Life Lessons

In honour of today's royal wedding.
Bruce and I essay our wedding cake, July 4, 2009.

When politicians take to the mats so that one of them will emerge victorious, the public servants waiting at ringside cool their heels, avoid eye contact with stakeholders and go on training courses.

I spent three days this past week learning, with eleven members of my peer group, how to coach.

You might well ask why it would take three whole days to accomplish something so simple. Turns out there's more to it than you'd think. 

And every time up until now that I thought I was coaching someone, it turns out I was doing something else.

Oh well. 

The experience was rewarding. "Aha" moments abounded. We had lots of fun.

But, this is the Ontario Public Service and no shared moment is so special that it can't have the life sucked out of it.

After two and a half days of revelations, self-discovery and camaraderie, we spent the last part of the course being told how we would be pinned to "accountability circles," meeting every week. In our materials pre-drafted agendas set out in five minute intervals what we would do in those circles.

So along with the techniques of coaching, twelve bureaucrats learned the lesson of what over-regulation feels like. 

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen