Stepping Up for Success

Prologue:

The #Training and Placement head reached out with his need that his #MBA college students needed a #Aptitude #Gapanalysis between the actual and desired by any #organisation and how do they fill those gaps and taking action on the placement happening in their Final year.

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Diagnosis:

I had the first call with the training head to know more about challenges of the students. I used one on one discussion with the HR Head and Placement head to identify the the desired outcomes. It was offered to run a Content based Facilitation instead of one hour talk to bring out the real needs of the students and create a? concrete plan on the basis of outcomes.

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Design:

The session was designed to introduce #facilitation to the team and demonstrate how it can be used to deliver learning and create #SelfAwareness. The emphasis on process selection was to keep it as simple as possible due to the limited time available to handle confusion and the difficulty students may face in speaking. A combination of #SelfIntrospection, self-learning, and group exercises was employed as outlined below:

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• Meta Cards as an Ice Breaker
• Force Field Analysis for finding out the Gaps between desired and actual competencies
• Dot Voting for deciding on the priority of the competencies desired
• Visual Aids for showing content

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Delivery:

The session commenced with a guided self-introspection exercise, orienting participants with the session map and establishing its context. However, due to an initial delay of almost an hour, we revisited expectations and outcomes with the client sponsor to ensure alignment. To streamline our process, we facilitated a straightforward approach to collaborative work, encouraging group participation in identifying actions. Utilizing picture cards as symbolic prompts, we engaged participants in reflective responses, fostering interaction through a structured paired sharing exercise reminiscent of speed dating.

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What worked:

• Crisp clear contracting and recontracting with the client sponsor
• Detailed session design with gaps for fluid maneuvering
• Giving up control of the session
• Allowing chaos to occur as the students and staff were experiencing Facilitation for the first time
• Belief in the group wisdom and the learnings about facilitation

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Improvements:

During the diagnosis, I happened to lose focus on listening, which resulted in a lack of clarity regarding the outcomes. I had another call with the client during which the outcomes became clearer,

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Impactful Moment:

The Training and Placement Manager were pleasantly surprised to observe the students' proactive approach in prioritizing tasks, a task that typically would have been directed by a guest speaker. They made note of the competencies listed by the students and used them to formulate a training schedule.