Corporate Trainer Prakash Rohera’s dinky cabin is stuffed with files, pictures and momentoes of successful training workshops that he has conducted. Pride of place on the notice board goes to a picture of a little girl pulling a face at the camera. You learn in the course of your conversation with Rohera that you have share much with him- a family history of asthma and young children who’ve suffered tremendously as a result. His daughter, like your son, had spent a harrowing day and a night in the ICU after an acute attack. You know exactly what he went through and a shudder involuntarily goes up your spine as he relates his experience. It’s a strange conversation to have with a man you’ve just met. But then, Rohera is like that. He clearly has a tremendous talent for drawing people out of their shells-even if those people happen to be cynical journalists.
No doubt, it’s a quality that comes in great use when he’s conducting one of his corporate training workshops.”The modules range from service to sales to managing people. Of late, I’ve been doing a lot of Josh workshops. It’s all about passion and motivation,” says Rohera who. Since he set up shop in 1997, has done about 1400 workshops that involved the participation of about 33,000 people.
The former banker, who began his career selling computers door to door and later, spent long stints working for Citibank and Bank of America before moving to Pune, has just finished conducting a workshop for 650 people in Hyderabad. “For one hour I spoke on the topic of dreams. It was amazing,” says Rohera who’s held sessions in Bahrain, Dubai , London, the Far East and of course in different parts in India.
So why did he shift to Pune? “I am an asthmatic and I had a very tough time in Delhi. I was in hospital for 11 months. I had to leave my job and move here and in 1997 I started The Redwood Edge with quite a bit of struggle,” says Rohera who reveals that his firm is names after the ancient towering redwood trees of California. “I had just come back from there and photographs of the trees were all over my album. I went through them and I felt a lot of inspiration to fight for oxygen. So when I decided to get down to Pune and start something- this is a city I love and I did my MBA from Symbiosis so it was natural to come back here- the name that came to me was Redwood,” he says. No doubt, the ‘Edge’ is a tribute to his return from the brink.
But why did he take up training? “This goes back to my Citibank days when I was sent out to become a trainer for the bank. When I came back, I started doing it along with my job- I was running a branch in Delhi. I didn’t know then that one day I’d be starting my own setup. When the opportunity came because of my medical problems, I decided to encash it fully into what I wanted to do in life,” says Rohera who’s clearly a person who always sees the glass as half full. These days he divides his time between Pune, where is main office is located, Singapore where his family lives and from where he services the Asia-Pacific market, and wherever it is in the world that he might be conducting a training programme.
The Redwood Edge’s carefully crafted workshops are conceptualized, designed and co-ordinated by his five-member team.
“Delivery is done by me but the designing is very important. After designing, you send the course to the client for approval because what you speak about shouldn’t be a surprise to the audience. Then, in the classroom, you build on the exercises and build the excitement so that learning becomes easier. I keep saying that if you want to create history, you have to create chemistry. That chemistry is done with people, with content, with process. Once you have done that, it’s very easy to start,” says Rohera who admits that he too, despite his overwhelmingly optimistic spirit, has his bad days.
“When I’m doing workshops in different part of the world, it can be very challenging, very different. I had his this one workshop that didn’t go off really well because I was not prepared for the audience. I was that I’d be speaking to Indians and then I saw people of different nationalities coming in. I didn’t even know which business they were in! The brief had suddenly changed and I was in jam! I’ve also had problem of people being cynical,” he says. Not that he lets that get him down. “Often, in my workshops, I say: passion in your heart, dreams in your eyes and action in your hands. That’s what it’s all about,” says Rohera who insists that while conducting a workshop, the trainer cannot take anything for granted.
“You can’t make any assumptions. The environment changes so you have to adapt, read a lot, be in touch with the market. The trainer has to be a practical guy who understands business and has probably been a business guy earlier,” he says adding that everything in his background from his stint in sales and services, his experience as a manager in multinational banks to his lengthy hospital stays has been a great help.
“If the participant believes that this guy is talking from experience and he’s not giving any hogwash, then he or she will come around,” says Rohera who believes that trainers have to love their job if they want to be successful. “The spotlight is on you from 9 to 6, you can’t do anything but be there and talk audience. So you’ve got to walk the talk. If you’re saying, ‘I love people; I love being in sales; I love challenges’, then you have to show it in real life also,” says Rohera who insists he’ll quit training the day he stops loving it.
“On a Monday morning when you come to work, you’ve got to say ‘Wow!’ otherwise don’t go to work .It’s all about what you want to do in life. I keep saying to people in my workshops: Come to execute; don’t come to work. And if you have disappointments, voice it and then forget about it. The best thing you can do is talk it out with somebody,” says Rohera who turns to his wife for support during tough times.”It’s difficult to motivate yourself and that’s why you need anchors around you. But in the end, nobody can make my mood better but me,” says the man who loves reading management books, watching movies, playing cricket and table tennis, and taking the occasional impromptu holiday with his family.
“I’m a hardcore family man so I try to squeeze days out of days. Some time ago, on the spur of the moment, we went off to Manila for the weekend. I also like to take a formal holiday twice a year,” says who often works through the most adverse conditions. “I had no voice last week but I did whatever I could. The client said: ‘Please go home and rest but I thought ‘Karna hai, yaar’! The show must go on. I once had a workshop where I had a bad asthma attack and I had to take injections. But I still did it! I think if you love doing something and you get paid for it, it’s fine,” exults Rohera.
The interview has drawn to a close and as you say your goodbyes you realize that you feel like one of the participants at Prakash Rohera’s josh workshops all charged up and ready to take on the world!