The past two day I’ve been participating in the Pit-stop training organised by Vanderlande. Even though I’ve been attending quite some trainings already, this was something else. Not only did they arrange a change of scenery (we were in a luxurious hotel for two days) but also the trainers (two trainers and four coaches) themselves were of another category than I am used to.
Upon my arrival I was greeted by men that were dressed in suit and introduced me to the rest of the team before I went to the rest of the group. After a short introduction and some ground rules, we went to work. On day one we were supposed to work on our teamwork skills. Namely those associated with procedure and process. Less on content. Even though the complete group contained about 30 people, our group was the size of six, seven if the coach is included.
We learned more about the natural role we tend to take within a team, and how to make advantage of the strengths and weaknesses of this role.
One of the coaches thought I had the tenancy to move more into a leading role. Something that I did not expect. We decided it would be interesting to explore this, and I was surprised to say it didn’t feel unnatural at all. Quite the eye opener and something to explore further in the future.
After a nice drink with some new colleagues I have come to meet, we headed towards our rooms quite early, as it was an exhausting day!
The second day we focused more on personal development using a couple of tests. This was also interesting as it explored both the type of person you are how your emotional intelligence is measured. Even though I often disagree with tests that try to put people into certain “boxes”, it might be useful to help recognize your own strengths and weaknesses.
All on all, it was a great experience and I feel like we learned a lot this day.
One thing I want to mention in particular is the way the trainers handled the day. They really are professionals! I was especially impressed by their presentation skills. This is definitely something I also want to be able to do. In the future I might be looking into doing some kind of presentation training to become better at it!