At the beginning of my working experience I worked at the German Aerospace Centre in Hamburg as an assessor. My job was to evaluate candidates for the Pilot training for main European Flight Companies. Yet several years, I felt I wanted to support people in their growth process and not only in that one moment of their carrier path. Therefore, I decided to become a trainer.
What I noticed in the early 2000s, was that many of the management trainings that were being held, provided pleasant experiences to the participants. The only thing was, according to the attendees, these courses were simply not applicable to their day-to-day work. In fact, with the exception of a few really motivated people, you couldn’t see any significant management improvement after these sessions.
Actually I realize these courses were more aimed at increasing management knowledge of the participants then on actually help them doing something different, which can be a choice. However, I believe that if there’s no significant improvement in management after such a session there’s no point in doing it. That’s why I couldn’t stand the idea of doing training courses, which didn’t have a real impact. And so I decided to “enact the future®” creating my own consultancy firm, Maxim Consulting. I specialized in action learning techniques developed abroad (such as individual vs. team coaching and co-development) and there I was, newly armed to help my future clients with their improvement objectives.
When I talk about “improvement” I don’t just mean their performance but also the quality of their corporate lives and relationships. My mission is to put the means and processes in place that help people take ownership of their actions and to get in touch with their desire to open up, learn, grow, share and ultimately, as a consequence to make an impact.
And here is what I have found out since 2005 from the several hundred managers we have supported as a Maxim Consulting:
To make a change happen, to embody the future you have in mind, is a creative act.
So again, if I think of the management training I used to do ages ago, I see a huge difference. That was just talking about change or improvement, not doing it. And now that I found the key to perform involving workshops with managers, there’s no way I can go back and work on the surface.
What about you? What is the future you have in mind? What would you like to enact?