Diversity

Diversity, is the name for the coaching course I´m participating in, since yesterday and until next Friday. I have always wanted to be part of a coaching activity and here I am.
The experience is been amazing, as it is not just a common coaching but an international one, based on diversity over nationalities, different work disciplines and even male/female role. They help you to know and be conscious of your personal managerial skills and the way you interact with your boss and colleagues.
I had high expectations from this training and just two days after starting it I have received even more than I expected. The group is a mix of 8 different nationalities including the ones from the trainers; French people representing the 50% of the course, not surprising in this company; Brazilian, Polish, Rumanian, English, Spanish, Egytian, and Swiss. It´s in these kind of events that I again realize how much Spanish people have to learn from others. The trainer said that French people are very well taught to think, when they´re at school.
Though people are very friendly, you soon realize they are colder than latins, and that French guys tend to be together and speak in their own language. Apart from that, cultural interchange is very rich.
The session started with a warming up exercise in order to talk about ourselves giving two strengths we have when team-working and an area for improvement. I have to say that after two days of developing a model to know what personality type we are, I am exactly what I said the first day, so it´s nice to confirm that I know myself very well.
The personality model includes 4 double parameters, these being: how our energy flow, how we gather information, decision making process and day to day working or living lifestyle. These four parameters put you into a dominant category between: Introvert or Extrovert, Sensitive or Intuitive, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving. It is not difficult to position yourself into a dominant category once the trainers have explained you each of them, and once you´ve participated in some role-plays.
As far as they´ve explained to us, the application of the model to the real life concludes on the following: on one hand your personality type influences your relationships with your boss, with your colleagues and with your team. And in the other hand other people´s personality type influences you and your work. For instance, if you have to give a presentation to an audience it would be very helpful to know if you are facing introvert people or extrovert ones, ´cause there are different ways of approaching each type. Another example is that you will better succeed in selling an idea to a Sensitive person if you mainly talk about figures, details, experience rather than talking about a general and emotional concept, which would be better used to sell an idea to an Intuitive person. So you realize how knowing this, might help you either in your working environment or in your personal life.
It was more difficult to analyze how our trainers are, even though we had the opportunity of asking them some questions. For me it was also interesting to realize I am in the same personality type than one of them. Will I be a coaching trainer anytime? Who knows?
Another rich experience is the opportunity of speaking with people from different countries, with international experiences. When I have the opportunity of enjoying a session like this I think about the people who never go to this kind of workshops, and are always inside their offices, doing the same things each day, thinking that colleagues from other countries just give them problems and take their precious time,… what a poor existence.
These sessions are giving me the chance to think more about many things and how to face them. I already knew what my areas for improvement were but now I know how to face them better.
It´s been hard work for a weekend but you don´t have these opportunities everyday. I guess it will also be a break from my daily routine at the office which I very much appreciate in these moments.
I am now really looking forward to Easter Holidays more than ever..