Games trainers play

The new trend in corporate training programmes is make believe

Don Jones has a perfectly respectable job and designation. He's president, Exper!ence It, a Canada-based corporate training company. But last week at the Hotel Intercontinental The Grand, he was a starship commander.

In a laser-lit room, with the Star Wars theme blaring in the background, Jones "" dressed like a modern-day Captain Kirk or Picard "" took a team of 35-40 trainers through an exercise in teamwork, trust and mission alignment. Their brief? Earth is facing imminent destruction.

You have to find a way to save it, all the while combating solar storms, alien raiders and other like perils. You have three hours in which to do this, and you're 20 light-years away.

The participants' response to "Journey Home", one of the business simulation games developed by Jones' company, was "fantastic", says the veteran trainer.

"They got so involved with the game that soon they were treating it like a real-world situation."

Which is as it should be, for the situations thrown up by such games are metaphors for threats and opportunities in the real corporate world. Now Exper!ence It is tying up with Indian company HR Initiatives to distribute games like "Journey Home" in the country.

The corporate world is changing rapidly, says Jones. "With outsourcing, India has taken jobs away from developed countries "" but in the near future other countries will take jobs away from India. So you can't afford to fall behind."

Ashok W George, director-training and academic, Hero Mindmine, agrees that organisations need to reinvent themselves every day.

"In today's world, technology is no longer the differentiator; people are," he says. "Consequently, manpower training has assumed new dimensions."

But George adds that while training models used in the West can be brought in, the training process must factor in aspects of the Indian milieu.

"Business simulation games can be brought in from outside," he says, " but the real-life examples must weave in things like trust and the personal touch, which are important factors here."

It's Jones' first visit to India and while he concurs that the corporate scenario here is different from that in his country, he also believes that "fundamentally, human beings aren't that different, in terms of their needs and motivations".

Jones also insists that the aim of training workshops should not be to preach or to shepherd the participants around. "There is no authority figure here," he says.

"What we do is establish a scenario, identify the needs and challenges and then allow the participants to make their own interpretations."

Which means that occasionally the trainer becomes the taught. "Every place I've held sessions in "" whether China, Turkey or India "" I've seen new things in these games that I hadn't noticed before. And I designed them!"