Night before the start. Our hotel room, which has become the impromptu office, smells of the clear towels, new paper and wine from a just opened bottle. Sheaf of printed materials for about fifty participants ready on the table. We set out from Lviv to make the inspiring, several days program for the top-managers from the whole country.
«I want to check out the projector once again»
Those present looked at each other. I put aside the untouched wineglass and stretch forth to the pack of the stuff in a corner of the room. The co-worker makes himself comfortable next to the work notebook. Involuntarily, I notice several opened dialogues on the display and poor wi-fi connection. And what’s more, I can’t find a necessary port for the projector. Shortly before we updated the computers and we have the adapters only for the old models. The meeting with the participants is arranged before the opening of electronics shops, several hours before the beginning of a long intensive day.
***
Day before the departure. There are packed bags with all the necessary office materials around the table. I add the brand folders which I have just received from a print shop. There is no way to get near me. I plan to have a lunch after a checking call to the main transporter. Summer, active period of transportation.
«What does it mean you refuse?»
While listening to the long and honestly boring excuse, I outline the point «transportation» with a red pencil in the to-do list. I make another circle and a harder one. The pencil doesn’t break down.
***
Offsite module in Kyiv. Late at night. Again, in the hotel. The futon on the bed is so comfortable that I promise myself to order the same for my home. That will be a present for my family. I want to fall asleep after an uneasy road. The co-worker who lives with me in the same room, rummages suspiciously through the content of our bags while I’m trying to set the alarm. We found out that several hours before the beginning of the training we couldn’t find a clip microphone for the speaker with whom we had been negotiating about the cooperation for two years. And there is no chance for the hand micro, or some other ones. Only a clip one.
«Why don’t they pick up the phone?»
Half past one in the morning, for some reason, the group of the hotel conference service doesn’t respond to our urgent request. My dream fades out very quickly… so do my thoughts about the new futon.
***
Let’s consider the variants of instruction concerning how to involve your motivation and put it for good of inspiration. To quickly re-cap something good, something best connected with the work. Some extraordinary memory or feeling, the sound of the happy noise of participants in the air of the auditorium, warmed up after the whole day. In fact, it’s important to think about what will be in the end.
What is the role of inspiration in the process of learning in general? And what amount of it should be there in each element of learning program? How should it influence in its entirety to breathe into the participants the impulse to further changes and transformation of their own thinking. It’s so cool and deep!
Another variant — renew in your memory the experience of your thought leaders in inspiration or TED performances on this subject, or concert records of your favorite performing musician. To cheer yourself up, get together the crumbs of enthusiasm to always be ready to quench a fire being worn in the evening dress with a peaceful face of a true educator.
You won’t make a dinner with the crumbs though. No inner monologues, no strong statements, and all the more so the sudden enlightenments from the favorite video don’t work when managerial inspiration is burning here and now as a forgotten New Year dish in the oven.
I try to expect the unexpected. I get ready not only for the sudden problems but also for the unexpected solutions to these problems.
At two o’clock in the morning we manage to find the microphone and also the adapter. It’s still a pleasure to recall that morning with the speaker who we had been waiting for for so long, and to help them to wear the micro, found several minutes before the beginning of the program. After having so little sleep I still manage to communicate well and even make not so bad jokes.
This is the moment of euphoria. That bright impression which maybe every creator of inspiration hunts for. Thus, what is happening in between? What moves me to continue to work further? I could say — nothing except the set tasks, deadlines, defined strategies — everyone knows for themselves. But would it be totally honest? For someone — yes.
But I would tell you — I am inspired by the graduates (the graduates of the academic programs of UCU Lviv Business School (LvBS), – ed.) and their realized ideas, their delight and confidence, their unexpected decisions of the new challenges.
I am happy of the expectations that there can be more and more people like that, and this gives me strengths to work on my own improvement and the improvement of learning programs. And concerning inspiration… it always comes in the end. It’s important to manage to wait until it comes.
Anton Tkachuk, Olga Dolia, Mariana Novostavska
The article is prepared especially for the III number of business edition Insight LvBS Inside, which you can get at the events and at the office of UCU Lviv Business School.
