Again in collaboration with H-Farm incubated by Digital Accademia. I was invited to deliver a workshop for Talent Campus – International Edition last Friday, an innovative project for youth training involving 45 young high achieving students, from 5 European countries, all wishing to find a way to take their chance in the employment market. My training was part of a 4-day session over a long weekend.
It was tough: my first time for all-day training in English and the first time with so many participants and just one trainer (me) and one assistant (Germana). Totally impossible to check all the Canvases one by one. Therefore I had to opt for group feedback:
I started the workshop giving them some foundation in Personal Branding and the Personal Branding Canvas. Then I made them build the Personal Brand of a VIP. This gives people the chance to experience the Canvas in a more comfortable way and to give themselves a challenge without feeling under exam pressure. And it gave to me the opportunity to show some best practice, so not remaining just theoretical.
Failure vs Feedback
Young students are amazing because they have really fresh ideas and great motivation, but sometimes they get stuck in building their Personal Brand. The issue in my opinion is more related to habit than age. They often receive too much feedback on what they do right or wrong and not on the direction they are going. They can also sometimes be too focused on external instructions and afraid of making mistakes. Therefore they are really astonished when they understand that making mistakes, testing and discussing them, learning and pivoting is much more efficient than thinking of a strategy for far too long. The idea of thinking themselves as useful also (Key Benefits) and not only good at something (Offering) was often new to them.
It was great watching them suddenly getting self aware when exposed to the big picture of their own personal communication strategy. So many “aha” moments and eagerness to help each other during workgroups…
This morning I received an email from the organization, telling me that some students even carried on with their Canvas until late at night!
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