managing my program

i mentioned in january how during the programs about corporate culture that i conduct, people had the tendency to use me as a target to ventilate, to throw their angst and dissatisfaction with their bosses. since then, i had experimented with different ways to minimize putting myself in such a position. and i think i am moving in the right direction!

i also noticed that most of the time, this ventilation happened during the start of the program when i tried to get my program participants to share with me their learning objectives. you see, for all my programs, i strongly believe in getting my learners to share with me their learning objectives. to me, what is important is that i focus on their learning needs rather than my training objectives. and i noted that it was during this period that all the tensions surface. 

initially, i had kept the activity and tried changing my tact when clarifying their learning objectives. but it didn't go well enough and i still end up with the same bad experiences. so for the last two programs, i tried removing this activity altogether. but to ensure i meet their learning needs, i simply take the efforts to ask the class more regularly whether what i have covered was clear enough for them. in addition, i made the efforts to iterate that if they have any queries about corporate statements, they should direct them to their bosses as corporate statements should be collectively owned by all leaders and not me/ my department. i had framed this as an on-going conversation that needs to be address collectively if there are areas that are not clear.

this technique seemed to work well. 

:-)