PTFL materials

PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION FOR LEADERS

How would you rate the quality & impact of the programme’s content, presentation, structure & leader? (5 = excellent; 1 = poor)

I’ve picked these sentences to try to convey an overall impression of participant feedback. But turn to the end of the article for a table which faithfully reproduces all participants in these two groups’ feedback; you’ll notice that it is strikingly consistent. It appears that almost all participants over 34 years have experienced a (usually dramatic and always positive) shift in how they relate to themselves and to others; an increase in energy, resilience and motivation and an ability to experiment with new leadership styles and approaches that improve the outcomes they achieve at work and at home. What does “personal” mean? The method is especially rooted in Freudian and Reichian psychology and draws on Daniel Goleman’s research on the impact of emotionally intelligent leaders. So participants do receive some grounding in psychological theory and simple models to help them use the insights they generate. But the essence of the programme is a personal experience, working cognitively and through the emotions on the business and personal experiences of the leader. Some people are very moved indeed as they work. Tim Kidd of Janet (UK) reflected on what “personal” transformation really meant for him: “I think, really, it’s like a revelation. If you’re expecting to come on a course where you get given a few tools and you’re told a few things…then that’s really not what this is about. I think, for me, this has been about understanding who you are, and how you fit in the world and therefore how that relates to your work situation. And for me, the issues I came with, the stuff that I had that I wanted to address for work, has almost become a by-product of the work I have done about me…In between the two weeks of the course, I’ve already seen the changes for real in the workplace and they were, in the end, simple to make once I had worked out all the stuff about me and what I should do for me personally.” It worked for them – but is it consistently repeatable? Compare the table at the end of this article: it is striking how similar the feedback from participants is across both groups. Review of detailed comparable feedback data collected from the last 3 years’ cohorts shows the same consistency of experience:

4.8

4.9

4.9

5

4 3 2 1 0

2012

2013

2014

Source: 118 feedback forms over 3 years 2012-2014 It seems that course attendees can expect to have their own versions of the deep, behaviour and performance shifting experiences described above. But how does it work? The essence of the approach is to expand participants’ self-awareness. Helping people understand their vulnerabilities and fears demonstrably unlocks insight, energy and greater performance. Ido van der Heijden, the programme director explains: “everyone has a story. Where we were born and who to, the genes we inherited, what experiences we had in early life, what we went through as an adolescent and what we’ve faced as an adult, the national culture we were raised in, the tensions at home, our parent’s stories – all these factors and more shape how we experience ourselves and the world. And they lay down emotional patterns and attitudes which shape our thinking all the time and can take over under stress. They can drain us and make us brace to keep the world out.” It’s important to understand that developing self- awareness is not a passive process. Ido again: “to realise their full potential, leaders need to find an environment in which they can work through key experiences. With this method, people stretch their emotional comfort zone to dip their toe in some of the experiences they have had and they receive feedback from strangers who see them as they really come across. This means they explore their true qualities and their limits. The programme is intense. It takes courage and requires a degree of openness but you can see the fruits people take away from it”.

Cranfield School of Management is ranked as a top Business School in the 2014 Financial Times Executive Education Rankings.