In-House Training

Using the example of last week’s miscommunication and several other incidents in the office, I held an in-office training today on effective communication skills. Using some of the same exercises I used in Thailand, we worked on active listening skills. Then I introduced the Two-Column tool and we worked on bridging the gap between the two columns, i.e. “what we think and feel” vs. “what we say.” The YAI staff is small, only 5 people, and the intimate setting and trust between the participants made the training really dynamic, fun, and interesting.

I had been planning on holding weekly trainings for the YAI staff for some time now, but several factors intervened to delay the first training to today. Between my hectic meeting schedule and the holiday in the middle of last week, I never had a sufficient chunk of time to run a real training session. In addition, all of the YAI staff are also full-time university students—despite being in their late twenties. This is due to the suspension of education during the civil war, which causes the majority of Liberians to be far behind in their studies. Juggling a full course load plus their work responsibilities means that the YAI staff members also have limited time to allocate to trainings. However, I think the success of today’s training has made us all more devoted to really making time for these sessions every week.

The 3-hour training this afternoon was also a good warm up for me since next week YAI is sponsoring a 2-day workshop that I am facilitating for representatives from several youth groups in Monrovia.