Training Games

Training games are a source of experiential learning which can not be acquired in the class room. They are a source of deep learning as opposed to surfacing learning acquired through conceptual workshops. The learning acquired through training games has a tendency to become a part of the personality. The phenomenon of ‘quick forgetting’ after a training program , declines in case training games are utilized.

This is aptly demonstrated by the real life experience of a trainer depicted below:

A trainer was given the objective of enabling learning regarding “Team work under uncertainty”. For this purpose, he designed a “Night Trek” as a training game. The night creates an interesting environment of uncertainty. He surveyed a jungle area and made rough maps of trails. These hand sketched maps, he gave to the teams along with a compass and some resources for nutrition.

After dinner, buses ferried the participating teams to the edge of the jungle. The teams were given the target of reaching a camp site in the middle of the jungle by following the directions in the rough map. They were also told that there may be mistakes in the hand made maps.

The objective was to see the team’s performance in uncertainty, identify behavioral competency gaps and give feedback to the participants regarding the team’s performance.

Each team was accompanied by a trainer whose role was to observe the functioning of the team and enable the subsequent performance analysis.

Team A started quite well. There was a lot of bonhomie & light banter. One of the team members was given the map, another was carrying the compass and the refreshments were distributed.

Three team members were actively involved in searching for the clues given on the map, while the others tagged along, enjoying the experience. Then after about half an hour, the leading team members lost the trail. There was disquiet in the team. However, the team members who were earlier not actively involved, showed a lot of bravado.

The team leaders were blamed for putting the team in the wrong track. The map and the compass changed hands. A new path was found for the team to follow

Again, there were 4-5 team members leading the team, others were followers.

After trekking along for half an hour, the leading team members concluded that they were lost. It was pitch dark except for the torch light. There was an element of nervousness among the team members now. One of the team members suggested, “Why don’t we turn back. We can find one of the clues that we passed and thus we shall be back on the right path.”

They started to back track. After 20 minutes of back trekking, they could not find any of the clues. Then the blame game started.

Some team members blamed everybody, starting from the team leaders, their head of the department and the HR department, which was putting them through this experience.

Conflict came out into the open. The team members whose opinion was not being considered, withdrew and sulked along. Then, they regularly came up with, ‘I told you so’, statements at every indication of team failure. Finally, it was 1 a.m. and the team was stranded in the middle of a tea estate on the top of a hill.

The team cracked.

They approached the trainer and asked to be taken back. The trainer declined and said that he was not supposed to interfere. Some of them lost their temper at the trainer.

Team members went in different directions in search of the trail, while the others squatted, not knowing what was going on.

Then, one of the team members found a path downhill. The team followed blindly. At 2 a.m. they found themselves in the middle of a valley surrounded by mountains.

The team gave up.

Some of them suggested, “let’s wait here, somebody is bound to find us sooner or later”.

Another suggested, “let’s wait for day light”.

Then one of the team members took over the leadership of the team. He facilitated a brief debriefing session, standing there in the middle of the mountains in the darkness. They traced the team’s movement and decided about the direction in which they needed to proceed.

After 2 minutes, they found a clue given on the map. They tracked the rest of the trail to the campsite. They reached their destination at 4.00 a.m. They were supposed to get there by 11.30 p.m.

At 4.00 a.m., the entire team was a disgruntled lot, complaining about the training program and passing rude remarks at the trainer. When they got up in the morning, they talked excitedly about the experience, narrated it to anybody who would listen and laughed at themselves.

At the debriefing session, they culled out the following learning points:

• 1. In uncertainty, the team has a strong tendency to crack.
• 2. Decision making under uncertainty results in mistakes. However, these mistakes should be expected and should not result in the beginning of a blame game among team members.
• 3. The more they panicked, the more their team performance declined.
• 4. Every team member needs to be aware of all the milestones in the path to performance. Blind dependence on a few team members to track the progress of the team, results in the lack of utilization of the potency of team members as well as a decline in team performance.
• 5. In uncertainty, it is important for the team to utilize the competence of each and every team member. The team needs to get together, do an analysis of failure points and evolve a direction of action.

Feedback regarding the “Behavioral competencies” was given by the trainer to all the team members who lost their shirt during the training game.

Interpersonal feedback regarding behavioral competencies was swift. The powerful thing about the feedback process was that those with competency gaps listened. There were no “defensive statements”.

This happened because the experience was so real and the data regarding the lack of behavioral competence so evident. All the team members knew, who panicked and who did not; who withdrew and who did not; who sulked and who did not; who contributed and who did not; who motivated; who blamed; who lead; who lagged and who criticized without adding value.

Even a trainer learns a lot in such training games. It is like a lab in the woods. A trainer with good observation skills can see when the team performs, when it begins to disintegrate, what pulls it together and what makes it perform.

Such training is beyond, what is possible through vicarious learning.

The achievement of such learning has its pitfalls too. Not all the organizations are ready for such an experience. The participants of training programs have also become used to cushy seats in class rooms, passive listening and non accountability of learning.

In this case, the depth of the learning was such and the story was discussed so often that it almost became folklore in the organization.

Such an experience invariably goes into long term memory of the participants. When the trainer met a participant of such a training game after 4 years of the program, he still recounted the story.

Is such an impact possible through class room learning?