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PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION
FOR LEADERS
is ranked as a top Business School
in the 2014 Financial Times Executive Education Rankings.
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:
How would you rate the quality & impact of the
programme’s content, presentation, structure & leader?
(5 = excellent; 1 = poor)
5
4.8 4.9 4.9
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”.