Our Process
The primary goal of the Leaders in Service Workshop is to engage work teams in a combination of community service and workshop exercises that result in a renewed spirit, a personal balance plan, and the transference of energy back to the job. Many individuals and even corporate groups experience the benefits of community service and other forms of serving outside of the workplace, but the psychic benefits of doing good are not often transferred back to the job or used to help the individual create a plan that holds the gain. The purpose of this effort is to weave a community service experience with personal and team development work.
The Leaders in Service Workshop is designed to be offered to intact or cross-functional work teams. The goal is to use the service experience as a way to rediscover the principles in effective teamwork and to create a group that can support one another in application back at work. Consequently one of the criteria for an effective community service project is that it actively engages a group of up to 10 to 25 participants. The service project might include pre-work and individual components, but at some point the effort will need to connect all participants simultaneously to a task.
Our Purpose
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To assist organizations in discovering the power in service to others |
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To enhance energy and spirit in the workplace as well as in individuals' personal lives |
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To help participants focus during an extended times of difficult transition or other times that call for renewal of energy |
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To create personal plans for life balance that integrate work life and personal life in ways that reduce stress |
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To help people and their organizations find ways to add value back into their local communities and to use that experience as a way to grow personally and professionally |
Additional Benefits
Besides being a team activity, the community service project will have the following qualities:
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1) |
The activity will be one that has an emotional impact on a majority of the group, e.g., working with challenged populations who demonstrate unusual courage, working on projects that allow the participants to truly make a difference in someone else's life, or in some way help the team members make a difference. Projects that are more menial and busy-work tasks would be less desirable. |
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The project will allow the participants to create tangible or quick results that can be observed by the end of a single day. |
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3) |
The activity will take a group from four to eight hours to complete. While groups may choose to participate in an ongoing process, e.g., two hours each month, the initial project should allow a team to create some accomplishment within a day and then allow for time to reflect and debrief. The purpose of the debrief is to draw out the lessons from the experience, to connect those lessons back to real life, and to understand the value of service. |
The community service projects that are chosen for teams to participate in will be coordinated through an organization's existing Community Service Committee, if desired. Projects will be chosen that meet the above criteria but also that build upon existing relationships with agencies in the community. Many organizations currently have an existing strategy to offer both financial donations and employee work efforts to a few chosen beneficiaries and the Leaders In Service Workshop will stay focused within those guidelines.
Options for various types of community service projects as well as tailored curriculum design will be offered to individual work teams so that team members will become involved from the beginning in the projects they choose and in the content of the remainder of the workshop. As an option, the team may also focus on a business strategy or initiative as a segment of the workshop, with a goal to focus renewed energy on the initiative and to realize immediate benefits on the job.
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