Transforming trainings through humor and psychology: The evolving paradigm of Upskilling and Upscaling

Upscaling and Upskilling are an inherent part of our lives. Humans begin to move by crawling, then learn to walk, and subsequently run, swim, ride, drive, fly. Every enhancement is an upskilling effort which even though requires an investment of time, energy, and resources, lead to enhancement in the quality of our lives- both personal and professional.

Educational institutes and the workplace are the two primary avenues for upscaling and upskilling where you learn either on the job or through specialized training programs. However, the general perception of such programs is that they are boring and ineffective.

Usually, training programs are based on telling the participants what they are doing wrong and what they should do, especially in soft skills/behavioural aspects. Often it is not the intent, but the execution which is flawed, leading to people either dozing off or moving their focus to their cell phones/ laptops/ chit-chats with others.

If you are responsible for managing training programs at your orgzation or educational institute, ask yourself a couple of basic questions to ascertain if your training programs are effective:

* Were your participants awake and active during the entire program of 1-2 days?

* Did they learn things to change their approach/behaviour in the long run?

If your answer to either or both are no, you might want to change the approach with which training is being conducted at your place. This is where Vineet Barnwal, one of the top campus and corporate trainers, has endeavoured to incorporate humour and psychology as two critical pillars of training programs, thereby ushering in a fundamental shift in effectiveness and impact.

Vineet, who worked for over a decade in the IT industry before moving into training, understood quite early the impact of relevant humour and psychology in training programs.

"If you can keep the audience awake and attentive, that is half the battle won. Humour also lowers your defence and resistance to unlearning and re-learning, softens your hardened mindset to change and makes the process fun. You might forget a story or analysis quickly, but if it is filled with humour and learning, you rarely do."- says Vineet.

Instead of just focusing on what is wrong and what is the right thing to do, if you first make the participants understand the psychological aspects of their behaviour (why they are behaving in this way and not only why is this behaviour wrong), they will have a greater push to learn more about improving.

Once people understand the psychological barriers behind why they are not able to speak publicly, talk confidently, lead teams, resolve conflicts, influence people, generate sales etc., it is easier for them to improve. "These learnings are not temporary and stay for life". says Vineet

Top corporates and start-ups like GoAir, TCS, Accenture, Oracle, Wipro, Fisdom, Lighting Technologies, Royal Enfield, Huron etc. have realized the importance of this approach and have reported mind-boggling returns. A small investment of a few thousand rupees per person led to an increase in sales by Rs 40 lakhs per annum per salesperson for a start-up. An airline customer reported many folds increase in sales revenue for their Business Development team post their program.

Top educational institutions like IIMs, IITs, NITs, BIT, IIFM, Symbiosis, NIRMA etc. too have benefited tremendously from this new outlook to learning programs. One of the top private universities in India reported an increase in their recruitment and average package of their MBA students by about 20 per cent.

Some of the valuable testimonials from people who have taken training from Vineet are:

* Rahul Wadhwa, Head-Transformation and Sales, GoAir: "The best training I have ever had for any of my teams was by Vineet. Immensely engaging and impactful."

* Vidhya Sankari, CFO, Lighting Technologies: "Fun and practical. Could see immediate and significant improvement in communication skills and performance of my team."

* Subhadeep Paul, MBA student, Symbiosis: "Radical, different and way more impactful than usual training."

* Sayantan Mazumder, B. Com. Student, DU: "Enhanced my personality and communication skills to a whole new level. Affected my educational and personal life in an incredibly positive manner."

To find out more about how your orgzation/ institute can benefit similarly, Vineet can be reached at or vineet.barnwal@gmail.com

This story is provided by SRV Media. will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (/SRV Media)

( With inputs from ANI )