I can be described as a victim of training. It so happened that over my career, the number of various seminars, training sessions, and coaching sessions has long surpassed a hundred. I can confidently say that not all of the educational courses I have taken were useful, interesting, or important. Some of them were downright harmful.
What motivation do HRs have to teach you something?
I don’t know who told HRs that if someone is struggling at work, it’s due to a lack of knowledge. There could be many reasons: internal processes in the company, hidden motivations within the team, the objective situation in the market. There are countless variations. But sooner or later, the idea of the life-giving power of new knowledge appears from somewhere. And now dozens of managers rush into closed rooms in search of the holy grail. All these amphitheater meetings, flipcharts, presentations, motivational speeches, case studies, brainstorming sessions contribute absolutely nothing. Time wasters. I remember once I attended three identical workshops on the same agenda. The person organizing them lived by the paradigm: “Bored and lonely? Hold a meeting!”. And so, dozens of usually busy people gathered in corporate meeting rooms, fervently discussed something, and then dispersed without visible results. And what’s most astonishing is that after a while, it all repeated. Just like in the movie "Groundhog Day". No arguments for this futile waste of time worked. There was no consolidation of group work results, no visible consequences, nothing. A process for the sake of the process. Is it worth mentioning that this cost the company money? Room rentals, coffee breaks, travel and accommodation payments for employees from other cities. This happened several times in a row, and only for one relatively small department. In the company where I used to work, there were dozens of them.
So why all this? First: planning. In a large company, the budget is usually laid out a year in advance. And if you have 256 events scheduled, then there will be exactly that many, otherwise next year, as a budget holder, you risk facing cuts in both units and money.
Another motivation for organizing corporate training is leadership. If the boss was educated in a Soviet school, then Lenin's saying, "Learn, learn, and learn again!" is firmly ingrained in his mind. By the way, this quote has an informal continuation: "Learning is better than working, working, working!".
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea from this publication, as if the author is against education in general, rather, if the educational process is characterized by an alternative-free, forced, and thoughtless nature, there’s little to expect in terms of miracles.
Looking for info-peddlers?
Every time I receive an invitation to yet another training session, I remember a funny parable.
A guy drives up to a shepherd who is tending a flock of sheep, leans out of the window and says:
— If I tell you how many sheep are in your flock, will you give me one?
A little surprised, the shepherd replies:
— Sure, why not.
Then this guy pulls out a laptop, connects it to his mobile phone, establishes an Internet connection, goes to NASA's website, selects GPS satellite communication, finds out the exact coordinates of where he is, and sends them to another NASA satellite, which scans the area and provides a photo in ultra-high resolution. Then this guy sends the image to one of the labs in Hamburg, which within a few seconds sends him an email confirming that the image has been processed and the data saved in the database. He connects to the MS-SQL database via ODBC, copies the data into an EXCEL table, and starts calculations. Within a few minutes, he gets the result and prints 150 color pages on his tiny printer. Finally, he tells the shepherd:
— You have 1586 sheep in your flock.
— Exactly! That’s how many sheep I have. Well, take your pick.
The guy selects one and loads it into the trunk. Then the shepherd says to him:
— Listen, if I guess what you do for a living, will you give it back to me?
Thinking for a moment, the guy replies:
— Okay, let's go.
— You work as a consultant, — the shepherd unexpectedly states.
— That's true, damn it! How did you figure that out?
— It was easy to do, — says the shepherd, — you showed up when no one called for you, you want to be paid for an answer that I already know to a question that no one asked you, and besides, you don’t know a thing about my work. So give my dog back.
As funny as it may seem, the percentage of experts discussing subjects they know absolutely nothing about is significantly higher than that of truly high-level specialists. I find this out quite often. Simple clarifying questions, outside the declared topic, can leave speakers at a loss. Moreover, this is most common at seminars on broad topics such as ‘Innovative Marketing’, ‘Digital in the Age of Digitalization’, etc. When it comes to applied topics like ‘backend’, ‘frontend’, or C#, such instances are rare.
I will teach you how to live…
In addition to classic educational seminars, several years ago, large companies became fascinated with personal growth training and various life spring technologies. At times, it felt like fish were being released into your brain and you began to lose touch with reality. I confess, even I, usually skeptical about all sorts of manipulations, occasionally experienced 'flashes of insight'. The technology is straightforward, they emotionally rock you, bind you with group commitments, and then immerse you in uncomfortable training conditions. As a result, your mind melts, values shift, and ambitious corporate oaths of loyalty are made. It’s as if shock workers were hypnotized and asked to step out into outer space the next day.
There is an old joke:
— What’s your name, boy?
— Lexa!!!
— And what do you want to be?
— An astronaut!!!
— Why an astronaut?
— Lexa!
In other words, corporate mantras usually do not provide much room for maneuver. You get on a horse and shout ‘Alga!’ (which means ‘Forward!’ in Kazakh).
It was hardest for my IT acquaintances. Whether you noticed it or not, people in IT usually have structured thinking, a well-formed system of values and viewpoints. Imagine being publicly stripped of your independence and authority as a well-established professional, and being tested 'just for fun.' It's extremely difficult not to become a victim of manipulation in this situation, especially when everyone is sitting with their heads bowed in that unfortunate training circle, sleep-deprived and exhausted for the second day in a row. On top of the emotional burden, there's anxiety about the future since the group typically includes leaders of various levels, temperaments, and ambitions. It is quite a challenge not to lose your cool in this race for common sense. People have indeed changed jobs, left families, and started engaging in strange activities as a result of such exercises. For instance, they quit their jobs to take up painting or knitting. I doubt the company intended such outcomes when they funded these educational projects.
To what end...
At one of the recent training sessions, a respected individual said, 'It would be great if every time before starting something important, you asked yourself the question: — To what end?' And you know, I agree with him. When you yourself propose to attend an educational course, seminar, or conference, you usually understand why you need it. Or at least, you think you do. In cases where the company decides this for you, it would be wise to have an answer to the question: 'To what end?' Otherwise, it's just a waste of time and money. What do you think?
Instead of a conclusion
— Hello! We are starting the seminar 'How to Earn a Million Rubles in One Day.' A question for the audience. How much was the ticket to the seminar?
— One thousand rubles.
— And how many seats are in this hall?
— One thousand.
— Thank you, the seminar is over.
Source: habr.com
