Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

8.4 RULES. “Free choice” is one of the essential conditions in the learning process. When there is
no choice, and then there is no responsibility, no lesson, and no change. However, finally
everyone should do what is necessary to do for the success of training and not to do anything,
which may destroy the process. It cannot be reached through the direct control of participants
by trainer; many of them would not allow this. Nevertheless, it may be ensured through the selfregulation
of the group, if certain rules have been discussed and agreed at the beginning of the
course. Usually, participants have no objection against the rules proposed, when these rules
look reasonable and even a bit curious. Later, these rules help a lot to trainer in keeping control
over the process (since following these rules is included in the design).
8.5 TRANSLATION. Naturally, the training process goes better, when trainer speaks the native
language of trainees, but it is not always possible. It is also impossible to have an optimal result
when using even very qualified professional interpreter. It makes a process too slow, and
anyway, distortions inevitable. If interpreter is not very professional – it makes disaster. When
trainees speak trainer’s language and understand him well enough, trainer may still not
understand the audience, especially when they collaborate in-groups or have an active general
discussion. It makes control over the process hardly possible. Of course, if the process is well
designed, something positive will happen, but not as much as would be possible to reach
without ‘language barrier’.
Any verbal communication acquires a sense only after transferring through the mental
thesaurus of recipient. The culture, education, and life experience build up this thesaurus, which
became very specific for the each given audience. Therefore, direct translation of words will
never transmit the same sense. One, who would decide to make a correct transmission, should:
a) Understand the message, which means he should not only hear the speech, but see the
mental map of speaker, to make a right conclusion what these words mean for him;
b) See the mental map of recipients and spell out what the message may mean for them;
c) Design a new message focusing on the same content in a different form, which would
produce the effect in recipient mind, which was expected by speaker.
To be able to do so, this one who decide to be interpreter, should have a thesaurus somehow
‘overlapping’ corresponding areas in sender and recipient mental maps. That is not possible if
the interpreter is not an expert in the matter. In practice, it means that when one trainer do not
know well the language and mentality of the audience, he should be accompanied by another
trainer, speaking both languages. The second one could be not expert in this particular topic,
but he should have sufficient theoretical background and practical experience to understand
well both sides of communication. Then he will be able to explain what do they think, instead of
translating what do ‘they say’.
206