Training Exercise

THE ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL
Personal Journal Section - YOUR LIFE
The Interview by Kevin Voigt

When company morale needs a shot in the arm, Ron Kaufman is provides the medicine. The hyperkinetic 47-year-old is head of Active Learning!, a Singapore-based company that gives keynote speeches for business conferences, organizes management retreats and trains frontline and executive employees from companies including Cisco Systems, Sony and Shell. Mr. Kaufman began his work in front of the microphone as an international evangelist for the fledgling sport of Ultimate Frisbee in the late 1970's, emceeing events in front of crowds of up to 65,000 at international tournaments. The Westport, Connecticut native graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, with a degree in international political history, writing his thesis on the role of sporting events in uniting post-war nations. After three years running a company that organized exchange among students from China, the former Soviet Union and the U.S., he began designing training courses for American Express in 1987. Based in Singapore since 1990, Mr. Kaufman has a seven-year-old daughter called Brighten.

Q: Management retreats and team-building exercises are often greeted with groans. How do you deal with cynics?
A: I welcome them into the class - as long as they have energy, I can convert them. If you hear, "Aw....you're not getting to the main point," then that viewpoint needs to be heard, respected and embraced. Once you do that, you're amazed, because they can turn into some of the strongest and most energetic people in the room ... The sleeper in the audience is your real problem.

Q: What does Frisbee teach you about being a trainer and motivational speaker?
A: Frisbee taught me two things. If you want people to learn something, they better have a good time - especially if they're adults. And if you want to have someone learn something, they have to get physically involved.

Q: How do you lift your own morale?
A: I get quiet and there's a place I go to inside myself that is appreciative, so even if I feel frustration or emotional upset ... I realize this is part of the full spectrum of human experience. If you want to fly in the clouds, you better be ready for the deep well of despair sometimes, and realize that these moments are what make the great moments great.

Q: If you could erase any mistake you've made, what would it be?
A: As a teenager, I was a bit of a scoundrel: I went streaking in college and at one time was growing an unusual plant in my dorm room. The lesson - that all your actions have a consequence - is something that becomes clearer and clearer for me over time. But I can honestly say I have no regrets, all of that got me where I am.

Q: What is your greatest fear?
A: Not so much for me, but for my daughter. I have an awareness of safety issues in a new way. That's one reason I appreciate Singapore: there are issues of physical safety that people in Singapore take for granted, but being from the U.S., you don't.

Q: Who inspires you most?
A: Buckminster Fuller. He's dead now, but he was the Leonardo da Vinci of our time. He invented the geodesic dome and the three-wheeled car. When I was in college, he came and spoke at Brown and he just blew me away. I love his books, especially "Critical Path," and "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth." His whole premise was that the world was designed for human beings to succeed, not to fail.

Q: How did you spend your first paycheck?
A: When I was 16 years old I was flipping hamburgers at Carrols, a knock-off of McDonalds in my hometown. I used the money to take my first girlfriend out on a date to the Peppermill, this great steakhouse.

Q: What's your ideal holiday spot?
A: The Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. For me to decompress, I really need to get away, and I love scuba diving. At the Ningaloo Reef you swim with whale sharks and octopuses. I have an absolute adoration for what exists under the waves. When you're scuba diving, you hear your breathing very loud, almost like a mantra.

Q: Where do you go to chill out?
A: The lobby of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. They're one of my clients ... There's a certain kind of elegant refinement there that's relaxing - if I find I have half an hour between meetings, I like to go there and just sit and relax.

Q: What does the word 'exercise' mean to you?
A: I do it two ways: through scuba diving, and when I'm onstage. I sweat. I always wear white shirts when I speak because I drench them - I have to change my shirt at lunchtime. If I wear a blue shirt, it's more noticeable because it just turns into a dark blue stain.

Q: On rainy weekends, how do you keep your daughter entertained?
A: We make up songs. We sing in the elevator - we've invented an elevator song called "Schickapakatoolie". When we're alone, sing it loud and march around the elevator. And when the doors open we stop and try to pretend like nothing happened. Brighten says, "I got a silly daddy."

Q: What is your greatest extravagance?
A: Diving gadgets. I dive with two wrist computers that show depth, how much longer I can stay down and how long before I can fly again after diving. I carry strapped on my chest a bottle of Spare Air that holds enough air for 10 breaths to get back to the surface. My diving buddy says I look like the Starship Enterprise.

Ron is diving in the Deep Blue Sea!

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