15.Theatre of Relevance – Facilitates value based leadership 

Theatre of Relevance – Facilitates value based leadership for Human Excellence! - Manjul Bhardwaj

What theatre has to do with management?  How much we value theatre in our life? To go in the evening or in a cultural evening – entertain us and forget it. Philosophically, we all laugh and say world is a stage and we are all performing in it. The moment we say it, the same moment we forget it. Thus, depriving ourselves from wonderful, adventures, innovative journey of exploration, development and change which happens through Theatre.

Theatre means managing time and space. Theatre is a live laboratory to assess the impact of human behavior. Theatre is apt medium to learn how to manage human resource i.e. emotions, thoughts, dreams, desire, action and response, Business, social & organizational behavior. Theatre is experience, live, here and now. It is catharsis.

Have you ever pondered upon that theatre can empower you as manager, leader or business entrepreneur? Theatre experience is ever lasting in life. Today world need a value based leadership. Theatre facilitates value-based leadership. You may have read or heard that how our father of nation got his insight of the value of truth. He saw a play “ Raja Harishchander”. The play created an impact on young Mohandas that he led himself and the nation through the value of truth. Theatre inculcates value in us. Value based leadership is the need of Mankind.

Amazing we never realize this that theatre has so much to give us. This is related to the facts that theatre has not been used in education, as it should have been. Even we only remember our four Vedas but forget the fifth that is theatre, Theatre works on persons. Theatre is laboratory of self-exploration, a space to challenge one’s own self, self-worth, strength and weakness, ability to connect with others, emotional intelligence, expression, openness etc. which leads into deep understanding of human behavioral processes.

Theatre is creativity and today business and management leaders require creativity to achieve their goals. Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. Conditions for creativity are to leave your comfort and go to the wilderness of your intuition, to be curious, to concentrate, to accept conflict and tension, to be born every day, to feel a sense of self and these are the very basic discipline of theatre. Creativity in our interaction with people is one of the most crucial skills a human being can have and theatre develops our interactive skills. Recreating one’s own life is the highest form of creativity and theatre is the recreation of life. Theatre process facilitates us to recreate and rediscover to be a change maker in different spheres of the life.

Leadership, Vision, creativity, innovation, emotional intelligence, team building, strategic planning, personal effectiveness, communication, confidence you name any management term and you will find theatre as an new and unique instrument to experience, learn and live.

Theatre is a mirror. It opens your eyes and facilitates you to see your own face to discover, understand the present and plan for future. It develops a sense of objectivity, enthusiasm and focus. It creates a habit of timing, newness and inspire for transformation

Theatre is 360-degree way of experimenting and learning. It gives our four-dimensions equal and simultaneous opportunities to develop like mind, emotions (heart), body and spirit (Spiritual). The awareness of these dimensions is essential ingredients of a visionary leader. Theatre brings the person to a heightened state of enlightenment where spiritual value come into existence and guide through challenges smoothly. Today value-based leadership is the need of the hour to sail the mankind for a better tomorrow.

Theatre is the ocean of human energy and builds positive attitudes which psychoanalyst say are the motherboard of human behavior. Attitude brings 100 percent success. Theatre creates positive environment of experience and education that are crucial factors in developing one’s attitude.

Theatre is communication. Theatre is a medium of attempting at complete communication of human experiences by creating the illusion of reality with human being as actors. It has, therefore, real space, real time, real actors and experiential emotions.  In other words, it tries to concretize the abstract ideas, experiences, and various intricate relationships between human beings and nature for better understanding it is therefore, also intellectual and spiritual exercise of highest degree.

Theatre develops leader in effective communication both ways verbal and non-verbal. It develops sensitivity of the unsaid part e.g. eye to eye (looks), gesture, posture, dress, tone and pitch of voice. Theatre enables in observation. Observation is one of the key skills of a leader or trainer.

Theatre has the capability to bring life to ideas, visions and existential experiences in communicable form, which helps a transformational leader to envision, align others to the dream and motivate for execution.

The greatest challenge in management today is the mask, which everybody wears and Theatre of Relevance processes encourages managers to voluntarily unmask themselves. This unmasking creates a belief in their natural self, their ability to lead, discover, dream to create a vision for the company, units and themselves. A stream of freshness and harmony flows from this unmasking, positive vibrations and emotions strengthens intra and inter personal bonding and creates a team of effective human beings.

Theatre develops confidence, articulation, dynamism, spontaneity, and a habit of timely response, alertness, attentiveness and expressiveness. Theatre prepares to face the challenges. It keeps you alive and vibrant. Theatre is great stress buster instrument. It relaxes you and brings lot of joy in you and today professional and organization need joy. Joy will take you to a sense of delight. Delight motivates you to go higher in life.

Theatre triggers the unleashing process of the hidden potential   i. e. creativity, excellence, zeal to excel; hidden values which are dormant inside the managers in a very easy and spontaneous manner, and the person come out is able to give his best. The person’s best is not only what they think is their best, it is perceived, it is seen, it is observed, it is evaluated by others also; that is a great area to work on.

In any business organization or industrial organization a lot of interventions by way of trainings, creativity techniques, dream workshops and creative problem-solving; could be done by theatre and this will lead the professional trainers to new avenues, new interventions new methodologies for developing people.

So in the management development program, structured management development programs and even semi structured meetings there is Great Potential to utilize Theatre of Relevance processes. Training is now from classroom to outbound and outbound to theatre, this is the journey onward….

Dr. Udai Pareek, Father of HRD movement in India said about Theatre of Relevance value based leadership Module, “OH! Theatrical intervention is marvelous. I think it is very creative. I believe in theatre and my belief is increasing more and more as I experiencing things. One of the best ways of creating new processes is through theatre because theatre is something, which increases creativity. I think what we lack in India is creativity   and I find among those who are the most creative persons are the artists, theatre artists, painters, musicians and I think these are something which I really wish, I was one of them. So, I envy you (Manjul & Theatre of Relevance) and others who are involved in this. This is marvelous thing because future generation requires theatre and it’s creative processes. I think in my opinion theatre links people with their society, individual to social issues and their relevance of those issues.

Theatre contributes to management or helps in several ways, I think when participants undergo the theatrical processes one change is visible that they are much more relaxed in their expressions. They are not tight and reserved. Their attitude towards each other also becomes much more helpful and trusting. I saw people enjoying together and one of the most important requirement in organisation today is joy. You bring joy by working together.  The most important contribution, I think today was creativity. In such a short time they were able to work on certain themes conceptualize them and impressively communicated to all of us.”

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.. to be continued…