Atmosphere Core

It was during the era of 90s when my graduation days got over and as the system goes, my new job awaited me to explore as I go. Clearly do I remember, sitting on an executive chair and looking around the room, a merge of an office and some study room. There were props, a noticeboard, an elegant chair with books on the table. I heard someone walking behind me and when I turned around a gentleman extended his right hand and said, ‘Welcome to your new career.’ He introduced himself as the training manager and the place where I sat was his training department. He knew how to connect and speak to me at my level. He later became my mentor and he inspired me to rise to the roles that I walked in the past. He was my first impression to my industry and to my new life of finding my space in the bigger professional space. He was warm and welcoming. He gave me life lessons and he saw the spark in me even before I could spot it myself back then. He knew how to connect and relate and narrate what I needed. Just like a gardener who knows when to water the plant and when to shade it. He knew the art of confrontation and the skill of easing me in difficult moments. There were many of us who were new in our work roles. He knew each one of us as differently as we were.

Here, I picked and gathered some of his noticeable traits, call them simple human powers which if adapted at workplace can make magic happen.

He Was There When I Needed Him

Usually, the trend is to meet our team members when we have time to meet them as per our availability. And it is normal to do so. We all have a life. It was a bit different with him. He was there when I needed him. He made time as per my need. As he believed that without him, I was anyways doing a great job. My needs need not wait for his time. Slowly, I realized that I needed him less because I depended on him the lesser.

He Told Good Things about Me to Others

He called me ‘revolutionary’ and by that, he meant that I would go against the tides and rise to heights which then I didn’t believe in. When someone says certain words, they influence us and are seeded for the coming days ahead. It is so important to use strong words and for surely positive ones to bring forth expected results in the future. His words made the work of me taking paths in life that were quite unusual to be taken. His words did the job. There were like seeds sown in my heart to stay and grow and live. As leaders, we have a choice of words we can use for our team. One choice of word for one teammate which is well observed and used in right measure would work as a plant fertilizer giving the nutrients needed for optimum growth. The same words of seeding if spoken in front of others would boost the morale.

He Was in My Team

As part of probation period and being trained to get imbibed into the professional scenario, the new joiners were constantly referred to the training manager. His job was to ensure that I am trained to a level of acceptance in the department I was posted in. So, dotted line, there was a reporting to him during the initial period. He made me believe that he worked in my team. I was on the driver’s seat of my journey ahead and he was in my team. That made me stronger and brighter while at work.

He Spoke to Me

As a training manager part of his job, tasks were to train me, coach me, mentor me and his style of doing the same was to continually have open conversations with me. That’s it. Just speak to me. How simple can it be to just grab a cup of a drink and sit with our team member and just speak and listen. That’s it.

He Made Me Feel Bigger than My Mistakes

An instance when I made a mistake as a beginner gave me chills even though the effect of the fault wasn’t measurable or grave. It was the fear of the unknown, possibly. But then he let me make mistakes and told me that it I was bigger than my mistake. My mistakes were kept Infront of me right on the table like they were objects to learn from. He let me disconnect myself from that mistake and helped me study them till they vanished.

He Shared His Positive Perspective about Me

What we see in the mirror is a flipped reflection and very different from what people see standing in front of us. Both are different and both are right. Standing opposite to someone not as an opponent but as a reflector is a behavior that he carried in himself. He gave me a perspective which had the bases of my image and not his opinion.

His acts of being interested in his learners were shown by being approachable, telling good things, standing by the team, having open conversations, and making the people feel bigger than their mistakes.

Little did I know that many years later, I would be heading the same department as head of learning & development. What we called a training department is today called learning & development. 

“A leader when shrinks the problem by naming it to taming it, it helps a colleague to come out of the problem and deal with it and win over it themselves”

His simple tasks had giant hidden behaviors to make the mountains move.

• Be there
• Be a Spokesperson
• Be a Co-player
• Be a companion
• Be a problem shrinker
• Be a Reflector

Let’s Dive Deeper to Find the ‘To Be’ of a Leader Turned a Trainer

Be There

A trainer’s quality is to provide information only when asked for. The trainer trusts in the self-sufficiency of a learner and the only technique used is question technique to probe the mind to think further. The trainer is just there when needed empowering the learners to take control of their own learning & growth.

Empowering people at work is simplest to do. As a leader, just disappear from their work and let them take charge and be there only when they need us. Simple to say but most difficult to do as leaders we like to control. It is what makes us want to be leaders and the same thing must be let go. What an irony of being a leader, isn’t it?

Be a Spokesperson

Praising or rewarding a learner while the training is going on, aids in encouraging the learner and to tell them that they are growing in their minds. This is every trainers technique used differently.

Having someone at workplace as your marketing agent or an ambassador makes us feel special and important. As a leader, be a Spokesperson for your teammate. Spread the good news of your team’s good work.

Be a Co-player

A trainer is not the head of the learning process but part of it. The trainer must immerse oneself into the system of the growth cycle and act like one of the learners.

‘I am in your team not as a coach or a sponsor but one like you’ look like one of them. I call it physical empathy. It means when you work together doing the same tasks the same time you experience what your team experiences. You feel, see, smell, taste, hear what they do, and the experience is empathetic.

Be a Buddy

A trainer in a learning environment must as a golden rule begin training by building rapport. That is a prerequisite for a successful two way learning for any style of learner. This tactic is mastered by a trainer and thus we notice Trainers having casual conversations with the attendees prior to beginning the training. The general chit chat revolves around the Trainer asking the learners some questions of know how to just create a connection and later it becomes an easy task to go through the training process.

A buddy is a friend who has a normal conversation. Asking questions and listening are natural ways to connect and never dramatized or scripted. Having these conversations away from limelight helps to bring to light the real person working in your team. As a Leader, this can help you connect beyond and get results in abound.

Be a Problem Shrinker

A shrinker helps to comparatively decrease in bulk or volume. A problem usually seems bigger and larger for us to deal with at work possibly because we feel pressed underneath the problem itself. A leader when shrinks the problem by naming it to taming it, it helps a colleague to come out of the problem and deal with it and win over it themselves.

Be a Reflector

A mirror image is the virtual image formed by reflection in a plane mirror; it is of the same size as the original object, yet different. Being a reflector as a leader gives a different perspective to our team and helps them to see themselves differently without changing their originality. This is important as the uniqueness of the person must stay intact and when you do, it builds a stronger credibility to your perspective.

A training department in an organization is not one person’s job but it is today a competency required to run a dynamic workforce that we are building to compete in a world of instant and constant change.

Every leader apart from learning other business acumen skill sets must learn the art & skill of being a trainer by simple acts of kindness which is like adding a pinch of salt to stimulate the taste bud or waving a fairy magic wand to focus on magical energy or adding a cherry on a cake to give that perfect look and feel.