I'm thankful to be able to attend perhaps one of the top two most expensive training opportunities TLT has provided for me in my 9-1/2 years with the unit, called Mastering SuperVision, provided by Penn State's own Human Resources Development Center (HRDC). The training took place at the Penn Stater, which, yes, is close, compared to opportunities people attend in California or what have you, but is at least twice as far from home as our office, so I lost sleep by waking numerous times in the early morning worrying about whether I would get up earlier than usual as required. (My usual commute takes 8 minutes, not 20-plus.)
OK, I'll be up-front. Most other "soft skills" trainings I've been to have made me skeptical as far as any real value or ability to tap into my higher thinking skills. For example, I recall attending a past seminar designed to make me stop discriminating on some human aspect by carefully delineating the pigeonholes we all belong in according to a particular criterion and unquestioningly making me sort everyone into those pigeonholes. To me, that was the heart of discrimination. But I digress.
The eight hours each day over Tuesday through Thursday of this past week were very valuable, thought-provoking, and intensive. Unlike the type of session alluded to above, I did not just have to swallow a presenter's notion of how I should categorize people into slots--although we used various instruments to find out our "native" or go-to styles when not trying very hard. What I liked was that it was said we were not locked into what our native or initial-reaction style was, but that we could stretch, learn, practice, and adopt (at best) or at least learn about (at worst) other styles. Now, I'll admit that was more true of the Myers-Briggs personality, managerial style, and conflict-handling style instruments than the generational profiles; in the case of the latter, it seemed just as unwavering and pigeon-holey as the previous training situation I was leery of. The funny thing for me is that it was declared to us that the greatest generational conflict now occurs between the baby boomers and generation X; however, even during this Mastering SuperVision training, I've seen my birth year of 1962 place me in both generations, depending on the cutoff year adopted. For each session we were to fill out a form about what we'd learned--I stated that despite the supposed conflict between these generations and my placements in them, I experience no inner conflict as a result!
Anyhoo, I haven't experienced any great shock as to my outcome on the various measurements so far. For example, I'd already tested as an ISFJ (introvert, sensing, feeling, judging) person previously and I've known all my life I'm a conflict avoider. However, in these few days, I've learned a lot about the *other* styles, what they like and need to feel rewarded in their work, how we can work together and anticipate what will motivate and please other styles. That is something very valuable I'd never learned or practiced before. Also, I learned because I'm almost an equal feeling and thinking (logical) person, that in the workplace I can understand both styles, so can help bridge gaps between those two different styles and thus be an asset to teams containing persons with both those styles.
A great thing about the sessions so far is that after covering concepts in the format of a lecture, we get up out of our seats and do activities and interact with other trainees. For example, after we've determined our styles, we physically get up and group as that style, then are given a case study where we decide how our style will handle it and how we can best accommodate the styles around the room. This both made me feel like I'm not alone so that I know other people understand where I'm coming from and made me reach to be more empathetic of others. On a practical note, I don't think I could tolerate sitting without moving for the whole session.
With one or two exceptions, the speakers for the various topics have been outstanding and very much held my attention. Some of the outstanding ones so far were Terrell Jones, Kim Townsend, Lenny Pollack, Dee Frisque, and Rick Capozzi.
After this week of three intensive days, our group will settle down to one morning a week till mid-May, which admittedly will be less stressful for me in terms of worrying about the work load being neglected and feeling in touch with my colleagues.
Lots more to say (I already spent a big chunk of time composing for our session reflection forms), but I'll just end with: as an introvert as well as a person with end-of-gen-x /start-of-baby-boomer eyes, the combination of a large number of bright fluorescent lights overhead, loud talking all day (the previous two items would energize an extrovert but deplete my batteries), either looking at a screen with a relatively small projection because the projector was on a table too close to the screen without lowered lights or a printout of the same slides so small it was almost impossible to read with my several-year-old-bifocals--I endured severe headaches during each day, even with popping many ibuprofen tablets.
Today back in the office, I realized that not only had I missed my routine and coworkers; I needed a break from the light and noise. After I recover from those factors, I'll try to stretch and start to relate better to my friends with personality and work styles other than my own!
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