Positive Impact Blog

Thought provoking insights for change makers

Tag Archives: training smart leaders


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Guided reflection

An element dearly missed in traditional field work so far is guided reflection. There is little value in having participants take part in hands-on field work, if their experience is not thoroughly and professionally reflected. Such reflection includes the following:

  • What have I concretely learned in terms of skills and competences?
  • How have I learned, what elements/processes provided insights and how were they provoked?
  • What did I not expect to learn, what took me by surprise?
  • What did I learn in the interaction with others?
  • How effective are my inter-personal skills?
  • What have I learned about myself? Which situations do I find particularly challenging or rewarding?
  • What situations favor a learning attitude, what situations prevent me from learning?
  • What feedback do I get from my colleagues (boss, peers, subordinates) and how do I react to this?
  • What new questions do I have? What would I like to investigate in, learn more about, explore?

Guided reflection is a critical enabler to have a learner advance on his personal journey to mastery. It enables the understanding of where a learner is and what challenges he needs to embrace to advance. It also installs a practice of life-long learning, ensuring that a learner integrates self-reflection into his daily routine as an integral element of personal hygiene. Furthermore, guided reflection also opens the pathway of shared learning, enabling the teacher to understand core issues and challenges a class is faced with. Such a process is a first step towards creating a shared learning journey, involving participants in co-creating a course syllabus and therefore assuming responsibility of his learning.


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A call for a radically new vision for business education

When considering the short-comings of existing business schools, it becomes clear that nothing less than a fundamental, possibly radical, new vision for business education is required. Leading business schools congratulate each other on their important incremental steps forward. The trouble is that they don’t even know how far off the mark they really are! All of us, from Harvard all the way to the uncountable business schools in the Philippines. There isn’t a single business school that has gotten it right, and most of us are not even aiming in the right direction!

We need an ideal, maybe illusionary, model of business education to enable business education to find its North again. This ideal may not be achievable or even realizable, but it shall serve as a flagpole on the horizon guiding institutions with a desire to educate leaders that are equipped with skills and competences to embrace the emerging global environmental, societal and business challenges of the future.


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Diploma in Sustainable Business Module One- September 2011

Dr. Katrin Muff, Dean of Business School Lausanne, shares first impressions after the launch of the new 1-year executive program in cooperation with the University of St. Gallen and the WBCSD: Diploma in Sustainable Business.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Dyllick, Professor for Sustainability Management at the University of St. Gallen, shares first impressions about the launch of the new 1-year executive program in cooperation with Business School Lausanne and the WBCSD: Diploma in Sustainable Business.

Caroline Van der Veeken, participant in the newly launched 1-year executive program of Business School Lausanne and the University of St. Gallen – Diploma in Sustainable Business – shares first impressions about the program participation.