I think I am not alone to be relieved to have my children back at school! I love the summer holidays, but all good things must come to an end :-)!
Thinking about my children’s education has got me thinking about my own education, and the professional development of facilitators generally. It seems that, in the current climate, consultants fall into two camps….
- those that are using this quieter period to persue professional development
- those that are battoning down the hatches, and not investing time or money in their development
Over the years, in Meeting Magic, we have tried many different means to continually develop ourselves as facilitators. Here is a list of things we have done and found useful, from the cheap to the expensive.
- reading books
- producing mindmap / graphic summaries of books to share with others
- journalling – writing up experiences, in order to learn from them
- learning pairs – talking through an experience with someone, in order to learn from it
- case studies – formal write up of an experience
- discussion of case studies
- articles – online or hard copies
- webinars and web based learning materials
- training courses – open training courses and in-house
- supervision – 1:1 coaching from a more experiences professional in your field
I am sure this is not an exhaustive list, and I would be interested to hear from people who have tried other things too. Just writing this has reminded me of the diverse ways to pursue personal development and how important it is to keep it front of mind.