The Jakarta Post: Tirian Offers a New Vision for Indonesia

By Michele Cempaka

How did two former teachers from Australia end up leaving their careers and life behind? Andrew and Gaia Grant, the co-owners of Tirian, a successful company that offers professional development and management training, explain how they came to Bali eleven years ago and made it their home base for Tirian.

“We’d taken a year’s leave from our jobs working in education in the community sector. After a year of living in Bali, we wanted to be able to remain in Indonesia and use it as a base for our work, so we looked at ways that we could use our skills in the region, and we ended up connecting with corporate groups who were coming into Bali for conference programs, so we were able to start doing workshops, keynote talks, etc. for those companies. That immediately connected us with international and multi-national countries worldwide; after that, we were invited to go back to their headquarters and deliver training programs or consult to them,” said Gaia Grant.

Andrew and Gaia freely admit that they have a great connection with the Indonesian culture, and that it has been their inspiration and a foundation for the work that they do. They had little difficulty breaking into the Indonesian market, because most of their clients are multi-nationals that are Asia-wide. While these companies aren’t necessarily Indonesian, some are international companies which are based in Indonesia.

“We don’t often work with just purely Indonesian companies, but I think we’ve got a cultural awareness of the issues in Indonesia and the issues of western corporate management to be able to help an expatriate from overseas manage a company in Indonesia or in Asia,” said Andrew Grant.

Tirian programs differ greatly from other management training and professional development programs, because both Andrew and Gaia have a background in education which enables them to engage their participants with innovative techniques such as doing business theatre or constructing a building to get the participants to experience learning, rather than just intellectualizing about ideas.

 “You have to bring your ideas to life in a way that the average cynical person in the room sits there and says, ‘yes that applies to me; yes I can change my behavior as a result of this course or I can learn to develop a better attitude. What we’re trying to do is make it interactive and facilitated based, so we’re leading people through a discussion where they can discover their own answers, rather than the expert up front telling them this is the way they have to do it, take it or leave it. Through that discovery process, they’re much more likely to remember it or do something about it,” said Andrew.

“We also have an integrated approach,” added Gaia.

Some companies just do team building or keynote talks, but Tirian offers a three stage approach: the first dimension deals with people’s experiences and assists people with opening up and understanding what their issues are and what challenges they are facing. This is done through Tirian’s simulation exercises, business theatre or outdoor activities.

The 2nd dimension consists of workshops and keynote talks that are designed to drive home the outcomes. Once the outcomes and specific needs have been identified, then these are connected with the organization’s needs.

“Tirian will then find technical solutions, techniques or whatever is needed to help the organization make those changes,” said Gaia Grant.

Finally, the 3rd dimension deals with extending this learning back into the organization. At this level they include consulting, coaching and business facilitation to ensure that the employees are practicing what they have learned and can reflect on this.

All of Tirian’s programs are connected to a theme, which helps people remember the whole experience. One example of this is their program ‘On Thin Ice’, which involves the participants by taking them on a simulated expedition to Antarctica. There is a construction exercise that participants get to do as well as an exploration exercise they do throughout the continent. All of these exercises are centered on the theme of the journey through Antarctica.

When asked how Tirian’s training fits into the Indonesian market Gaia said,

“What we’ve discovered here in Indonesia in general and also across Asia, are that a lot of people have grown up with an education system that doesn’t encourage discovery learning, so people don’t have the skills as an adult to be able to problem-solve or innovate. It’s a problem with organizations here because they are not competitive and they can’t keep up with the ever increasing requirements of an international organization. You need to be ahead of the rest.”

“The Balinese are naturally brilliant at smiling and making people feel comfortable, but it’s the middle management and executive management that I think is struggling as they go beyond just smiling,” said Andrew.

Customers are much savvier today than they were a long time ago. Andrew gave one example of an Indonesian cable television provider that decided to recently drop their rates and offer a better package to their customers. When he inquired about getting this special deal, the service provider said that he would have to stop his service with them first and sign up again.

“You’ve got this middle management that’s got this very short term thinking, which is ‘I’m going to make an extra Rp100.000 out of my customers, but in the long term their going to hate me, but I don’t care anyway’,” said Andrew.

“Indonesia has to learn to be competitive on a world market, because you can’t hide from globalization any more; it’s going to happen. If we aren’t offering something at a high level of standards, then people will pick up their companies and they’ll move somewhere else.”

The goal of Tirian is to help people develop an international standard, so that they can run a globally competitive company in Indonesia, which is no small feat. For Andrew and Gaia Grant, it’s not just about earning the big dollars, but also about educating companies in how they can be more culturally aware and socially responsible.

“We’re not just bringing information into Indonesia; we’re also taking a lot out with us – we’re helping people to rediscover community values. For example, the experience with ‘Gotong Royong’ – when people are really connected to each other and help each other, is our way of trying to bring those traditional values back into the modern context, to make sure that modern organizations aren’t alienated from their real roots,” said Gaia Grant.

“We feel that organizations should embrace those traditional values and not leave them behind, but rediscover them and find the value of the connection for today and be proud of them, yet, at the same time understand what needs to be international at an international level,” continued Gaia.

One program, ‘Building the Corporate Village’, puts forth the idea of the importance of community and Indonesian values, through the experience of constructing a building together and reflecting on how they interacted as a team during that process. Through this experience, participants are given tools for proactive management change rather than reactive changes, and learn how to create a corporate environment which is supportive and always striving to fill the gap in their company.

“Connecting with the building of the corporate village helps people understand cultural change. We can actually go one step further and bring corporate people into Bali, to help them understand how important community life is and even examine a traditional Balinese village and culture,” said Andrew.

Plans for the future? Gaia and Andrew would like to connect with people at the grass roots level by joining corporate groups with communities in need.

“We’d like to run programs whereby the whole leadership and team learning process happen in the context with the community in need,” said Gaia Grant.

*All rights reserved by Michele Momparler (Cempaka). None of this text is allowed to be re-printed or used in any way, unless author has granted permission in writing. If any part of this article is re-printed or used in anyway without author’s permission, author has the right to take legal action against the party or person(s) for unauthorized usage. ©September 2007

 

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