Take-Aways from conducting the recent session in the Hyper Island Way

Had it not been the opportunity to attend the leadership program delivered by Hyper Island in 2013 and 2014, I would not be able to understand what learning by doing really was. As I was immersed in the residential, learner-centered program for about 2 weeks and 5 days during 2013 and 2014 respectively, I learned experientially where my leadership skills stood. Trust me, over all these years I have seen the sustainable impact that such a well-designed training program has brought to my life, not only in my leadership skills but also in the fields of learning design and facilitation! After all, what could be better than learning to design programs and facilitate sessions by being in the world class learning programs designed by an organization like Hyper Island?

Here I am going to share some interesting things that I have learned from designing and facilitating a soft skills session for a JCI chapter recently.

About the Workshop and the Process Design:

My most recent workshop was with the members of JCI Dhaka Uptown, chapter of JCI that is full of energy. As you already know, I love following andragogic frameworks to ensure effective learning among adult learners. The topic for the day was "Developing Skills for Effective Teamwork". I thought of touching areas on Feedback Exchange and Communication for effective collaboration in professional life.

As JCI Dhaka Uptown already had a very good organizational culture and the organizing team practiced the leadership very effectively, the participants did not have to spend a lot of time mandating a team culture. Hyper Island's The Marshmallow Challenge-like activity was the very first one that I conducted to break the ice and to set the tone for the rest of the session. We adapted it to the situation based on the COVID-19 guidelines (not providing the string and the marshmallow so that there were minimal amount of physical contacts between the participants, etc.). After the activity the participants shared their assumptions about teamwork and their understanding of the importance of trust, communication, and feedback for effective teamwork. The final activity was a set of role plays where they enacted the proper ways of exchanging feedback, followed by further discussions.

What my takeaways were from the workshop:

1. Practice adapting your planned activities to suit the (changing) needs of a context. For instance, although I was looking forward to conduct Hyper Island's Marshmallow Challenge, I facilitated an activity using masking tapes and papers. This helped the participants feel safe as they could minimize sharing the elements among themselves which met the requirements of the COVID-19 health and safety guidelines.
2. Know the organization and its organizing team to understand the learning culture. When you are conducting a session for an organization that practiced inclusive leadership typically has their sessions planned in a way that would accommodate the participants well, both in physical and social aspects. In this session, I found how well the participants were all blended together and had mutual respect already established in their organizational culture, as I saw how open they were in terms of collaboration and learning right from the beginning.
3. Get ready to be flexible with the time. When you see that the participants are enjoying and learning through fun and co-creation, be prepared to flex the time if you can. It is also important that you ensure a group consensus while extending the time. In this session, it was fun to extend the ending time as the learners were curious to explore more about themselves through self-reflection and group discussions.