Man is dependent on his fellow-beings for his personal concerns and his organizational or group goals. The more complex the society, the greater he has to rely on others for his various activities and usually has to work on situations which are incompatible with his own ideals.
In recent times, collaboration, cooperation and coordination are much hackneyed terms often ventilated by bureaucrats, political leaders and
development proponents. All the development structures and institutions so far created have been asked to coordinate and integrate their activities in efforts to meet the growing demands of the people. Likewise, human resources are said to have been harnessed towards that goal and that the
incumbents at all of our development channels are striving to achieve the desired goal. These ventures, however, have not yet succeeded in yielding the expected results.
Actually, cooperative approaches or group efforts are not exactly intended and do not exist wholeheartedly. Coercion and other faults have clouded the real meaning of cooperative initiatives. However, they are not the only impediments. Lack of understanding of the human self, emotions, motives, attitudes and shortages of skill in work and in communication and other factors impede group achievement.
Development workers, be they managers, supervisors or frontline workers dealing directly with villagers need
sensitivity training to develop their psychological and social faculties.
In general, sensitivity training is a method by which trainees are put in small groups under stress and strain to help them to understand their own behaviour and that of others through their interaction. The term sensitivity itself elucidates that this type of training increases awareness in the participating individuals leading to an improvement in behavioral
skills and ultimately having a positive impact on productivity.
In sensitive training, there is unstructured group interaction in real work environment provided. The trainers'' role is only to create a supportive environment. Sometimes the trainers intervene but do not give any decisions or directions. The participants themselves find out the direction of their interaction and subject matter selected at random. Generally, the duration of such training is one to two weeks and the training is conducted from the participants'' workplace.
Undoubtedly, the unstructured and random content approach may cause anxiety and tension in the participants at the beginning but soon they will assume leadership and others will adopt different roles, while some may refuse to participate. Despite this, intense involvement helps one to understand one''s behavior and that of others. Various patterns of behaviour are studied in this way. Hence, the participants are thrown into the situation in which they have ample opportunities to test, practice and directly experience. In reality, improvement gained in behavioral skills from such a laboratory environment will definitely encourage to exercise their new skills back on their work. Therefore, sensitivity training is absolutely essential for development workers, who are totally aimed at bringing overall development in their respective countries.
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