10th “Management & Development” Seminar – Widening Dianova’s Global Vision

"Management & Development" Seminar

 

The 10th ¨Management and Development¨ training seminar  took place on June 15th on the occasion of the Annual Meetings of the Dianova Network from June 12th – 15th in Castelldefels (Barcelona, Spain). The seminar counted with approximately forty participants from the Dianova network, in Europe and the Americas. The workshop facilitator, Rafa Goberna, is a consultant in organizational and personal development and a member of the Assembly Council of Dianova International. Dedicated to Widening the Dianova Network's Global Vision, this year's seminar lasted throughout much of the day and was particularly lively.

Global vision could be defined as one that allows learning and understanding an issue as a whole, knowing how stakeholders interact and being conscious of the impact of one's actions on the environment. This entails to recognize key elements and to be aware of the different perspectives of a given situation or element. One of the crucial aspects is to have access to information. In the current digital society this fact is undeniable.

In a person, the global vision is reflected by a predisposition and capacity to adopt actions that bring the person beyond his/her comfort zone because the person interprets the world as a whole. A person with a wide global vision, acts globally while taking into account local problems and needs

At a different level, the organizations are formed by people that act and interact to achieve a common objective. To avoid chaos, the organization has to set a hierarchy and an organization charter. Nonetheless, this hierarchy tends to weaken global vision as organization members rather focus on their assigned tasks and do not perceive their work in conjunction with the organization´s. 

In order to visualize and think about the concept of global vision, Rafa Goberna divided the participants into groups and put them to work. Firstly, each group had to work on mind maps. These tools provide multiple data in a reduced space, enabling a global vision of the topic dealt with and facilitating the decision-making process. The first teamwork exercise was based on the design of mind maps. 

Mind Maps

The next step was to elaborate a mind map on the concept of global vision itself, the skills it requires, the consequences it entails, etc. The participants developed these aspects throughout mind maps. The creativity of the teams allowed each group to highlight different aspects which have enriched the concept´s definition. 

Some of the aspects needed to achieve a global vision are the willingness to collaborate and to be attentive to external information. If we are not ready to collaborate, it is unlikely that we achieve the objectives by our own. Moreover, we should learn to watch, listen and be sensitive to other stakeholders so as to infer what their needs are and to understand the situations they're in.

Rafa Goberna arranged a very illustrative activity to emphasize the relevance of these aspects. The participants were divided in different teams again and assigned to complete a puzzle. It was forbidden to communicate with one's fellow teammates under the supervision of observers. The puzzle could be completed only if the participants sustained a collaborative teamwork among one another, while understanding their teammates' needs and expectations. 

The seminar moved on and focused on how to widen the Dianova network´s global vision. The participants had to assess and justify their scale of global vision within their work at Dianova. Among others, certain aspects of the network were pointed as elements capable of reinforcing global vision, such as the network's multiculturalism or the need to adapt to a changing environment on an ongoing basis, a feature inherent to Dianova's everyday work.

As stressed by Rafa, many problems in the organizations are due less to ignorance than to inactivity. The motto of the organizations should be: do not try, do it! For this reason, the workshop ended with a brainstorming in which the participants could share reflection and concrete actions about how they could step up Dianova's employees' global vision as well as each member organization's and Dianova International's. Some of the outcomes of the exercise included: promoting internal communication, building up strategic alliances with other NGOs at the global level, arranging inter-organization training sessions for newly hired employees, etc. 

Read interview by Rafa Goberna