How I polished my GYAN with GYAN+

As a person, I enjoy learning things – online and offline. Marketing, Branding, Project Management are some of my favourite areas of learning. Being in charge of managing training programs for non-profits in Bangalore, it often doesn’t give me the chance to simply participate in these sessions. And here I was, at the GYAN+ training with the worldly opportunity to attend one session after another and participate in brainstorming activities with both my team and fellow NGO professionals.

GYAN+ is a management training program for senior leaders in the social sector. This program is a collaborative initiative of iVolunteer and Singapore International Foundation. Our team had the opportunity to attend this week long training with 10 other non-profits in Mumbai between the end of February to early March. It was both refreshing and getting our hands dirty using the concepts discussed.

What did GYAN+ do for me?

The 5 days of training was a revisit to a lot of concepts and management techniques learned before. In particular, I relished the session on DISC personality.  This topic entailed a personality test which graded the training group into four profiles – Dominance, Influencing, Stable and Conscientious (DISC personality, if you take the first letters of the four adjectives).

Dominance – Person places emphasis on accomplishing results, the bottom line, confidence. 

Influence – Person places emphasis on influencing or persuading others, openness, relationships.

Steadiness – Person places emphasis on cooperation, sincerity, dependability.

Conscientiousness – Person places emphasis on quality and accuracy, expertise, competency.

(crisp definitions source: Internet)

In our work with iVolunteer, we get to work with a variety of volunteers who volunteer their time and skills. Motivating and retaining volunteers is critical for the success of projects/ initiatives and sustain social development. As a team, we have been brainstorming to use the DISC personality categories to understand the motivation of different volunteers. Based on their personality types we could devise ways to recognize and keep them motivated to contribute to the social sector.

A short concluding note… (and it is really short!!)

GYAN+ is a wholesome experience for NGO professionals to polish and equip themselves with management skills. These skills can support to improve their productivity and effectiveness.  Personally, it gave me an opportunity to work with our team and meet NGO professionals across seas. I shall cherish those intriguing 5 days of learning, laughter and meeting like-minded people!!