Experience Explorer Facilitator's Guide. Meena Wilson

      

       EXPERIENCE EXPLORER

       From Yesterday’s Lessons to Tomorrow’s Success

       About the Center for Creative Leadership

      The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) is a top-ranked global provider of leadership development. By leveraging the power of leadership to drive results that matter most to clients, CCL transforms individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Our array of cutting-edge solutions is steeped in extensive research and experience gained from working with hundreds of thousands of leaders at all levels. Ranked among the world’s Top 5 providers of executive education by the Financial Times and in the Top 10 by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CCL has offices in Greensboro, NC; Colorado Springs, CO; San Diego, CA; Brussels, Belgium; Moscow, Russia; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Johannesburg, South Africa; Singapore; Gurgaon, India; and Shanghai, China.

       EXPERIENCE EXPLORER

       From Yesterday’s Lessons to Tomorrow’s Success

      Facilitator’s Guide

      Meena S. Wilson and N. Anand Chandrasekar

      CENTER FOR CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

       www.ccl.org

      CCL Stock No. PM012B

      ISBN 978-1-60491-535-8

      © 2014 Center for Creative Leadership

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

      Published by CCL Press

      Sylvester Taylor, Director of Assessments, Tools, and Publications

      Peter Scisco, Manager, Publication Development

      Stephen Rush, Editor

      Shaun Martin, Associate Editor

      Design and Layout by Joanne Ferguson

      With Special Thanks

      to our unflagging supporters for their zest, guidance, and diligence: David Altman, Kathryn Brendon, Michael Campbell, Corey Criswell, Amit Desai, Karen Dyer, George Hallenbeck, Emily Hoole, David Horth, Renee Hultin, V. Kartikeyan, Jennifer Martineau, Cindy McCauley, Chuck Palus, Peter Scisco, Anupam Sirbhaiya, Pankaj Sethi, Clemson Turregano, Ellen Van Velsor, and Marie Van Vuren;

      to our prototype makers: Oliver Bermoy and Michelle Crouch;

      to our early adopters: Vered Asif, Al Calarco, Steadman Harrison, Paula Nielsen-Lazo, Nicholas Petrie, Tzipi Radonsky, Lyndon Rego, Philomena Rego, and Lim Peng Soon;

      and to our many research partners, including Tata Management Training Centre in India, Civil Service College in Singapore, and China Europe International Business School in India.

      Without the efforts of these people and organizations, making Experience Explorer would not have been possible.

      Quick Guide

      Experience Explorer enhances the lessons of experience by giving leaders a simple, energizing way to share stories that advance their development. A typical Experience Explorer session lasts one to three hours and follows four steps.

      Contents

       Introduction

       Using Experience Explorer

       How Does It Work?

       When Can It Be Used?

       Who Can Conduct a Session?

       Conducting an Experience Explorer Session

       Pre-Session Checklist and Preparations

       Step-by-Step Instructions

       Options and Applications

       Sort Option 1: Sorting the Categories of Experience

       Sort Option 2: Sorting the Worlds of Lessons

       Application 1: Life Coaching

       Application 2: Career Planning

       Application 3: Resilience and Learning Agility

       References and Resources

       Research Background: The Lessons of Experience

       About the Authors

      Introduction

      Leadership development is driven by experience; in other words, leaders learn not just through training and developmental relationships but through job and leadership experiences. In training-and-development circles and among human-resources staff, the catchphrase “70-20-10” is a general guideline for combining challenging assignments (70%), developmental relationships (20%), and coursework & training (10%). This guideline suggests that a combination of those learning opportunities, at about that ratio, is optimal for preparing managers for leadership roles. The 70-20-10 ratio should not be taken as a one-size-fits-all solution to developing leaders. However, the pattern that 70-20-10 suggests is clear: On-the-job experiences are a significant driver of leadership development, particularly experiences that challenge leaders to lead in novel and diverse environments.

       Beyond 70-20-10

      Research by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has identified two other categories of developmental experiences important for leaders: hardships and personal life experiences. Hardships are not included in the 70-20-10 guideline because these are not experiences that organizations intentionally give individuals for development; personal life experiences are not included because they are outside of an organization’s control.

      Experience Explorer gives leaders a powerful and efficient tool for discovering what they have learned about effective leadership and what they still need to learn. When leaders explore and talk about their past experiences, they can better plan future learning experiences.

      Leaders and managers at all organizational levels and in all types of organizations are typically responsible for developing themselves and others. Whether they work in human resources, serve as training-and-development consultants, or lead a business unit, managers and leaders can use Experience Explorer in a number of situations.

      Leading an Experience Explorer session does not require high-level facilitation skills. The 99 cards in the package are divided into 52 blue Experience cards, 42 orange Lesson cards, and 5 white Instruction