The workshop feedback that concerns me the most

As I tell them the science of discovering their top strengths, I feel many fears fading away in silence. As I go about asking questions that let them introspect and realize what they are great at, that let them learn about their strengths on their own, I hear a lot of ‘wow’s’ and ‘whoa’s’ and ‘that’s interesting'.

As a Gallup certified Strengths coach, I have been training/coaching people on the concept and how to practise it for years now, yet I am never bored of it.

It’s as wonderful and charming to see people coming face to face with their best selves, discovering their potential on their own, as it was the last time and the one before that.

But there is something that always leaves me confounded as I conduct these workshops.

At the end of every session, we request immediate feedback from our participants, as a practice. While most express how much they cherished and learnt from the sessions, some of the views really surprise me.

“It was not relevant to my role.”

“Don’t know how to apply this in my work.”

“Would have been better to do something that was related to my work.”

Initially I was not sure where that was coming from, I thought it was probably a one-off thing, an exception. But since a few of these come up at almost every workshop, I felt it was important to share my thoughts with all of you.

Some participants of these workshops think they were wasting their time, ignoring the value it would bring in their lives. Reason – It didn’t seem to add anything to their everyday tasks in the immediate future.

This is not a run-of-the-mill training program. It involves a lot of experiential intelligence from the training team and a lot of investment from the organization. Employers spend a considerable amount of money and time into getting their workforce this opportunity.

“It was a waste of time given my role”, is not something they pay to hear. As an ex-participant myself, I know the value this training or any learning and development intervention, for that matter, can bring in someone’s life.

‘a waste of time’, is not a phrase I would ever use for such opportunities.

This program is related to personal and professional development. The whole content of the Strengths-Based Development workshop is around introspecting oneself, learning to speak about one’s talents, exchanging your discoveries with others, looking into how people complement each other, understanding one another, developing tolerance to different behaviours and so on.

None of this is a secret. Before the workshop is scheduled, participants are made aware of the objective and the outline of the program very clearly. Yet some people come with a restrictive frame of mind that hopes for actionable items that they could implement in their role and that would enable them to amplify their work productivity from the very next day – much like after attending a technical training of some sorts.

The whole theme of the workshop is about learning about themselves and yet there are some people who think it’s a waste of time. I cannot press enough on how shocked I am at these revelations and thought processes.

Even more concerning is the fact that these views continue in the pandemic, after all we have been through. I imagined it to be different as I saw focus and priorities literally shifting from the transactional things to more important things in life, the center of all of them being ‘our personal development’.

I would never understand why someone cannot make time for their personal development. I am a bit lost on how to help them understand the worth of it.

Despite the overall success of these workshops, such comments continue to find their space. And I continue to wonder how people are not able to value their own worth.

Why do some people deprive themselves of this deeper experience? Why do they convince themselves that they are wasting their time?

Their need to associate learning with a clear, direct and immediate output, limits their learning ability. That attitude restricts their ability to listen properly, let alone let it sink in.

‘a waste of time’, I continue to wonder!

I am sitting on a top of a green hill looking into a green valley, not pushed for time, contemplating, and I don’t think any second of this is a waste of time.

If any of you have an answer, I would love to hear it.