Expressing Talents
A powerful environment for volunteers: working with their talents
In an organization working with volunteers, we meet a lot of different people. Each has his own history, his own story and experiences, his own skills and strengths. Using the unicity and strengths of the persons in an organization makes the organization stronger.
The workload is very high, even in organizations working with volunteers. Working with the talents of the volunteers is using natural sources of the organization and not waist them. This is a question of sustainability. This is not about environment or climate but of working with the energy of the body and the natural sources in people.
Working with talents gives more health to persons and health to the organization in a long term. When people feel energy while doing things they are good in, they feel mental energy. You avoid stress, depression, burn-out, illness…. You increase motivation and involvement.
Working with your talents gives more positive experiences. More success gives more positive emotions and more positive feelings. There is more satisfaction and more pleasure. The personal wellbeing is increasing. There is psychological growth possible and persons can broaden their possibilities. They become more creative, open minded, autonomic and flexible. They enjoy themselves. They have better relationships with others and life in general.
On a long term they become stronger, less vulnerable, more flexible and related to the organization and his vision. They acquire skills in self organizing. They adapt more easy to new things. An organization with a lot of people working with their talents will become stronger.
It is like a spiral: positive emotion gives positive emotion.
As an organization working on lifelong learning you can’t be authentic when you say that people have to connect to their talents and you don’t work with your volunteers and employees in the same way. Therefor you need a clear vision, a clear objective for your organization.
In a organization you need a diversity of talents and you have to express this. You become strong as an organization when you appreciate a lot of strengths , it makes your organization stronger, broader. Like Yanis Varoufakis says in his book ‘Economie uitgelegd aan mijn dochter’(2015): “to become a sustainable organization you have to work on the value of satisfaction instead of working on the value of money. On a longer term your organization will survive an be stronger.”
Talent Management: Talent in the light of Appreciative Mindset
Definition of Talent
Talent expressions within a learning activity is mainly connected with social capabilities like team working, initiative taking, empathy, be tolerant, active listening.
Talent Mangement in this context is mostly connected to the Team Dynamics as the essential tool for making participation more powerful and meaningful for all involved.
Team or Group Dynamics in Adult non formal Education
Why do we make use of groups in the learning process? Johnson and Johnson (2006:13) point out that group dynamics are central to education because co-operative group-based work allows students to work together in a manner that is mutually beneficial to all the students involved. The concept of cooperative learning is when learners work together to maximize everyone’s learning, as explained by Johnson and Johnson (2006:477). Careful consideration and utilisation of the conflict of differences between learners can turn into a benefit for both groups. This mutual beneficial relationship is especially true when the learners in the groups are adults, as they bring with them their own unique cognitive map as explained earlier.(p.51 Source)