Stretch zone
May 19, 2023
Last year Nick took what we do to west Africa, to spend three days working on negotiation and conflict management with a team of Nigerian managers from a government agency.
He had never done his style of facilitation and learning design with a homogenous group from this area of the world before and it pushed him, very firmly, into his stretch zone!*
This is what he learned:
‘Learning by doing’** is always the best way to create a transformational learning experience, no matter the initial expectation of how training 'should' be delivered 🎓
The self-doubt he often has at the beginning, about whether this approach will work again this time, was significantly heightened. In fact, it almost derailed him at the start when he was faced with a barrage of questions and challenges about what he was asking them to do (especially as he started with Hyper Island's deeply personal Stinky Fish 🐡).
Asking this group to ‘trust the process’ is one thing, but the support of the group’s leader is, as always, key.
He had never done his style of facilitation and learning design with a homogenous group from this area of the world before and it pushed him, very firmly, into his stretch zone!*
This is what he learned:
‘Learning by doing’** is always the best way to create a transformational learning experience, no matter the initial expectation of how training 'should' be delivered 🎓
The self-doubt he often has at the beginning, about whether this approach will work again this time, was significantly heightened. In fact, it almost derailed him at the start when he was faced with a barrage of questions and challenges about what he was asking them to do (especially as he started with Hyper Island's deeply personal Stinky Fish 🐡).
Asking this group to ‘trust the process’ is one thing, but the support of the group’s leader is, as always, key.
This particular team leader, Mr Inyang, had enormous levels of respect from his team yet was the most understated, softly spoken person in a room of loud, highly opinionated individuals – a reminder for leaders everywhere that shouting and banging the table only gets you so far.
It was an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling experience because of all this and, most importantly, the transformation and gratitude they shared in their feedback throughout and especially at the end. It honestly gave him goosebumps and he can’t wait to do it again 💪
* more details on what we mean by the stretch zone: https://harleytherapy.com/blog/posts/the-stretch-zone
It was an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling experience because of all this and, most importantly, the transformation and gratitude they shared in their feedback throughout and especially at the end. It honestly gave him goosebumps and he can’t wait to do it again 💪
* more details on what we mean by the stretch zone: https://harleytherapy.com/blog/posts/the-stretch-zone
**More details on Learn by Doing theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning-by-doing
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