Let's do diaries

Although the HR department often bear the brunt of it, pretty much anyone who works at a senior level in an organisation know the difficulties of getting people, usually across functions and locations, together for hours at a time.

So how inspired was I to read that Norman Jardine, head of learning and development at the European Commission, managed to get a group of 16 Commission Leaders together for a half day team coaching session! That's 16 different nationalities in one place at the same time. Can you imagine the logistical and linguistic complexities of this? Can you imagine the characters involved? And I am sure time zones had some sort of impact.

Appartently it took him about 3 years of 'toe dipping' exercises to encourage the change from clasical training to self-directed learning.

So, if you are stuggling to encourage a coaching approach in your organisation, take heart! If Norman can do it.....