Of knowledge and new learnings
WHO HASN'T come across the punchline of "Lays" which time and again reinforces "no one can eat just one". The response at Frito-Lay to a special HR intervention shows that in these rushed times, there are still organisations that take knowledge seriously and that it is indeed quite possible to lead very prized human horses to the water of knowledge and make them drink!
1) Backdrop: - Frito- Lay has been a client subscribing for a knowledge product, the managementor.com since 2001. The product provides working professionals with information that they absolutely must know to perform better and keep their edge in their market. Mr. Samik Basu; Director- HR, Frito-Lay has been a beneficiary of the information provided by the portal, both in terms of the content being useful and in the other value-added services. In every interface he asked his teams to utilise the learning therein. Nevertheless he was conscious of the fact that employees did not read the mailers sent to them. The fault he felt was not so much in the content but in the fact that there was no one in the organisation who could take this initiative forward and work towards bringing in a change in the aspiration of those employees who had access but rarely used it. Basu then, convinced of the efficacy of themanagementor.com engaged Madan Srinivasan, as their Organisation Capability Manager. Hitting the ground running, Srinivasan took the responsibility of creating a learning culture in the company. Working towards the goal he created a learning centre within Frito-Lay called GuruCool. TheManageMentor is a part of this centre as a Continuous Professional Development tool. With an intention to make the launch of the GuruCool intervention a lasting success, he felt that he would somehow need to capture the mind space of his colleagues. He called upon the resources of the ManageMentor to further the cause of personal and organisation development.
Summary of activities
Guru Cool- An introduction: - The launch started with an introductory speech by Srinivasan who briefly touched upon the various features of GuruCool and explained the initiative showing how it would benefit every user. Now unlike similar road shows, Srinvasan asked those present to participate actively in a fact-finding event.
The first was a General Awareness Quiz: - ManageMentor conducted a paper based quiz on general management awareness to check the Contemporary Quotient of employees. The test was based on market trends and awareness of practices. It transpired that the participants realised after the first round that they had, in fact missed several points that could have helped them in the conduct of their work.
An innovative management game that involved the audience in an activity to help them focus on the task at hand followed this. The audience of nearly fifty were divided into five groups and each group was provided with interlocking pieces of plastic of varied shapes. The goal - to make an animal of them. These were defined as their resources. The groups were given ten minutes to strategise and assemble the animal. When the ten minutes were up, each group were given an animal head, and asked to convert their animal figure to fit the corresponding animal head they were given within thirty seconds. The results were revealing both for the participants and the faculty: while every team tried to use all the `resources' given to them, there was a total lack of coordination among the members of each team. It was noted that no group planned their strategy. They all began working without a thought of what they were going to make. Some members of the team withdrew and no one bothered to ask for clarifications of the rules they had received.
The debrief that followed pointed out the importance of team-work and co-ordination; it was demonstrated that listening was not happening and not everyone was given an opportunity to contribute in the right way. It was also mentioned who emerged as a leader in each group and why. The groups discovered that if energy is channelised in a right direction it inevitably leads to synergic effect. It was clear that learning is more effective when participants enjoy it. Most people tend to over-strategise to establish the fact that they are "intellectuals". It was shown that often the simple way was the best way to solve any problem. In the same way, adults have the habit of letting the child in them die. It was shown that one must be like a child but not childish. The spirit of adventure and innovation should never be lost, and each new job should be taken up without constrictive pre-conceived notions. The actions of the groups indicated a need to share more, to learn more. To succeed more minds would work better than individual minds working at cross-purposes. Being observant can provide immense learning. There need be no set time to learn anything. The interesting part is that the debrief was conducted by the participants themselves and the learnings noted were therefore far more valuable.
There were some queries, chiefly about the conduct of the exercise. Why for instance were groups given more resources than they needed? It was then pointed out that at the initial stage when ideas are conceived at the organisational level, people are not certain of the resources needed to execute that project. As a result, people deploy a large number of resources without any need, often defeating the object of the exercise. The game indicated the wisdom of using the minimum number of resources and thereby consolidating that company's trust and faith in one as knowledge-led asset. The question that was raised as to why the animal head was given at the last minute was explained by drawing an analogy to the organisational client who has the prerogative to change his mind about certain things even at the last moment. The groups' ability to effect last minute changes indicated their ability to handle such pressure.
The second round of the quiz was played out between the nine top scorers of the first round. This again consisted of general awareness of cross domain knowledge, and knowledge of essential reading that was available in their field.
The Basu/Srinivasan intervention intended to stimulate self-realisation among the participants. This the intervention did amply. Participants who had hitherto assumed that they were contemporary realised that there were gaps in their knowledge base and that the inputs being offered by the company in the form of the GuruCool initiative would go a considerable way in addressing the displayed lacunae. The merits of constant learning was never more acutely felt than after this innovative launch.
Companies in the development of their human resources start many initiatives; regrettably, very few of such interventions make it to the top of mind recall mechanism of employees.
The Frito-Lay experience has shown that making people aware of their shortcomings tends to spur them to remedy that gap expeditiously. To guarantee the universal acceptance of such learning initiatives is difficult but innovative measures often deliver the success that eludes more conventional approaches.
By bringing in interested and motivated external resources, Frito-Lay was able to ensure the successful launch of their GuruCool initiative and are now confident that the organisation will continue to enhance individual learning curves.
ABHIMANYU ACHARYA
abhi.hyd@cnkonline.com
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