Solving problems and making decisions

I've noticed that I usually go through a lot of trainings each year, have fun in those trainings and forget whatever happened. Trainings are definitely a cool way to interact with people other than our project staff. And if you possibly learn something new, that's a bonus. But, most trainings are just crap. C. R. A. P. I'm not here to rant about such a crappy training I've probably been through. It's just that we have a lot of fun in these trainings, but when you try to look back after a couple of years, the only thing that one would possibly remember is whether there was a hot chick present in the training class or not. So, I'm trying to write down the stuff that happened in the training - what we learnt and what we could've and whether it has affected my normal routine in any way.

Lately, I was in a training called 'Problem Solving & Decision Making'. Sounds like bullshit. Kinda was too. I don't understand why my manager nominates me to these trainings. But, I'm also glad I went through this training as I met and socialized with a lot of interesting people, learnt a few things about myself and found out the difference between the 2007 me and the 2010 me.

The day started off in panic mode. We were ready for our trainer (Mrs. Pallavi Mandrawadkar) to begin at 0815hrs and look who comes in - another trainer for the same course. It was funny, incredibly funny. For once, we thought the L&D department had screwed it all up. But, things were resolved soon enough and we finally came to know that there was another training organized for the same course in some other training room. Wow! It could have been a lot more awkward.

One of the things that I realized during the second day of the training was that now I was a lot more comfortable with portraying who I was and what I could do. I did have a strong opinion in most of the discussions that we had as a group and I could see how different people thought about the same problem in different ways. That's that best thing about working in groups. The group's dynamic is so much important than anything else. Another super-important thing that I realized was that people were so easily embarrassed on going wrong. We did an exercise on a tool called 'Appreciative Enquiry' and the morons that we were, we understood the technique incorrectly and ended up doing half of the thing wrong. Embarrassing? Yes. But, we're here to learn and mistakes happen.

I'm glad to have worked in an environment where although mistakes were frowned upon, it was never that bad. Everyone is given a chance to make things right. The fear of making mistakes makes you more and more paranoid and you cannot be at your best when you're paranoid (no gyan, simple funda).

We also did another exercise where we had to build paper airplanes, market the item with a creative jingle and present/sing the jingle as an advertisement for the product. After wasting some time convincing what a 'jingle' means to the team members, I finally started to write a simple jingle while the other members of my group made the paper planes. They looked cool. The jingle was done and I needed a scapegoat who could sing that! Guess what? Nobody's willing to sing it! Well yeah, nobody wants to look like a fucking moron singing a nursery-rhyme-like jingle. But, C'mon it's just a frickin' training room with 15 people! And no offence to the ladies, but there were no hot chicks present too! (Most guys prefer not to act like douchebags in front of hot chicks. True fact.) I didn't want to do it because I had already done my share of presentations earlier and did not want to be termed as a "stage hogger".

In all that commotion finally someone decided to get on there and do the presentation. I asked him to sing out the jingle nicely and do the regular advertising stuff (I've heard/seen a fair amount of jingles and I know the pattern quite well). But, this guy (the jackass that he is) went up there and started talking some crap that we hadn't even written down and stole Cadbury's Dairy Milk's tag line and used that in the ad. Obvious disappointment! The guy was so embarrassed, he just wanted to get out of there. No biggie. But then I thought to myself, would I let my group's work go to waste by staying quiet and not giving our original jingle even a single try? No can dosville baby doll! I decided I should give it a try myself and said, "Pallavi, we actually have an original jingle that the team has made. But, maybe he's just a wee bit embarrassed to sing it as it's a little funny. I'd like to give it a try".

I went up to the center of the room and blurted it out! To my surprise, everyone liked it. Wow! It's such a great feeling that you get when your audience approves of your crappy material. Coming up with a jingle in 10 minutes is hard. Very hard. But, we did it! That made my day!

The rest of the training went fine. Learned a lot, maybe, I can't remember.