The day before, by the grace of God, and the duas of my parents and beloved, i achieved another milestone my career. My first solo open enrollment executive training course. The boss is in Dubai, and didn’t approve any of the material, the venue nor my execution strategy. This was all my own doing. Well, not the venue, that was the marketing team.
Hurray 4 me!!
During november, my boss called me up and asked “how would you feel about giving a full day course on your own?” i swear my heart rate right then and there tripled! I was waiting for this moment for such a long time it wasn’t even funny! and to finally hear the words! As nonchalantly as i could, i replied, “i think im ready for it. conducting it wont be the problem, as long as i have administrative support”.
And that was that. A course was scheduled in December, and the marketing team given directions to ensure full participation. From the moment it was launched, there was good response. In the days leading up to the actual course, i got daily updates on who’s coming and who’s not. Even a friend from lahore called me up, saying he was sending one person from his organization to it. Ofcourse, im not sure he knows i was giving it in the first place. On the last day, we had to close registrations because we were exceeding capacity! All in all, i had 22 delegates from software houses, banking, pharmaceutical and the oil and gas industries, ranging from engineers to vice presidents! It was one hell an experience.
The fateful day started with me getting up at 5! and then sleeping again, finally to wake up around 7. After getting dressed and bumping my brother off the bed, we were on our way at 8 towards his workplace, and then the hotel. I entered the designated hall and was taken aback. Our marketing team had done a terrific job in acquiring the place. It was large, spacious and well lit, plus had direct access to the poolside ;). We got the training materials ready, me and the marketing manager from my company, who was there in a dual role, both to lend administrative support as well as gauge my performance. The first participant entered the hall at 9, a girl from one of our local software houses. Scheduled to start at 9:30, we were almost full attendance by 9:15. People were surprisingly punctual. I started making small talk with the delegates, on various topics related to the course, and finally at 9:25, a full five minutes before the actual time, started with the course. The last person to enter came at 9:32 and from there we went full steam ahead.
After doing the usual introductions, of the company, the course, myself and each of the participants, i started off with the first module, and completed it in under 20 minutes. Panic started settling in. The first module and the introductions were supposed to take almost 1.5 HOURS, i had it done in under 45 minutes!~ This was not good, people weren’t talking, weren’t discussing, and it was not a good sign. I shifted strategies, realigned their expectations and their understanding of the rules and regulations (which included full participation during each aspect of the course) and then sparked a discussion. Slowly, people started volunteering information, hesitantly asking questions, all the while i had to coax them into believing it was for their own good and for the good of the course. The next section, which i had to start up after the first tea break, was actually finished well before it. My course execution plan was in shambles and that’s when survival instincts set in. Till lunch, i had slowed down the pace of the course considerably, integrating discussions and questions throughout, till i slowly started getting a grip on where it was heading.
At precisely 1 PM, we broke for lunch. The timings, so far, were going like clockwork. People are forgiving if you mess up the teaching schedule, but they don’t forgive you if you take two minutes extra from their lunch time. Thankfully, they didn’t have to forgive me, instead, at precisely 2 PM all of them were seated back in the room for resumption of the course, without even being asked to! Something which i have not seen in quite sometime, and something for which i was thankful to the Almighty.
After a little more theory, i executed the first and only exercise of the course, an exercise i had designed myself, surprisingly which came to me almost in a dream. Well, not almost, it did. I woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago with this whole scenario in my head, jotted it down somewhat, and went back to sleep. Even i was surprised as to how it all happened. While the exercise was scheduled for half hour, we were so ahead of schedule, that i made the discussion go up a full hour. This is where most of the post lunch ’suroor’ (siesta time) we tend to get into was shaken off. There was fire in the group, indignation at being wrong, assertions that their way was the right way, until one of the most senior members of the group, a VP from a prominent bank of the country, recounted what it meant to be taught best practices. People calmed down, we proceeded with the exercise and completed it successfully.
Then came the last two sections after the tea break, by now, most of the material had already been thought, my legs felt like jelly everytime i had to take a step. since i had not sat down since 8 in the morning, and i could feel the cheek muscles struggle to remain in a smile, yet i had to go on. Indeed, during the tea break, i actually took off towards the pool side, and did a few stretching exercises :p it was so Japanese! These two sections were simply breezed through. The participants didn’t ask anything, and i didn’t volunteer much. I knew it would ruin my ratings, a performance appraisal we get at the end of the course by the participants, but i felt i had achieved all i could. This is one part i still need to work on though.
The course ended at 5:15, a full 15 minutes before schedule, and after the feedback forms were completed, everyone had LEFT the hall by 5:30! A resounding success as far as the timings were concerned.
The gratification, however, was the ending. Just as people were leaving, many of them lined up, shook my hand, and complimented me on a well done presentation. I had won the approval and admiration of this group. I was ecstatic! Here i was, a 25 year old, standing in front of people with 15+ years of experience, teaching them and coming away with a compliment. What more can a guy ask for.
The feather in my cap, however, was a line in one of the feedback forms. When asked how we can improve further, the response was
“cannot improve perfection”
Thankyou God, for your blessing and your kindness and your grace. Amen!
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