In one of my previous organisations, we had a senior management workshop to discover what our core values were and to make efforts to communicate and institutionalize it.
We were using the services of a very well-known trainer & facilitator. Let me call him M.
I had interacted with M earlier when I started working for a private sector Bank. He was one of the external trainer who was part of the induction team of HR. He taught us the basic business etiquette and we had a really nice session getting to know the right ways to present the business card and the correct method of handshake. I had pleasant memories of this session and I was looking forward to the workshop.
Let me briefly describe what we did – We were a group of about 10 people from all functions . We started of with a small story which involved many tricky situations and we were supposed to individually analyse and judge as to which of the characters involved was the worst in terms of moral standards. This was followed up by another exercise where in we had to do the same analysis , but now in a group. Subsequently, we did a very interesting exercise wherein M asked us to list down our priorities and focus areas as they were 20 years ago, 10 years ago and in the present. The list then was to be numbered to arrive at a graded list starting with the highest priority item in each phase at top. The idea was to arrive at 3 qualities/focus areas that have remained consistent across the 3 time periods. These were then the core of our nature as they were not changing even though the circumstances changed.
I really liked the concept and was enjoying it but 2 things disturbed me. Firstly, I found that the top most person in the organisation, also the part owner, did not participate in the activity. He left within 5 minutes saying he had important work to do and this was basically meant for all of us. This set me thinking if the whole workshop was really meant to achieve something or not. If we were trying to build an organisation culture around our core values, shouldn’t the top guy be the person driving it?
Secondly, i overheard M making a comment to the CEO ( 2nd in command). He was discussing one of his previous workshops and said something like “I am amazed at how many young people are putting spirituality or human values as their core values. it is ridiculous and stupid” . The CEO agreed and made fun of such people.
It left me wondering as to what we wanted to achieve through this workshop if this was the way my top two bosses thought.
Anyways , we went about doing the job. The second day more and more people opened up and voiced their frank opinion about the organisation and the way things were being done. And at the end of two days after lot of honest feedbacks & soul searching we did arrive at some factual conclusions.
The following day ( after the workshop finished), the ceo called us all and virtually blasted everyone who had voiced concerns and had raised questions on current practices
The biggest disappointment came when we realised that, that the whole program was stage-managed. There was no serious intention from the top, at any time to achieve anything. Whats more, the participants who thought they were doing a great service to the organisation by being honest, were made scapegoats and cornered in many ways in the days to come.
Why did we spend 2 days enacting this whole drama? Who gained out of this ( other than the consultant who got his fee)? How could we have done this better ?
