Yesterday I helped to run the first of a series of development workshops for people working on the delivery of the LEGI programme in Leeds under the ‘Sharing the Success’ banner.

The theme of the day was about ‘How can we go about engaging communities in the enterprise agenda’ and was very well received.  We explored a whole range of ideas including:

• comfort zones
• a process model for working with clients
• taking account of the clients efficacy, self efficacy and locus of control
• managing your own professional development as an enterprise professional
• enterprise push and pull factors – and how they can be used to influence change
• attributes and barriers in becoming more enteprising
• esteem and self esteem

Somehow during the day we also managed to feature: Paul Potts, a moonwalking bear, Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Piers Morgan and Ant and Dec, horses and jockeys and some very dubious looking blankets.

What came through during the course of the day was the enormous complexity of the challenge.  So many definitions of what ‘enterprise’ is, so many communities, complex community membership patterns and so on.  But the best way to deal with enormous complexity is often to find a few simple truths and principlas that underpin everyhting.  Hence the focus on human growth psychology which ‘works’ regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation etc.

Next time we run this session through we will focus more on how some of these human growth psychology concepts might be applied to specific communities just to make sure that we ground the theory in some practice.

Here is some of the the feedback from the day.  First the good stuff!:

‘I just wanted to say thank you very much for inviting me along to the workshop, I thought it was absolutely brilliant and made me think on a deeper level of what community is all about. The book is great and very inspiring so thanks for that too. I had a lot of fun and it wasn’t one of those meetings where we were talked at it was very interactive and I really look forward to the next one’

‘good networking event for LEGI partners’

‘good style of delivery’

‘good selection of talk and exercises – kept my attention’

‘met new people; found out about other organisations; loved the opportunity to share and learn from others’

‘excellent delivery and content’

‘the whole day was very good :-)’

‘liked the style and format; good exercises and examples’

‘built rapport and gained more info on LEGI partners’

‘opportunities to network and see the LEGI bigger picture’

‘presentations very good.  re-assured about things I did in the past.  learned about innovative ways to deal with disaffected’

‘good mix in terms of style and delivery – light hearted but meaningful tasks – theoretical and practical

‘informative – with interesting ways of getting the points across’

‘good networking, meeting other LEGI partners, more information about enterprise, the activities were educational’

‘liked the interaction, presentations, venue, networking and the presenters’

‘relaxed atmosphere, good content for the first workshop’

‘venue good, content good, food good’

‘liked the mix of activities – fun and engaging’

‘liked the process model and the stages, Boyatzis Model and the group work, the learning from the videos was good and the interaction with other LEGI partners’

‘I liked the exercises that put us out of our comfort zones’

‘I see that many people could really benefit from both you and Anne as I have to admit that I have been on so many workshops and training days but I have to say yours was the best by far’

‘I liked Anne, I think she is very knowledgeable and is a great presenter. She thinks outside the box and  stretches other peoples thinking. I have just been sharing my day with colleagues and telling them how fantastic the workshop was. I would like to include the others from our team if possible onto your next planned workshop as its important that we can all learn as much as possible to benefit the people that we try and reach everyday within our jobs’

And the not so good stuff…

‘difficult to hear at times’

‘food was delicious – but not enough’

‘filthy weather in the afternoon’

‘noise and too cold’

‘venue was good but noisy’

‘more about specific topics – tailor made presentations specific to the areas discussed’

‘food did not fill me – was a bit bland’

‘real coffee’