Aimed at establishing a real-time responsive administration and mission-mode governance for a futuristic district, the district administration has come out with a couple of innovative, capacity-building programmes for district-level officers and other government staff. One of the major steps towards the goal is a managerial and interpersonal effectiveness lab offered by the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIM-K) for district-level officers.
District Collector Seeram Sambasiva Rao, who initiated the idea, said the programme was a combination of topics such as understanding interpersonal skills and social adaptability index, effective communication skills, team spirit, leadership with humility, emotional intelligence, project management and ICT in governance. “It is done in an interactive mode using experiential learning through role plays, discussions, team and individual exercises,” he told The Hindu .
Self-development
The advanced training sessions, claimed to be the first such initiative for government officers by a district administration, are packed with self-development exercises such as mindfulness, visualisation and guided imagery prompting the ambition of officers to first discover themselves and achieve the targets. Deepa Sethi, IIM-K faculty, is in charge of the coordination and facilitation of the lab. The interactions will happen at frequent intervals and the entire programme has been spread out for enhanced participation.
“Already four rounds of training have been completed in Kozhikode, covering district-level officers. The second-level training programme will start soon in such a way as to cover the other officers in collaboration with the Additional Skill Acquisition Programme,” said Mr. Rao. According to him, the focus at the second level will be on IT, soft skills and personality development and basic project management.
Productivity
Lauding the effort, IIM-K Director Debashis Chatterjee said such interventions could go a long way in shaping the productivity of the district officers, by equipping them to live a happy personal life to perform better on the professional front. “With our unique mission of Globalising Indian Thoughts, IIM-K believes in grass-root uplift of its surroundings and people,” he added.
The positive response of about 50 officers who recently attended the district-level training has encouraged the district administration to proceed with the project. Some of them have already communicated it to the trainers and the Collector. Based on the tentative session plan, they will complete all the 12 modules in 12 separate sessions at the Collectorate.
