Achieving organizational goals is never just about content, but at least as much about the people who must achieve the goals together. That's why Summiteers always connects content to team members' personal development. In addition, the consultancy firm uses, among other things, a “learning goal caricature”. This is also the case with Mirjam van der Esch, marketing manager at ANWB. She explains how the special method helped her avoid her pitfalls.

‍

Last year, Summiteers helped ANWB Zakelijk develop the Vision on serving manufacturers & importers. “Such major strategic issues don't come your way very often,” Mirjam van der Esch begins. “This challenges you in terms of content, but you are also more likely to face your personal challenges.”

To translate these personal challenges into a clear learning goal, we use the learning objective caricature, which — as the name suggests — exaggerates the characteristics of yourself that you would like to work on.

The do-it-yourselfer

“My target caricature was 'the do-it-yourselfer',” says Van der Esch. “That's someone who delegates little. And when she does delegate, often without correct or clear instructions. But at the same time, she is also very meticulous, perfectionist and demanding. It's someone who's out of control and has a time management problem.”

Of course, this is quite a lot — “you're probably thinking by now: gosh, what kind of figure were you?” — but that's exactly the idea of the learning objective caricature: the exaggeration makes it very clear where your pitfalls lie, and what hindrance you experience in your work and private life.

Van der Esch mainly runs up to her learning goal when she no longer has the overview. “I get a few bad things about that: I get short, say I'm busy or I can't finish things, get a sharp edge and I'm more easily annoyed. In addition, I either don't respond to emails or don't respond until late. This is easy to recognize because I'm usually very structured.”

“I chose it as a learning goal because I was convinced that there would come a time when it won't happen to me again, as long as I keep paying enough attention to it,” she explains.

‍

Helping each other with the learning goals

This is what Van der Esch did with her last year Accountability Partner at ANWB, with whom she was in contact every week about developments in their learning goals. In addition, everyone's learning goals were also discussed within the project team. “That way, we also immediately had the opportunity to help each other and get to know each other better. This way, colleagues can also recognize when I'm out of control and confront me with that.”

In that context, she also wrote down how colleagues can then help her. “For example, ask me if I need help, or help me to put things into perspective and zoom out in a conversation. You can also just address me by saying, for example, “You're reacting so strongly, are you in control of everything, or do you need help with something?”

‍

Make it planable

Van der Esch is already experiencing that the development process is beginning to bear fruit. “Avoiding my pitfalls starts with making everything planable, that's the basis for me. It has helped me that I have now tackled it using a method, so I have continuously reminded myself of it. Now I check my agenda every week, looking four weeks ahead of what weeks are about to come in terms of workload.”

“The learning objective caricature makes it very clear to you how it works again and has forced me to become more organized.”

“It's now easier for me to outsource something to colleagues from time to time. They also recognize this as part of my learning goal, so they often offer to take over where necessary. It wasn't natural for me to just outsource something, that's something I did learn.”

Moreover, making her tasks plannable helps not only at work, but also at home. “I'm also just a mom, and I want to do something fun every now and then in the evening. Now I'm already putting blocks in my agenda — highly recommended. This way, I'll have a lot of space to work things out by then, and that's really nice. Plus, I'm more fun and cozy at home, and we know better about each other when we sometimes have to go on in the evening and when not.”

In achieving this result, the learning objective caricature played an important role. “It makes it very clear to you how it works again and has forced me to become more organized. For example, I have listed with my colleagues what questions they should ask me during each meeting we have. This included how many emails were left in my inbox: anything over 100 is already alarming to me. I always clean everything up, so my mailbox is about the same as my to do list.”

‍

Keep chasing

Before Van der Esch came into contact with the concept of learning objective caricature and Accountability Partnership, she also tried to take steps, but that proved difficult in practice. “I did get input from colleagues and managers about how they did it in the past, but then I had to implement and follow it up myself. There was then little control over its effectiveness.”

“I can really say that things have clearly improved both at work and at home!”

Thanks to Summiteers' guidance, this was now the case. “In the first phase, we regularly had hours to watch: 'Where are you now? ' They facilitated a number of group sessions where we presented and explored our learning goals, worked out caricatures, and joined the first few accountability partnership meetings.”

“Then Summiteers continued to monitor this with us so that everyone gets to work with it and a rhythm is created. “How are the accountability checks going?” “Do you even speak to each other?” “Is your learning goal still up to date?” Now that we are further in the process, Summiteers still contacts me regularly to see how things are going. It's a nice idea that someone besides me and my Accountability Partner is busy with how I'm doing.”

‍

Attention to each other

Because of all the attention to personal development, you might almost forget that Summiteers was brought on board by ANWB for a strategic issue. However, Van der Esch emphasizes that the two are closely linked, and that working together on everyone's personal learning goals has also taken cooperation within the strategic task to a higher level.

“We have had to learn that we will continue to pay attention to each other and each other's learning goals during this busy period,” she explains. “Not everyone works the same way, stress doesn't affect some people in the same way as others. Ultimately, it has ensured that the cooperation within the project team started more understanding and with fewer major obstacles.”

Based on the mutual trust that this created, communication was also more open and clear. “And at the same time, you also get to know your colleagues much better,” adds Van der Esch. “You understand why things sometimes work out the way they do. I have the idea that it's especially annoying when you can't understand someone well enough. This way of working teaches you to understand why someone reacts or acts in a certain way.”

And her children are also very pleased with the results. “They're finally seeing their mom again,” she says with a wink. “And it's also fun. I can really say that things have clearly improved both at work and at home!”