Interview by Vani Viswanathan
[box]In an interview to Spark, Karthik Kumar talks about Sideways Training and the work they do. Vani Viswanathan listens in.[/box] [box type = “bio”]Karthik Kumar is a theatre and Tamil film actor. He is also the Director of Evam Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, a theatre company and Sideways Training, Evam’s latest venture which offers corporate training using methodologies combining the arts and management.[/box]1. Tell us more about Sideways. What motivated you start the firm? How long did it take to plan and incorporate this?
Sideways Training is an ‘Evam’ venture which was born out of the parent company’s division called Happy Factory. We found investors who believed in the vision and here we are – Sideways Training, an arts methodologies based training company for corporates and education! We kicked off operations on Feb 28, 2011 and it has taken us a year in planning so far 🙂
2. Sideways is from a company that also does theatre – actually, how are your experiences in theatre coming into the picture in Sideways?
Theatre taught us how to understand people and how they can be moulded into any dramatic situation – be it at work or college. People are the secret to any great business and we believe we work on understanding what makes people excited and happy, and get them believing in themselves. Today Sideways works on pedagogy that makes people WANT to learn and enjoy the process, rather than just the results.
3. What do you do differently from the other companies that offer similar offbeat training services?
We’d like to believe we are not offbeat – we are hard core when it comes to making people believe in Change – and think very much like Corporates do in terms of delivering results. Nothing offbeat about that for sure 🙂
4. How exactly do you go about imparting life skills through art – and how do you make it fun?
What you learn is all dependent on how you learnt and what/who taught you, The most inane lessons stick with us when they have been taught by the best teachers! We hope to recreate best teaching with the most challenging and sensorial teaching processes. That itself is experiencing and FEELing and that’s fun!
5. Your ‘human orchestra’ for GE seemed extremely interesting – how receptive are older employees to such means of training and group work?
We hope they are curious and young at heart – as long as we deliver results, why question the methods 🙂
6. What has the reception to this form of teaching been like? Any interesting client stories that you can share?
Well, all our clients so far have called us back, and we take that as the only encouragement we need. Our intentions are earnest and we believe in people, and that’s a deadly combo in training 🙂
7. One often walks out feeling rejuvenated and changed so to speak, after the end of such sessions. But more often than not, people are so caught up with tough schedules and demanding routines at office that what they learn sort of dissipates. What do you think is the way to fix this?
Practical Learning – learning what can be applied and applying what one feels has been learnt – one good turn deserves another. There is no use for wisdom that cannot be felt or applied.
8. Sideways is a very young firm. Where do you see yourself five years from now?
Still growing, and being the definitive BRAND in training young people in the 18-35 age segment in India, and for having pioneered marrying arts and management seamlessly.
9. Finally, we would particularly like to know about the sort of innovation you plan to bring about to the whole program over the coming years.
From B2B to B2C we have a whole range of products launching very soon, and the range is encompassing our core area of young people, and making them ready for chas llenges in their professional spaces. That’s the focus and we are very participant driven!
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