What leadership learning venue is quick to design and implement? In 7 easy steps you can launch your peer leadership learning group.
1. Determine the purpose of your peer leadership learning group.
Example: The purpose of the group is to provide a series of educational forums where peers interact with each other on leadership topics relevant to your organization.
2. Identify your target audience.
Example: The target audience is first line supervisors.
Tip: However you scope out your target leadership audience, determine up front if employees and their direct managers will be invited to the same forum – which may be influenced by your organization’s culture.
3. Understand the learning needs of your target audience.
Example: First line supervisors desire knowledge and access to tools and techniques for leading a team. They also want to learn from real life, messy experiences. Learning needs may include how to: select team members, onboard employees who work remotely, set individual and team goals, launch the team, establish operating procedures, etc.
Tip: Interview members of your target audience to understand their daily challenges which segue into learning needs.
4. Define the desired outcomes of the peer leadership learning forums.
Example: By the end of each peer learning forum, participants will have expanded their knowledge so that they are better prepared to address daily leadership challenges.
Tip: Defining desired outcome(s) for each topic is a great habit to develop. Reinforce them by getting participants to summarize their learnings at the end of each session.
5. Craft a repeatable process.
Example: The group facilitator will communicate the topic and pre-work, if any, by the first of the month. The group will meet the third Tuesday of every month from 12:00 – 1:00pm via Zoom over eight months starting in January and ending in August. At the end of each forum participants will be asked for feedback on the session’s effectiveness, desired future topics, and reminded of their responsibility to follow through on commitments and honor confidences.
Tips: Go beyond logistics and add a twist such as (a) Pre-work like reading an article, case study, or book or viewing a video that serves as the basis for discussion; (b) Shared Leadership where responsibility for preparing and leading a forum is rotated among participants as a type of experiential learning opportunity; and (c) Action development where the last few minutes of each session are dedicated to participants committing to applying the session’s learnings on the job before the next session.
6. Implement.
Tip: Select a skilled facilitator for your first session or two to: signal importance of the learning venue, energize participants through the interactive sessions, and model an experience to be emulated as participants take on responsibility for leading the group.
7. Adapt.
Tip: Mix and match formats based on participant input.
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