As I was gently caressing my tickets for tonight’s early premier of Star War: The Force Awakens, another compliance thought came to mind. The Star Wars saga shows three examples of Jedi training. One of which falls far short of the compliance standard.
We see glimpses of the younglings training at the Jedi Temple. That was the standard method at the time, giving their plastic young minds the right message from early on. We don’t know how well the training went because Anakin slaughtered them in Episode III.
In Episode V, we see Yoda’s training of Luke in the swamps of Dagobah. That seems to work, even though the training seem incomplete. At the end of Episode VI, Luke is tempted by the Emperor to come to the Dark Side. Doing so will save his friends. Luke is tempted, but does not cross the line.
We see Obi-Wan Kenobi’s training of Anakin Skywalker in Episodes II and III. Young Anakin was already too old for the Jedi Council’s standards, but they relented to Obi Wan’s plea to take Anakin under his wing.
He is beloved as a character, but Obi Wan falls short in compliance training.
He pushed the Jedi Council to break its rules and allow Anakin to begin training. As we see in Episode III, he was too old and had become too attached to his mother.
The one key to Jedi training is to avoid the Dark Side. Obi-Wan failed to see the signs and put Anakin into remedial training. Anakin is tempted to the Dark Side and crosses the line.
The key goal to compliance training is teaching employees where the line of good and bad is and to stay away from the line. The employee may perform well or not, but you don’t want the employee to cross the line to the dark side.
Obi Wan was lured by the prospect that Anakin was supposed to be the “chosen one,” restoring balance to the Force. He broke the rules to get him into Jedi training. He overlooked Anakin’s shortcomings and misteps because he thought he was the “chosen one.” In the end, the training failures lead to the destruction of the Jedi, the rise of the Galactic Empire and the loss of millions of lives.
