Friday, October 05, 2018

Corporate Acting: The Art and Science of Role Playing with Passion and Purpose






CRUX OF THE MATTER

Corporate acting essentially involves highly trained actors simulate typical and offbeat corporate situations to underline the essence and significance of ideal or prudent behaviours at the worksapce.

TYPICAL ROLE PLAY DESIGNS INCLUDE

Talent Recognition & Management - Developing sensitive, focused and business-centric interviewers, bridging the academia-industry divide to enhance classroom-to-workplace transition.


Addressing conflicts & challenges - How to convey the “bad” news with grace, how to minimize the “stress” associated with an “exit”, how to inculcate the right work culture, how to promote ethics at the work place, how to eliminate acrimony among groups and improve camaraderie for effective performance management.


Change Management - How to inculcate the desired culture across the enterprise in ripple-causing situations like M & As, takeovers, technology adoption, diversification and business fluctuations.

THE KEY CHALLENGE

Corporate acting runs the risk of being reduced to a ‘fun time’ exercise in the absence of adequate care and precision. The sessions conveying the importance of brevity and preciseness of role play sessions to participants need to be made as elaborate as possible. Else, many participants seem lost on defining the purpose of the role play session. 

Role players need to be conveyed with more clarity that this platform is not for displaying their acting prowess, but for “living” the role of a guinea pig which subtly helps participants understand the umpteen hidden aspects of human interaction.

Since the employee participants are the ambassadors of the program, it would be a good idea to recognize and reward good performance, such that the good word spreads across the organization. This will help convey the message that role plays deliver measurable business value and help mitigate the popular contempt against this tool of being a “non-business” pastime.

Even though the role players need not grasp the depth of the domain/technical knowledge, a curtain raiser can be arranged by the facilitators for a quick summary of the essence of the role.

The observers – both actors and participants - can be powered with more authority to be able to control and monitor off-track and derailed situations rather than citing them in offline conversations.


CORPORATE ACTORS – SPECIAL NEED, RARE BREED

The actors play a vital role as conveyers – they have to “breathe” the roles they play – whether a disgruntled employee, pompous manager, matter-of-fact project manager or a patronizing business owner. The art is to release enough clues through the enactment such that the session is not subjected to sudden jerks, periods of lull or derailment. If the actor “plays to the gallery” or is seeking applause, the session becomes self-defeating.

It’s imperative that the actors should be well aware of the dynamics of corporate situations – routine and otherwise. An emphasis on grasping the domain and technological specs of the work environment proves highly rewarding – as the participants gain momentum only when the actor begins to “speak their language”. A good actor salvages a near-hopeless situation by shrewdly keeping the conversation on track with a great sprinkling of wit and wisdom. A good actor subtly helps participants with clues for better performance.

More often than not, the patterns that emerge out of a role playing session challenge convention and fuel innovation. Measurable business value is guaranteed, provided the “learnings” are conveyed to the target audience as an integral part of the enactment, carefully plotting the refinement road map for individuals/groups.


CORPORATE ACTORS – HOW TO FIND THEM

So, where does one find such actors? More often than not, one has to depend on the mini markets masquerading as mega disciplines; including acting and personality development institutes, on line and offline catalyst organizations, audition facilitators and scores of lateral companies claiming to employ theatre techniques for effecting and facilitating learning & development.

The most glaringly disorganized of the whole lot is undoubtedly the audition market which simply cannot rise above vital stat measurements and Bollywood-brand look tests. On the demand side of this bazaar, we have desperate wannabes of different shapes and sizes, from all corners of the country, waiting only to be the next Khan, Kumar or Kapoor. On the supply side, there are scores of dreadful agents, without the slightest idea of their principle duties, entrusted with the critical job of talent recognition and acquisition. Hiring a product of this bazaar will only prove self-defeating.

Most of the personality development organizations pride on a silver bullet fondly referred to as “soft skills”. Try scouting for an actor (finished product) there and they’ll ask you to enroll for their forthcoming life-changing seminar. Among the acting institutes, where content is often overshadowed by presentation; most of the student actors feel they have already arrived and dictate their terms even before you have spelt your need.

Look for actors working with companies claiming to specialise in drama techniques and you have to face a different flavour of melodrama. Many among these providers are busy flaunting the “overseas” connection and the borrowed wisdom, one that appallingly ignores the dynamics of region-specific culture sensitivities. Their actors are conditioned in the embedded learning; they will instinctively try and force-fit a one-off experiment done in the corporate environment of some western country into the work settings of a SME firm in New Mumbai. And when the recipients look sufficiently dazed, they call it a ‘learning gap’.

Ideally, the above mentioned talent providers should collaborate with each other to deliver corporate acting projects by creating a pool of trained, incisive actors suitably exposed to the realities of the corporate world as also the finer aspect of acting. As of today, such value chains are only a distant dream. One has to necessarily go through the grind, training employees of client organizations, handpicked for their felicity of expression, if not flair for acting. When measurable value is at stake, a known compromise is always better than brazen experimentation. 

Role Plays for IT-specific situations 

Urged by some of my client corporates and value chain stakeholders, I am sharing three typical situations I have specifically created for the software specific role plays. I suggest you try out these enactments at your organization - trust me, the value adds are immense: you'll get concrete inputs to help you chalk out highly effective developmental plans for your programmers, architects & project managers, as also understand the human aspects of software development which are more deep-rooted than what most think. 

Try these enactments at your place if you feel you can easily manage to set up a small team of role players from within your organization to play the different characters. This would work best for a start-up which is in the process of expanding its team. The language of the role play scripts has consciously been kept simple for faster and easier comprehension.

Situation one: Save the Project

The Terminator

You are an independent IT auditor working as a consultant for the Indian subsidiary of No Compromise Inc - a reputed MNC headquartered in the US. You have been specially flown down from the US as the India team head is not happy with the feel and functionality of one product website designed and developed by EverGreen Developers, a midsized firm based in Mumbai. There are a lot of issues with the new-look site. The pages take a long time to load, and there are too many broken links. One of the testers has found that there are issues with the site on Safari and Opera and the design is not optimized either. Navigation is not consistent from page to page. The company has almost decided to shift to another vendor but you wish to give EverGreen one last chance of defending their case and have therefore called their topmost marketing guy to your office. You have been asked to chair the meeting – you have no knowledge of how the site was designed and developed – so the challenge for you is to ask pointed questions about the entire solution environment (platforms, languages, databases, tools, utilities, design and development methods, delivery schedules etc) and finally make a recommendation whether the company should continue with EverGreen or dump them. 


The Negotiator

You are the marketing head of EverGreen Developers, a mid-sized Mumbai-based web development company. You have deep technical knowledge of all systems, processes and solutions that your organization provides. No Compromise Inc is one of your biggest customers and you simply can’t afford to lose this MNC client. Your development team has messed up on quite a few deliveries and the No Compromise guys, upset with the output, have called for an emergency meeting. You have no idea of what went wrong but the CEO of your company wants you to go on the firm’s behalf to handle this crisis situation. You don’t have time to get a brief from the development team as you have to now rush for the emergency meeting. Your boss is confident that you will be successful in making the No Compromise guys restore their faith in your company. Your challenge is how you accomplish the mission in the given time and constraints. 


Situation two: Hire amidst Fire


Cautious Commander

You are the team leader in a small IT firm called Sunrise Software. Lately, your firm has won many web development projects and you want to recruit more PHP developers in your team. You have called one fresher candidate today but want to make sure the candidate is really strong in PHP. Recently, you had recruited one irresponsible guy for the position who made a mess of a couple of deliveries. You had recruited him following a chat of ten minutes. You had to sack him and your boss was hugely upset with your irresponsible behavior. Now, you don’t want to take any chances and wish to thoroughly test this candidate’s knowledge on PHP and software fundamentals. The challenge is how best you can take the interview to make the right decision. The candidate is waiting for you in the lobby of your office.

Starry-eyed Soldier

You have recently cleared your computer engineering and now actively seeking a job with some reputed IT firm. You have been called by the technical head of a small firm called Sunrise Software for a PHP developer position. You feel you are quite strong in PHP and hence have decided to attend the interview. Your challenge is to clear the interview and seal the job. You have been told to remain seated in the lobby where the team leader of the web development group at Sunrise Software would meet you shortly. 


Situation three: Judgement day

Supreme Court Judge

You are the project manager in a web development firm called Alpha Code. You are a very strict guy who can’t tolerate indiscipline. You hate people who don’t believe in making commitments. Today you are evaluating the performance of a programmer guy in one of the teams managed by you. His immediate boss has told you that he’s very irresponsible and unreliable. Lately, he’s been coming late to office and on a few occasions, he was found absent when he was needed most. You have asked one senior colleague from the programmer’s team to join you in the appraisal to ensure that your decision is not biased. By the way, this colleague is a good friend of the programmer and was his senior at college. You have heard from many people that the programmer guy (whom you are about to assess) is very innovative and full of ideas worth implementation but his immediate boss doesn’t think so. He has given a rather negative feedback about this guy. Today, you are going to judge it for yourself. The challenge is to do justice to your role as a project manager of a crucial team within the company. 


High Court Judge

You are a team leader in a web development company called Alpha Code and you report to the project manager. You have to been asked to attend an appraisal session - along with your project manager – of a team member whom you know very well from college (you were his senior) and you both are very good friends. This guy is a very bright chap but careless and irresponsible lately. Therefore his image at office is that of an unreliable guy although his approach to work is very innovative. You have often told him about the need to become more disciplined but he doesn’t seem interested. This is primarily because his boss always cuts him short and doesn’t let him speak his mind. Many of his ideas are not even heard. As a result, he has become very moody bordering on the rude. Lately, he has consistently reported late to office and his absenteeism is also pretty high. Today, you have been asked to give your frank opinion about him. The challenge is to make an honest, fair observation in the best interests of the organization. 

The Accused

You are a senior developer in a company called Alpha Code. You are extremely interested in emerging technologies and wish to learn as many languages as possible. You also have deep interest in different programming techniques like Lean, Agile and XP. But you don’t like it when you have to work on tight deadlines. Your boss feels you are very laid back and you both often have heated arguments on day to day basis. This year, your performance has not been all that great and you have missed out on quite a few deadlines. You have also been reporting late to office these days and have missed office on some crucial occasions. But in many earlier projects, you had made a few valid points about better ways of planning, designing and delivering but you were not able to convince your boss about it. And every time you speak, he doesn’t even listen to what you say. You now believe you are a victim of office politics. Hence you have become even more careless and rude lately. 

Today is a good chance to explain your side of the story. If you don’t do that today, your performance rating will suffer and you may not get a good salary hike or any performance bonus. Worse, you may be branded as a non-performer. So the challenge today is to justify your case – that you are a good programmer and can make a great contribution to the team if given the right opportunity.




Tuesday, October 02, 2018

कॉफी विथ काकू


बाबांनी इहलोकाची यात्रा संपवल्यानंतर त्यांची व त्यांच्या कार्याची ओळख समविचारी अनोळखींना व्हावी या साठी मी जमेल तसे प्रयत्न करीत आलो आहे. ते माझे कर्तव्यच आहे, त्यात काहीच जगावेगळे नाही पण बाबांच्या 'एकला चालो रे' जीवनातून प्रेरणा घेण्यासारखे मात्र बरेच काही आहे, ते सर्व इच्छूकांना कळावे एवढा एकच हेतू या धडपडीमागे असतो.

२०१६ चा मे महिना होता. बाबांना जाऊन जेमतेम सहा महिने झाले असतील. बाबांना प्रिय असलेला तठस्थपणा बाळगून मी आपल्या कामात मग्न होतो - मन प्रसन्न होते, उद्विग्न होण्यासारखे कोणतेच विचार सतावत नव्हते का जुन्या आठवणी दाटून आल्या नव्हत्या. आभाळ काळोखून आले नसताना जणू वीज पडावी तशी बाबांकडची मंडळी कशी होती, कशी आहेत हे जाणून घेण्याची तीव्र इच्छा आपोआप प्रकट झाली. असे काही करण्याची इच्छा आधी कधीच झाली नव्हती. मात्र आकाशवाणी समजून मी मनात आले ते प्रत्यक्षात साकार करण्याचे ठरविले. 

रक्ताचे नाते असलेल्या काही अति विशिष्ट, जगजेत्या तज्ञ मंडळींशी माझे संबंध अतिविशेष असल्याने माझ्या या पादचारी सोहळ्याला त्यांची उपस्थिती नव्हती हे सर्वार्थाने योग्य झाले म्हणायचे, उगीच त्यांच्या गुळगुळीत,चकाकत ठेवलेल्या सामाजिक प्रतिष्ठेला तडा गेला असता, आणि वर त्यांच्या त्या जीवघेण्या सुस्काऱ्यांचा आणि तिरस्कार-रसाने बरबटलेल्या कटाक्षांचा, शब्दांच्या आणि सुरांच्या पलीकडला असा, आघात भेट म्हणून सहन करावा लागला असता.    

त्यामुळे मनात आले तसे, आणि शक्य झाले तेवढ्या, लोकांना तडक आमंत्रण दिले. कार्यक्रमाचा हेतू मुळातच उद्दात होता. निर्मळ भेटी घडतील, सुख दुःखाच्या चार गोष्टी होतील, सर्वांची खुशाली कळू शकेल अशा प्रकारचे वातावरण निर्माण करायचे असे मी मनोमन ठरवले होते. कार्यक्रमाचा सर्व खर्च आपणच करायचा, कोणाकडेही मदतीसाठी याचना करायची नाही हे माझ्या स्वभावाला अनुसरूनच असल्यामुळे या खर्चाला भार मानण्याचा प्रश्नच नव्हता.  

आपल्याकडील माणसांच्या (आणि त्यांच्या मुलांच्याही) नसानसात उग्र स्वरूपाचे राजकारण भिनलेले असते ही साधी गोष्ट मी विसरलो नसलो तरी तात्पुरती बाजूला सारली होती, मनातली 'आकाशवाणी' आणि ओळखीच्या लोकांचे 'दूरदर्शन' यांचा सुतराम संबंध नाही याची मला जाणीव होती तरीही मी त्यांचा मेळ बसवण्याचे धाडस केले. त्याचा व्हायचा तो परमाणु परिणाम होणार याची खात्री नव्हती पण कल्पना नक्कीच होती. त्या विस्फोटाची नोंद घेण्याआधी काही जणांचे मनापासून आभार मानायचे आहेत ज्यांनी या कार्यक्रमाच्या हेतूला ओळखून त्याला साजेशी वागणूक केली

या मोजक्या मंडळीत मीना आत्या, कुंदा आत्या, माणिक, वृंदा ताई, माधव दादा, अनिता, प्रशांत आणि माझी काकू सामील आहेत. या सर्वांनी कुठल्याही पवित्र्याशिवाय मोकळेपणाने गप्पा केल्या. त्यांच्याच सहकार्याने हा कार्यक्रम कडू न ठरता आंबटगोड ठरला. 

अनुभवाने आलेल्या शहाणपणामुळे आता मला प्रत्येक बाबतीत विनोदबुद्धी शाबूत ठेवण्याची सवयच जडली आहे त्यामुळे तटस्थपणा बाळगताना मनमुराद हसता देखील येते, आणि उगाच धीर गंभीर चेहरे करण्याची गरज भासत नाही. त्यामुळे या ऐतिहासिक संमेलनात भेटलेल्या काही बावनकशी नमुन्यांचा समाचार घेताना खंत कमी, गम्मत जास्त वाटतेय:

दोन अजब बहिणींनी या कार्यक्रमात उघडपणे आपले वैर प्रदर्शित करून एक वेगळाच बार उडवून दिला - त्यांच्यात कोणत्या कारणावरून बिनसले हे जाणून घायची आमची मुळीच इच्छा नसताना, त्यांचे पटत नाही हेच मुळी माहित नसताना, त्यांनी आमच्या शांत निरामय वास्तूला आपल्या हक्काचे कुरुक्षेत्र का केले कुणास ठाऊक? एकमेकांवर छुपे वाण सोडत दोघींनी आपल्या बेतालपणाची पुरेपूर साक्ष पटवली. त्या गैरहजर राहिल्या असत्या तर त्यांना केवढी तरी प्रतिष्ठा न मागता प्राप्त झाली असती. 

या दोघींच्या रडगाण्याच्या जोडीला त्यांच्या भावाचा तिटकारा आणणारा शहाणपणा देखील या निम्मिताने जवळून अनुभवण्याचे भाग्य लाभले - आपण स्वतः काही करायचे नाही, मात्र सर्वांना त्यांच्या कर्तव्याची उठ सुठ आठवण करून द्यायची आणि दिसेल त्यावर ताशेरे ओढायचे हा या महानुभावांचा आवडता छंद दिसतो. आपण कसे अंतिम सत्य कोळून प्यायलेले आदि शंकराचार्यांना लाजविणारे जगविख्यात संत आहोत आणि बाकीचे कसे अगतिकपणे विळविळणारे जंत आहेत हे पटवून देण्याची त्यांची केविलवाणी धडपड बघून त्यांची कीव करावीशी वाटते.

मात्र उत्सवमूर्ती म्हणून मिरवणाऱ्या एका आजी बाईची कथा सर्वात जास्त रोचक आहे - जगातील इतर सर्व नातवंडे कशी सुमार आणि भिकार आणि माझी नातवंडे कशी सर्वात हुशार हे सांगताना या सुविद्य बाई कधीच थकत नाहीत - त्यांची स्वतःच्या दुराभिमनावर असलेली श्रद्धा निस्सीम आहे - आणि सोयीचे राजकारण कसे खेळावे हे भाजप, काँग्रेस, शिवसेना, मनसे आणि राष्ट्रवादीच्या लोकांनी यांच्या कडून शिकावे. निदान हे ज्ञान प्राप्त करण्यासाठी तरी एकदा एकत्र जमावे.

काही मुत्सद्दी मंडळी देखील या ठिकाणी उपस्थित होती जे ‘वारे कुठे वाहते आहे’ त्या प्रमाणे हालचाली करायच्या असे ठरवून आले होते. आपण किती हुशार असा यांचा गोड गैरसमज असावा कारण प्रत्येक शब्द तोलून मोलून बोलताना त्यांना पडणारे कष्ट चेहऱ्यावर स्पष्ट दिसत असताना आपण कसे बेमालूमपणे समोरच्याला काबीज केले अशा समजात ते शेवट पर्यंत वावरले.

या सर्व सर्कस मधील प्राण्यांच्या करामतींनंतर रात्री 'कॉफी विथ काकू' हा प्रायोजित कार्यक्रम मात्र कायम लक्षात राहील असा जिव्हाळ्याचा ठरला. मे महिन्यातला उकाडा मी म्हणत असताना देखील गप्पा उत्तरोत्तर रंगल्या, कित्येक जुन्या आठवणींना उजाळा दिला गेला… आणि हा सोहळा घडवून आपले बरेच काही शाबूत राहिले, बिघडले नाही, हे समाधान देखील पहाट होता होता लाभले.