Perhaps, not everything we deploy at workplace is acquired through skill, talent and training. All the facets of human behavior and relationships have still not been captured by human resource specialists and scientists. There are still numerous areas, where there is no research made or is available, especially on the emotional and sentimental effect of one human over the other. As an example, how can any sane person explain the delight and joy of a person over the insult, harm, hurt, and damage to another human. In-explainable, mental dis-order syndrome.
Recently, I read an extremely interesting book by Sydney Finkelstein, who has dedicated a chapter on the Master-Apprentice relationship. The contents drove me into deep thinking about how human bonding come to effect directly upon creativity and productivity. Some of the thoughts, albeit altered with my own nuances to it, are borrowed from him; in other words I have localised, the concepts.
The Great Artists during the period of renaissance in Italy, were at some point, all apprentices to the masters; and later, these very apprentices excelled so much that they had their own set of proteges, who looked up to these ‘apprentice’ of yore, as “Masters”. Leonardo da Vinci is a case in point, whose works carry an emblem of his apprenticeship at Andrea del Verrocchio’s workshop, who was then a ‘Master’ to Leonardo.
Apprenticeship was a term restricted to few disciplines like the light and heavy industrial organisations, the chartered accountants firms, the solicitors (legal) firms etc. Since it then meant being on the lowest rung of the corporate ladder, the term, overtime created an image of an individual, who is a beginner; currently knows very little and is likely to progress further, generally. This thought was supported empirically by the army of apprentices, who never made to be barristers or chartered accountants; instead as apprentices, they were not a promising asset, but a slave, to the master. Many youngsters have perished and buried their dreams in such firms.
Apprentice, is a person, who is associated with his/her master, who is a sage: a man of intellect and even better, of heightened wisdom. Apprentice, in current corporate culture is an outdated word. It has over the years come to be associated with a low-level job reporting to an even lowlier placed manager. What has become fashionable and used more as a cliché, than adding real value to the original concept of apprenticeship are terms like “mentoring”. “Learning & development”, coaching, etc. The nobler aspect of being apprentice to a master has been expunged by the infusion of jargons and nomenclature like, “probationary officers”, “trainees”, and the more royally coined, “management trainees”, “interns”, etc. The various suffixes and prefixes as the replacement to apprenticeship gave no new meaning or value to the concept. The learning curve is no better; in fact I would go to the extent of saying, the new jargon has taken away to the peril and dis-advantage of the individual, the many benefits of being an “apprentice”.
In all formats of training and development, the impersonal approach of the trainer and the trainee, has led to distancing, rather than forging links, for free flow of talent, to emerge.
Getting external coaches, in my view, is an exercise with very limited benefits; what a coachee can get from his/her organisational manager, will be of a superior quality. Today, management trainees are put to “on-job training" through a very tightly scheduled programme that allows them to stay for “x” number of days, in the various functions/departments of the organisation. There is no supervision of the line manager because of his/her own lack of interest; ask any intern, how and what did you learn? The prompt answer would be, “I am now good at making photocopies and filing all the pending papers”. The personal touch of interest is completely missing here.
Most HR professionals feel, “coaching” is superior to training. Again true, but on a limited scale. The coach and coachee are in different set of circumstances; to begin with they are not experiencing the same working environment. This leads to lack of understanding of the fine nuances of human relations as they subsist in any organisation. Consequently, I am of the view, that coaching is more akin to being in the “Confession Box”, where the poor young officer is seeking redemption and salvation from the unconcerned, of the lethally explosive manager that he has to contend with at the workplace. Readers, the intention is not to negate or berate the many benefits of “coaching”; the idea is to invoke the thought that it has inherently limited appeal for complete success.
In present day business management, the CEOs or supervisors do not give time and attention to their reports, let alone fresh inductees. Their meetings, deliberately for impact (mostly negative) are so scientifically programmed, that it leaves no room for flexibility of healthy exchange of thoughts and ideas. Reports need guidance on how to communicate the solution/answers to the rank and file. I recall we were once, in an organisation I worked for, where a newly-inducted marketing manager, shared some very innovative ways of marketing during the board meeting, but he made a fatal final remark, “If we don’t, we will be history!”. Lo! Behold, the Group CEO, then and there gave the worst tongue-lashing to him. “How dare you say we will be history,” the Group CEO roared. A manager does not train for how to say things; a master does.
Have had the privilege of working for more than seventeen bosses of various types and shades, in different geographies. They were all good. But not all of them treated me like an apprentice. Those who did were remarkable leaders. Early in my career, I had the pleasant opportunity to come across a highly intelligent banker who was supervisor to my manager. He took special interest in my work, where I was an “apprentice” to his assignments. He would leave his chambers and literally sit across at my desk and calculate the yield-to-maturity on the bond portfolio or the two of us would do a quick calculation of forward foreign exchange rates, interpolating for broken periods. This was not classroom stuff; purely hands-on practical impartation of knowledge and skill.
Apprenticeship, conceptually is so beauteous a management principle that it allows for the closest of association with the boss called master. A conventional supervisor packs you off to training programmes, a master-manager, either sits at your desk or calls you in his chamber, to impart.
As an acting CEO and later as COO, I would often be called by my CEO to merely sit as an observer in some special meetings, he would have with specific clients, colleagues or the regulators -this was way beyond coaching! He would mostly in late afternoon invite me for a cup of coffee in his cabin and from nowhere he would say, let’s watch cricket… the match has entered into an exciting stage. Whilst sipping coffee and having that one rare afternoon “smoke”, he would remark, “O! hope you are keeping a keen eye on the issues relating to the “consumer portfolio”? Without waiting for my reply, in the same breath, “look at that cover drive to the boundary by Yunus Khan - text book boundary”; and then pause to say, “Please do give me a draft reply first thing in the morning to send to XYZ"; he would actually then give tips/points to cover. He wasn’t my supervisor, not my manager, certainly not my boss but a “Master”, in engagement and association with an ‘apprentice”. “Masters” do not prearrange meetings with their apprentices. The inter-action is not premeditated. It happens. It is natural. It is not a put-on of show-off; neither it is expedient to any motive.
“Masters” are known for their accomplishments; for their deep insight into human understanding and for their amazing attitude of caring. They are known for their confidence through an assurance written large on their foreheads, “Been there, done that!”
Abraham Lincoln started off as an apprentice. Our own Zulfiqar Ali Bhuto was apprentice in Justice Dorab Patel’s office, who later was one of the three dissenting judges, asking for his life to be spared- in vain though! There are several famous people who have Masters, who they as per current trend call them as mentors, Oprah Winfrey (Master: Maya Angelou); Mark Zuckerberg (Master: Steve Jobs), Dr. Martin Luther King (Master: Benjanum Ways), etc.
Where and how, do my readers think, emerged the term “transactional leadership” ? The manager and his/her report are in an equation, where the manager requires a certain assignment done by his/her report. Once undertaken and done, the “transactional leader” assures to his/her support that the monthly paycheck will be given. There is no bonding, purely mechanical relationship, that snaps, at the first provocation, from either side.
Mentoring may allow you to see the ‘hope’ that may reside in you, but a master to an apprentice does not merely identify the hope; he/she holds hands to realise the hope, without making it obvious.
Apprenticeship is a much nobler and effective tool of developing colleagues. An apprentice enjoys the “company of the master”. Here, the master imparts by subtleties, the necessary knowledge, guidance, direction and often wisdom.
The writer is a senior banker and freelance contributor