A Car the window to my soul…..
“Life is a box of chocolates you never know what you are going to get..” The famous quote from the Forrest Gump movie. This seems a very apt way to start my post about my first day with the team in terms of our “group facilitation experience” I truly did not know what to expect and I have left the day feeling like I will have many more boxes of chocolate to get through to try and understand myself.Helene Smit, the facilitator has already shown herself to be an absolute expert in this field, and this was just during the “learning the theory of group psychology” part. My biggest learning is best summed up as follows:
Every reaction, by an individual has a logical flow based on their experiences however odd their reaction may appear to you. The best way to try and understand their reaction is not to measure it against yourself “logical” reaction, but to try to get to know them. By getting to know them you begin to understand what experiences driver them, you will then be able to understand them.
Importantly you need to work with their experiences and not try to change them, you need to approach the situation with compassion and safety. You need to help people to overcome their anxieties so that they feel enabled to communicate.
Part of the day also gave me insight to how I was parented and how I parent, along side my wife, I really need to applaud my wife in terms of her parenting style. She has managed to get most of it right and I will be putting a lot more effort into emulating her.
As an aside I did not know that my choice of car, with five “why is this important to you” questions asked after the choice of the Bucatti Veiron would reveal so much about what really drives me to try to be in lead each time I encounter a situation.
I am not going to change my choice of car, but I will be working on my deep set drive and motivation.
Here’s looking to the next two days and what is to come!