and</strong> they have understood it very well. However, when asked to<br />
<strong>for</strong>mulate any problem, they face tremendous difficulties, <strong>and</strong> it usually takes considerable time<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e the majority of group became able to identify a problem in a right way. Goal setting<br />
takes another half a day. Action planning takes one more day. At the end of this day, the vision<br />
of problem <strong>and</strong> its <strong>for</strong>mulation may be drastically changed <strong>and</strong> then additional time is<br />
necessary to put things in order <strong>and</strong> complete the task. Be<strong>for</strong>e the task will be completed <strong>and</strong><br />
positive feedback received, trainees would not have a feeling that they really can do it. Instead<br />
of rising self-esteem <strong>and</strong> readiness to change their practice, participants may stay disappointed<br />
<strong>and</strong> keep away from the opportunities to experience such a disappointment once more.<br />
Thus, the training may prevent required changes, rather than facilitate them. Exactly like in<br />
surgery - if there is no enough time to complete operation on a heart, it may be better not to<br />
begin it at all.<br />
On another h<strong>and</strong>, training event should never last longer, than necessary to accommodate the<br />
task <strong>and</strong> meet objectives of the client. Business people are often disappointed if they feel they<br />
spend more time than it would be necessary to have the same result. A laziness of trainers,<br />
who tend to plan less than possible to do within training session, may cause the laziness of<br />
participants, low level of involvement <strong>and</strong>, finally, intellectual ef<strong>for</strong>ts of trainees may be not<br />
sufficient to produce a result. They will not change, because positive changes, especially in<br />
198