I am a trainer and a practitioner of a set of practices we call: “the Art of Participatory Leadership” or “the Art of Hosting Meaningful Conversation”. We train community leaders and employees in organizations (around the world) to start and hold generative conversations and create collaborative workplaces. I will tell you about how the training is organized in the European Commission (30000 employees and over 3000 people trained to date).

First we have 3-4 day long entry level trainings every year, where people learn the basis techniques, methodologies and learn the underpinning philosophy and theory. The frontal teaching in these 3 day courses is less than 20%, all the rest is participative. Every method that we deploy in the training is not only experienced by the participants, but also done by them. We the trainers, invite participants to lead the methods they are interested in, then coach and teach them to actually lead those practices for the other participants, and then lead a debriefing with everybody. So the participants actively co-deliver the course with us. Of course, we design the program, frame the learning experience, deliver the teaching elements, coach the participants, debrief, create learning materials, and be present for them all throughout the courses. The courses are very intensive and have about 6-7 trainers to groups of 50 people.

But the training are just the starting part of the learning ecosystem. Since these are practices that need to be implemented to make any difference, people are encouraged to support each other implementing them.
We supported the creation of a Community of Practice, where practitioners come together, share experiences and support each other. There are a number of online forums on their intranet where they can also share experiences and support each other. Also, there is an offer of webinars.
There are further supported by weekly (voluntary) meetings where they can drop in if they have specific questions or if they want to support their colleagues.
Also, there is an offer of follow up in-depth training for each of the practices separately, much shorter (half day), where people can participate.
People are regularly invited to story telling sessions where they can learn from success and failure stories about how to best implement these practices.

This learning ecosystem has contributed to creating to a very lively and dynamic movement in the European Commission.

http://www.artofhosting.org/