Training and Chanan Singh

It was early seventies, I was in Rourkela Steel Plant (SAIL), and our personnel department had just decided to send promoted foremen also for management training.

Foremen were generally promotees from highly skilled technicians and chargehands or engineers like us. The then culture demanded that they have great technical and language skills, like cursing fluently ( I was a total misfit for the steel industry that way. It was according to some, the TISCO syndrome).
Chanan Singh was one of the best I have come across.
He was sent for 2 weeks training and when he came back we discussed the training provided. He was positive, unusual for hard core technical chaps.
On the 3rd day after his return, one of my fitters came to my room and whispered to me in confidence, that Chanan Singh had not gone for training but for a medical check up and he is suffering from something serious.
On the 5th day another fitter came and whispered to me that there are very serious rumours on the shop floor, that he is suffering from cancer and is not going to live long.
Now things were getting worrying and I decided to investigate. I started to talk to all and to get a feed back how such rumours had spread. I learnt that he has suddenly changed. Looks worried, does not talk much, does not shout in his usual way and is not even cursing! During work and interactions I also observed these things. And wondered what had changed him. Sometimes such changes come about when they get married but he was a married person of long standing.
Then It dawned on me that it was the training!
This needed counselling, not a commom word those days. I planned my approach and called him to my office. We had tea and a long discussion. I told him that training is one thing, you pick up what you need, but getting work done is another. Specially in Steel Plants. None of the people who were lecturing have ever actually got work done, and definitely not by tough Coke Ovens labour. And apart from things like knowledge, skills, leadership etc. tough language is also needed for getting work done. You may have taken the training too seriously.
I saw that he was catching the hint. He was now nodding his head.
I watched him as he walked out of my office after the session, from my door. Within a minute he saw a one of his workers loitering around and let him have it. Since he had a lot of pent up emotions, he did a great job, as usual. I relaxed and went back to my table.

Two days later the first fitter came and told me that Chanan Singh has now appears to have got cured and is now normal and back to his confident ways. Our work is now going on smoothly!

The counselling was a success. Another problem solved!

Ratnakar Misra

VP, National HRD Network, Patna Chapter

(This was published in NHRDN Newsletter.)