Leadership Workshop
Montenegro
2010
Trip Report
Introduction: This Trip Report is about the Leadership Conference held in Bijela, Montenegro July 2010. The following are my experiences and observations as I participated in leading a portion of the training sessions with the TWI team made up of teachers, interpreters, and volunteers from the Balkans and USA.
Executive Summary: The work that TWI does for both the children in orphanages as well as leadership training for the young professionals is nothing short of remarkable. In a very effective way providing for and teaching kids in orphanages, using volunteers from many of the former Yugoslavian countries is positively impacting the future of the region. The leadership, dedication, and care provided by TWI for the Children is inspiring. The Bosnian Coordination Team also provides regional knowledge and a team support that enables the entire effort. The potential of a culture-changing pipeline of young professionals is very interesting as I witnessed friendships and teamwork from young professionals from across the region.
The 2010 Workshop: This year we focused on the book, Strengths Finders 2.0, which is a look into what strengths each person has and how to develop these strengths. The workshop flow was the following:
The sessions featured short lecture with the bulk of the time working in pairs, groups, presenting, and brainstorming. Each participant ended with a partner that would help hold the other accountable for following their presented action plan. They even had special names associated with their most prominent strength such as “Achiever Arber” to help them remember that they wanted to be known for their "strength".
The workshops were after the meals and in between workshops the team did crafts and activities with the children at the orphanage. The following are some examples of the work with the children and the workshops for the team members:
Working with the kids at the Orphanage: The “dual” training here is very unique in that the Leader is training smaller children and at the same time practicing leadership and learning about her strengths in the leadership workshops.
The group work exercises as part of the Strength finder workshop.
As team members identify their strengths they validate by discussion with others if the strengths that were identified during the computer test were accurate and how close they thought the match was.
Then, the team went back to working with the kids – morning and afternoon.
Strength Practice Session: The strength practice session was an exercise to help TWI find ideas for developing wording that describes the "TWI for the Children" mission and to consider things that they may want to do in the future. The team was split into four smaller teams based on their determined strength. One group spent their time identifying how "TWI" functions now and we called that “current state”. Another team spent time defining the “value” of the work TWI does. Another team evaluated what "TWI" could become someday? We called that “Future State”.
A fourth team took a stab at the "TWI" mission statement. The point of the exercise was two-fold: (1) by putting people in the group that most matched their strength they could practice that strength; and (2) by brainstorming as a multi-national team we would be able to give "TWI" ideas to think about for the future as well as hopefully help with possible wording or themes for finding potential donors for the "TWI" organization. Our method of recording this session was to photograph the work of each team after their presentation to the entire group.
This exercise was very interesting for the team as they learned about brainstorming; facilitating a group; and presenting and integrating ideas. They were able to practice their strengths as well as gain awareness of how they could contribute to the discussion. After this exercise the leadership training ended with each member presenting to the group what their action plan was to develop and use the strength that they now know about.
The graphs developed by the exercise contained the group dynamics and provided the groups top strengths (Achiever, Learner, Responsibility, Context, and Strategic ). It was interesting that of the 34 strengths identified in the Strengths Finder book the team of 25 covered all but two.
Observations: Combining the volunteer work with the leadership training is very effective. Two groups are served – the children from the orphanage and the team members. I was also struck by the capability and ability to function with the English language by the team members. They are very talented people. The use of two trainers works well as:
Another observation is that the days were full. I think this is very good. The kids and team members got a lot out of the time they had. So much effort goes into preparation and using almost every minute is good. After the workshop participants had a chance to unwind.
The idea of starting with the basic needs of children and moving into leadership training of their young professional population is strategic. The team is very bright and capable of taking on even more complex topics. Some ideas come to mind. I know some of them were interviewing and many of them were trying to find a job. The sooner people like the TWI team are in jobs being influential the better. So, I think TWI could help prepare them for an interview; possibly resume writing and interview training . Others in the group are volunteer leaders and TWI could provide them some leadership training such as in the area of Crucial Conversations. Also, the team members may benefit from learning and practicing being a good influence.
Perhaps TWI would be able to cover more than one topic and these types of topics
can be partitioned among discussion leaders.
09/30/2010