The gemological institutes should incorporate the concept in their curriculum so that the students are able to assort role playing sessions and simulate the techniques in the real world. Gem buying, selling, retail management skills require insight, product knowledge and an effective delivery systems so that you are able to connect with the real world. All the world is a stage.
(via Times News Network) Shreya Biswas writes:
All the world’s a stage, and sure enough, these days they are teaching acting at the B-school itself. As management institutes realise the potential of simulation in teaching students how to handle the real thing, theatre workshops, skits and assorted role-playing sessions are all increasingly making their way into the MBA curriculum.
IIM-C, IIM-L, FMS and MDI Gurgaon have taken the lead in this front while corporates like Maruti, Motorola, Philips and Castrol are some who have already incorporated theatre techniques in HR sessions.
Sure, the Indian B-schools have role models to follow in Harvard, Wharton and Darden where the techniques have been already taken to the next level. MDI Gurgaon already has had it as an elective for the last two years and is also going to come up with MDPs on theatre techniques in business communication by December 2007. These techniques help students to internalise various management principles and understand the corporate world better.
Topics relevant to the course are taken up and students come up with skits based on the same. They take up the roles of a leader in a bankrupt company or an HR head facing talent crunch with the top deck of company being poached by rivals, besides trying to explain the effective supply chain management possible in a household kitchen.
Last August, the Dramatics Cell of IIM Calcutta (IIMC) and leading theatre group Nandikar hosted ‘Journey into Theatre’, a workshop to promote acting and performing arts as a tool of communication that extends to real life. The workshop included a host of games designed by Nandikar that modelled situations similar to those encountered in corporate life and explored how managers react to them. These situations ran the entire gamut from negotiations, trust building in a team, politics and business ethics, all courses that are incorporated in IIM(C)’s curriculum.
Says Prof Leena Chatterjee, behavioural sciences, IIMC, “In our second year, we have an elective called ‘management of self in organisations’, which includes several role-playing exercises. This includes role plays on managing team meetings, managing people, performance counselling interview, handling a difficult employee and more. We also use films or novels to look at various kinds of interpersonal issues.”
Enthused by this, Maruti is going to introduce theatre techniques as training tool this year itself. It will be introduced as a part of its management development programme and training for senior leadership roles. Says SY Syddiqui, head, HR, Maruti, “This is an innovative idea and helps to break away from the monotonous way of training people. I saw it in one of the B-schools and will now implement it in Maruti.”
Motorola had a similar workshop in 2005 in theatre techniques as part of their training module. Teambuilding, complex communication methods were all addressed through this. Raghuram Reddum, director, HR, Asia Pacific staffing and mobile device, Motorola, India, says, “These are innovations to better the training process. It helps to get a better grasp on subjects through these techniques.”
While several institutions have been practising it in India and abroad, some like Darden, Harvard, Wharton have taken it to the next level with the sessions being an interactive one. A play is performed by the players and the end of the skit depends on the volley of questions thrown out by the audience. Says Asha Bhandarkar, Professor, organisational behaviour and chairperson, PGP-HR and International Management, “This helps the performing group understand the problems better and suggest solutions while the audience take serious interest in theme played on.”
Agrees Ashok Kapoor, professor, communication and marketing, “Its a great confidence building measure and lets students understand problems and individuals better. Some of my students have even got back with interesting feedback like ‘due to the course, I can understand when my boss is acting and when he is genuinely concerned’. In IIM-L, students, infact record these sessions in their iPods and play it later to understand the issues.
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