www.barbarabertagni.info
Action Learning as Personal Training: A Case Study by Barbara Bertagni and Fernando Salvetti
One of the most effective and efficient interventions of action learning for managerial development is obtained combining and integrating traditional methodologies with experimental activities, during the course of training and development planned according to the requirements of each single entrepreneur, manager or professional. In fact, the flexibility of personal training reflects itself in the possibility to structure short courses on the occasion of important changes or as support in critical or stressful moments rather than long courses to accompany the career development or personal growth. The supervision, the support and the confrontation with expert consultants, takes place respecting privacy and in full compliance with a client’s agenda, with the purpose to create the best conditions for personal development. The targets of personal training range from the improvement of the regular characteristic situations to the development of the distinctive competences as well as to the attainment of a personal wellbeing condition. To this purpose, the planning of the managerial development course (or empowerment) is supported by: A personal trainer, who is the only interface with the client, coordinator and responsible for the whole process. An interdisciplinary team of professionals, formed to measure according to client’s specific requirements. The personal training activities are lead by experts of personal resource development and of professional competences, of career development, psychological and philosophical counseling, of personal communication and marketing, of organization and management, of business administration, economy and law. Tendentiously, the structure of a personal training course is flexible and modular ,and includes interviews on coaching and counseling, self-empowerment sessions and one-to-one personalized training, evaluation moments and development of potential, “invisible” assistance to a client during his most important work activities, strategic and operational consulting. In fact, in the personal training courses the training takes place starting from direct experience, shaped according to it, continuously evaluated by direct observance, feedback conversations or a self-evaluation test. Both, the work instruments and the evaluation grids or the psycho aptitude tests are personalized according to the peculiarities of the individual requirement. Besides, the personal trainer plans and coordinates the learning environment of the person, aggregating resources (didactic notes, cases serving as guides, presentations, articles, books, electronic resources, video clips, picture extracts and work instruments) and relations, (professional networking, seminars and meetings of the relevant sector) thus as a whole, useful to professional empowerment and likely to be activated in the task, namely on the specific request by the selfformated subject (resources on demand).