UNHCR, Online Coaching.
Is That In My Job Description? - Finding the story to communicate an e-learning programme to support colleagues with new roles and their specifications.
“After our sessions I totally overhauled the e-learning and went through the exercises again to help build the story. I gained so much from the sessions and have started to apply the same approach with other pieces of work for learning and development. I think this is something ALL my UNHCR colleagues should do.”
Associate PSP Operations Officer at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
Beginning.
A.F. of UNHCR asked us to help her bring a fresh method or approach for communicating the key learnings for an e-learning programme aimed at high level staff in the field, who had just been given the go-ahead to start fundraising. Due to the stakeholders and the nature of the topic itself, there were sensitivities. It was important to treat the topic carefully, whilst not losing the key messages and learning. Since A.F. was based in Rome and we were in the first lockdown of 2020 we planned to deliver a set of 2-hour coaching sessions with her over Zoom. Although the original purpose was to help A.F. with communication and creation of the e-learning it was clear that a solid investigation and understanding of the subject and her audience were needed first.
Middle.
A.F. took part in some preparation prior to the coaching, working through a handbook of techniques to start the process of investigating her subject and the desired outcomes of the e-learning. In the first session Lily responded to her pre-work to draw out and question the desired meaning and to build up details and specificity that would carefully articulate what she wanted to convey.
In the second session A.F. built the structure and content of what she wanted to communicate and developed the descriptions of the stories she could tell. Throughout Lily challenged her to experiment with how she talked about the difficult subjects, towards finding an appropriate, sensitive and empathetic telling without losing sense and clarity so as to achieve the purpose of the stories within the e-learning.
End.
Using our methodology and seeing her subject as a story, challenged the way A.F. was thinking about the work itself, using different perspectives helped build a more holistic view, she broke down the issue into its main components to gain greater clarity which resulted in a more engaging piece of work. A.F. has continued to apply the techniques she has learnt and feels more confident in her ability to prepare, structure and communicate.
