Hello All,

I was going to share this at the Board Meeting but Jeff decided not to call upon me like he promised he would.  So I’ll share now.

As some of you know we are on our 3rd year of OPRA Advance Leadership Training.  To date we have trained over 90 individuals.   The first theory we start with is using Strength Finders Assessment so that everyone can have a perspective of what leadership strengths they bring to their organization, team, etc.  In addition to the theoretical material, we have leaders in our field come in and speak to the class about leadership, history of the field and what will be needed in the future.  Last month, John Martin for the third straight year came in and spoke with the class for over two hours about his personal history and leadership struggles and successes.

I then broke the class down into 6 teams and asked two of the teams to write an evaluation of John’s presentation and using the theoretical framework of Strength Finders, provide an assessment of what they think are his strengths.   This is the secret.  If we has Board members, team members, agency members, etc, can get into the professional habit of assessing those we work work with from a position of strengths, then we ourselves will be better team members, supervisors, IP team members, Board members etc.

Thought you might be interested in their thoughts.  Oh and BTW, please look at the financials handed out at the Board meeting.  ADVANCE is making money for OPRA!

Have a great weekend.

Jamie

— throughout the year we will have several speakers and each team will have the opportunity to assess them from the theoretical perspective of the material covered that month.