BUILDING ON SUCCESS

The BUILDING ON SUCCESS leadership training and coaching initiative is comprised of three full-day sessions. These are spaced about four weeks apart, with one-on-one coaching sessions between sessions 1 and 2 and ongoing access to and support from Jeff Bercuvitz, our Senior Coach, throughout the duration of the series.

SESSION 1: FEED YOUR SPARK™

GOAL FOR SESSION 1

To introduce participants to the five energy stewardship practices tools that can help them establish the strongest possible personal foundation for effective leadership by getting clear about:

  • what they are really trying to count up at work
  • what activities energize them the most
  • their vision of personal success
  • their focus for how they most want to grow
  • and what steps they can take immediately to build on their success and strike a healthier work-life balance, making their work as productive as possible for the long haul

LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR SESSION 1

By the end of session 1 each of the participants will have:

  1. Identified their #1 Energizer Element at work, hopefully with a “snappy name” that captures their imagination and a creative, engaging way to track and celebrate their successes.
  2. Identified at least five energizing activities at work (“high INGs”) and chosen one specific action step they will take in relation to their highest INGs at work.
  3. Reflected on what is truly important and what is enough and begun to articulate, accordingly, their vision of a thriving, balanced life framed in terms of a successful month, including at least a first draft of five of the “fuel sources” of their Good Life Index (GLI).
  4. Come up with a metaphor that could serve as their Guiding Vision for how they want to do their work, based on an activity in which they experience ease, flow and competence.
  5. Identified one attribute that they want to aim at practicing more consistently for the coming three months as the focus for their Leadership Growth.
  6. Been introduced to the “Twelve Integrated Practices of Sparking” (The T.I.P.S.)

This session lays the context for the subsequent skill-building sessions in the series and will help participants build one of the most fundamental capacities of leadership: being able to take care of yourself and align your work with what matters most to you, while creating a significant impact at work, delivering results you care about. We want to support them to make real changes at their work so that within six months they will be able to spend most of their time focused on their highest priorities, in a way that enables them to engage in the activities that bring them the most meaning, joy, and sense of impact.

To that end, we will help them learn the “Four Frames For Effective Decision-Making”TM to help them thrive and keep their own spark strong, while they lead others and accomplish their work priorities. We will open this in session one and work iteratively over the eight weeks of the initiative, to give participants ample time to think through some big questions and try out in “real life” what they learn in their work with us.

SESSION 2: THINK BIG, START SMALL™

GOAL FOR SESSION 2

To help participants learn how to think BIG enough to articulate a compelling vision of success for the organization as a whole that can capture the imagination of staff, partners, funders and the public, while also knowing how to set achievable, clear, engaging objectives for the organization and their own work each quarter in order to create an experience of success and thereby motivate themselves and their team by building momentum and creating a culture of possibility.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR SESSION 2

By the end of session 2 each of the participants will have:

  1. Articulated a “Thinking BIG” three-year vision of success for their lives.
  2. Articulated a “Thinking BIG” three-year vision of success for their work.
  3. Articulated a first draft of their C.E Challenge – what they regard as their top juicy priority for their work in the coming three months, articulating an objective that is Achievable, Clear and Exciting to them—and what support they will need and from whom in order to accomplish that.
  4. Refined their “Four Frames For Decision-Making, including a more developed Good Life Index, a draft of their “These Are A Few Of My Favorite INGs” document and their “Leadership Growth Best Self.”
  5. Been introduced to the process of crafting a Story Of the Week that they will subsequently use through an online electronic forum in the weeks between sessions two and three.
  6. Identified some real world challenges that will likely come up for them as they attempt to put the tools into practice between sessions two and three and considered some possible strategies for dealing with those.
  7. Been introduced to the concept of “Clarifying The Question” – the process of discerning what the one most important question is to attend to NEXT (to then use the Four Frames approach on).

SESSION 3: MOVING EFFECTIVELY FROM VISION TO ACTION

GOAL FOR SESSION 3

To help participants pull it all together and develop a plan of action to build momentum and help create a Culture Of Possibility.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR SESSION 3

By the end of session 3 each of the participants will have:

  1. Identified at least one “hot tip” or idea from the day’s discussion that they will commit to putting into action within one week of the session’s completion with the intention of enhancing their performance and the prospects of successful collaboration.
  2. Reflected on the nature of the relationship between obstacles and resources and been encouraged to look at obstacles in a new way.
  3. Shared a Key Leadership Challenge they face and what step or steps they will take next in relation to that, informed by their Four Frames.
  4. Identified “Islands Of Success” within the organization to build on, and assets they can make use of that they have not made use of before to enhance their prospect of realizing their visions of success.
  5. Articulated the element of their vision for the organizational culture they are most eager to see happen and what steps they will take to help bring that about.
  6. Crafted a Personal Action Plan toward their Think Big Start Small vision of success, their “Key Leadership Challenge,” the dimension of organizational culture they are most intent on helping to bring about and the core elements of the previous two “Building On Success” sessions.