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How HR managers are learnng fro m movies22 Feb 2010, 0857 hrs IST, Avinash Nair, ET Bureau

AHMEDABAD: When the irrepressible Rancho mocks at his professor in the movie 3 Idiots with his definition of a book:

Instruments that record, analyse, summarise... and explain information which are illustrative, non-illustrative , hardbound,paperback..., someone was taking notes.

Shivendra Madhusudan, manager sales development-management training at Max-New York Life Insurance later held ascreening of the movie for his sales team. The message: J argon-free communication skills for sales personnel involved inselling insurance polices.

After driving home the point: Dejargonise insurance products while selling to common policy holders through 3 Idiots,Madhusudan is back to his neighbourhood movie rental store, sifting through piles of DVDs. This time he picks up ThePursuit of Happyness . The Will Smith-starrer is based on the story of a struggling salesman, and Madhusudan seeslessons in motivation for his team.

To trainers like Madhusudan, presentations are no longer the best way to train. They believe a lot more can be achieved byinviting team members with their families for a leisurely evening show not only do films establish a connect with the team,they also complement training programmes and workshops. Movies carry powerful in-built messages. Through them, itbecomes easier to get a point across, says Madhusudan. \

Hollywood blockbuster King Arthur , featuring the Anglo-Saxon war, is a regular part of his training sessions. In the movie,the weakened army of the king repeatedly hits at weak spots on a frozen lake to crack the ice and drown enemies. MrMadhusudan explains why he uses the movie to motivate his staff: We need to remember that insurance is emotionalselling . One needs to touch the weak nerve of the customer while doing so. Rocket Singh might not have worked at thebox office. But the film is still being shown for innovative methods of selling. S o m e t i m e s , just watching a good film,with or without a message, is a good experience and cheers up the team.

A lot of companies have now begun to use the film model to talk about HR issues like team-building , says E Balaji, EDMa Foi Management Consultants.

Two years ago, Ahmedabad-based pharmaceutical company Claris Lifesciences named its HR programme Lakshya. Itchose to show its emplayees the Hrithik Roshan-starrer with a similar name. The company , which manufactures andmarkets high-end injectibles, has made movie screenings an important part of its HR sessions. During the trainingmodules , groups of employees are given a regular dose of messages from Bollywood and Hollywood . We talk aboutsubjects like leadership, time management, belongingness , self-management and so on through these movie sessions,says vice-president , HRM of Claris, Shyam Sharma.

Explaining how his HR team incorporated the cream of cinema and that includes lesser-known movies into theirtraining modules , Mr Sharma says, Ek Ruka Hua Faisla was a favourite when it came to talking about leadership and theimportance of logic and rationality to employees at the middle-management level. Similarly, Ek Doctor ki Maut, starringPankaj Kapoor, talks about how the lack of organisation , time management and self-management could turn an advantageinto a disadvantage, he says. If films like Lakshya and Goal are for a target-driven sales team, corporates also dig into thelibrary of Hollywood films to source motivational films like Happyness, Eight Below, Black Hawk Down, Troy and Gladiatorthat talk about similar issues.

The movie screenings are mostly anchored by an internal faculty which could comprise the HR or training manager. Hedissects important portions of the film containing in-built messages . So, just when Amir Khans definition of a book hasthe class in splits, the HR manager hits the pause button. A five-minute talk on simplification during selling is made, beforethe movie resumes . Movies leave an indelible mark. The impact is strong and people dont forget the issue in a hurry,says an official of APM terminals (the container terminal operating unit of Danish shipping and oil conglomerate AP Moeller-Maersk ), which also screens movies during motivation sessions organised within the organisation in India. When it comesto motivating staffers to meet critical sales targets towards the fag end of a financial year, nothing comes close to SRKs

passionate address to the hockey team in Chak De, minutes before the final match.

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