Management Apprenticeship - Level 7 (Day 5) Reviews

There is a still a lot of content to process in one session and I feel as though I can't really engage enough with the content. I wonder if I might be having more trouble with the course being online than I had initially thought. I have also been reflecting on the use of models. I'm struggling with the volume of models being introduced and whether or not I will realistically use them. This is probably more of a general comment on models and tools in leadership and what I feel about their value... I suppose I am most interested with the thinking around them and how this challenges/changes my own thinking. I have noticed (and perhaps incorrectly) that there is a general lack of diversity in the content we are studying. To the best of my knowledge, I think we have predominantly been looking at models and ways of thinking from white CIS males - with the exception of Michael. C. Bush and Amy Edmondson. Although, it may be that I have gotten this wrong.

Not enough time spent introducing big ideas by the facilitators, thankfully I already had an introduction to them through my learning. Not enough time dedicated to discussions in break out rooms.

Pace was fine, enough time for discussion.

Another good day. Found the AI session especially interesting.

I am really enjoying learning from the other course delegates and seeing their approach to the tasks that we are undertaking during the day. Also good to see that we are all facing similar challenges in our approach to leadership and managing the day job.

I filled this out at the time and it failed to upload, so I'm going to be a bit briefer this time. This was my least favourite training day. Partly as the relevance to SMO was less explicit. Felt a bit like we were covering things because we had to and I had to work harder to make it meaningful to my situation. Perhaps for this reason I was less fulfilled by the format of: slides, small groups, fill in a form, feedback. I struggled to feel engaged or feel like I was learning well. This is in contrast to previous sessions which I've enjoyed enormously.

Another insightful and inspiring "Happy session", full of energy and motivation.

AI and risk management felt less obviously connected overall to self management and more like topics from a more general leadership programme than previous sessions. Maybe could have done with more explicit connection from the facilitators to make the links clearer? AI session was interesting but felt a bit conceptual for those considering this stuff for the first time. Where would one start?! Felt a bit like he came to share his world view rather than engage with the group where we are all at. Could we have covered the basics of risk management and then looked at the risks (or common perceived risks) associated with making the shift to self management to make the link clearer? I was tired by this point but felt like a mix of this, and talking about how to do risk management in a self-managed org and didn't feel like we had time to do either justice in a way that left me clear on what I could do with it (and I work with risk a fair amount already).

I have loved the overall course so far, but found risk really hard to get enthused about - though realise it's critical to the qualification. Brendans' moving talk of Grenfell aside, I felt that the connection with SMOs was too tenuous.