15 Dec My Trip to Indiana- Home of Indy 500
Why I love participating in the design and delivery of cohort programs
I was in Indiana, also known as the Hoosier State, from December 11th – 14th to facilitate the final session of one of our leadership development cohort programs.
Participating in the design and delivery of such a long-term leadership program like this one, which was launched in January this year in WV, is one of the most internally rewarding experiences I enjoy having year in and year out.
As a learning professional, long-term leadership development programs afford me to walk side-by-side and form strong bonds with participants throughout their year-long leadership journey, giving me enough opportunities to:
- Impart what I know,
- Share my experience,
- Influence positively,
- Provide the latest insights, models, tools, strategies, and tactics they need to have an undeniable impact.
Don’t get me wrong. 1 or 2 or 3 day leadership programs have their own important place in one’s leadership journey. I’m equally passionate and relish facilitating such short-term leadership programs. For that matter, I travel around the country facilitating or co-facilitating many of the themes in our cohort programs as stand-alone workshops or webinars.
Nonetheless, unlike short-term programs, cohort programs allow you to witness, from a very close range, cohort members’ inside-out transformation and the positive impact they’re having on the people they lead and in their organization.
Participants of our cohort programs may or may not see their own accelerated growth since they’re very close to themselves. However, my colleagues, the coordinators of such programs, and I could clearly see their remarkable transformation. This in turn increases our confidence in trusting that they will serve their respective team, organization, and community with world-class leadership excellence.
By the way, if you’ve never heard of Indiana, it is known as the world’s capital city of race. It holds the popular Indianapolis 500 car race (Indy 500). It is also the home of Perdue University, a world-class higher institution.
What is more? Indiana is also the birthplace of two American icons:
- Colonel Sanders, the Founder of KFC.
- Michael Jackson, the King of Pop.
It would be unfair if I forget to share with you how I got screwed for the first time because I booked my hotel via phone. Normally, I buy air tickets and reserve hotels online or ask someone from our team to book them for me. This time, since the dates were very close, I called to reserve a hotel close to the training site.
I vividly remember staring at my laptop and reading the exact address of the hotel where I wanted to stay to the customer service guy. Guess what happened? I picked up the phone a day before traveling to confirm my reservation. I didn’t prepare to hear: “You don’t have a reservation with us, Sir!”
While still stunned and panicked, I demanded with a stern voice: “What do you mean I don’t have a reservation!?” I was sure, the person was at fault.
To prove him wrong, I pulled out my confirmation email to find out that the reservation was at another hotel from a similar brand located a few miles from where I live- Germantown, MD. Don’t ask me why this person thought I needed a hotel reservation at a hotel very close to where I live 🙂
Once I realized that I played a role in messing this thing up, I called and canceled the existing reservation I had at the wrong hotel. Fortunately, I could book at another hotel, Embassy Suites North, which wasn’t that far from the training location.
The moral of this story is that either don’t book over the phone or read the confirmation email immediately and double-check to make sure your reservation is accurate.
Let me stop talking…
If you would like us to design and deliver cohort programs and/or stand-alone workshops or webinars for your leaders at various stages of leadership development, reach out via [email protected]
To learn more about the programs we provide, check out the 1-pager by clicking here…