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Rotary Youth Leadership Award
The Challenge: Providing 18-25 year olds with the fundamentals of good leadership and team work.
The Solution: Brief the participants in the application of Blanchard's "Building High Performance Teams" approach, then give them the opportunity to practice their skills in outdoor activities.
The Approach: The RYLA Program is delivered Australia-wide by Rotary, who invite local subject matter experts to contribute their time and knowledge to the program.
The Results: Every year, the RYLA Program delivers real, lasting benefit to its participants. Many of the past participants in the program have become leaders in business and community organisations themselves.
High expectations were laid out early by some of the participants of the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) at which Paul Stapleton, Managing Director, Blanchard International recently presented. After sharing with a small group of eager participants prior to the commencement of the program that 2009 would make it his 15th year of presenting at RYLA, one young lady exclaimed "Whoa, you must be good, they said they only invited the best speakers back each year!"
When Paul was asked why he continues to support this community event, he said "It is a great start to the year to work with 60-70 young people who really want to make a difference and it fits with our values." As Ken Blanchard explains in his book, The Generosity Factor, there are four ways in which you can give back to your community, known as the four T's; Time, Treasure, Talent and Touch. The entire team of presenters and organisers are pleased to be able to give their Time and Talent back to the community in supporting the RYLArians at the weeklong camp for 18-25 year olds. The camp aims at building leaders of the future.
One of the week's organisers, Melissa Kenney explains: "The week is a chance to give the attendees a lot of knowledge and opportunity to learn about their own leadership style and to learn the attributes a good leader should possess." With over 20 guest speakers throughout the week, topics range from Public Speaking, Team Building, and Conflict Management to General Health and Dealing with Stress, plus many more. Paul is invited back each year to focus on the module of Understanding Self and Others, from the Building High Performing Teams Program. Melissa said "It is one of the best sessions of the week, it really is, we are just so thankful that Paul keeps accepting our invitation".
Participants are treated to an outdoors day of team building activities half way through the week, and the organisers all agreed that the topics covered in Paul's session earlier in the program are applied during the activities for the remainder of the camp. Skills in understanding behavioural tendencies and how to communicate with different personalities are explored. The learning is demonstrated by team members working together embracing each other's differences. Melissa accredits this to Paul being "A high quality presenter that incorporates a lot of his own personal stories and for making the session so participative."
Until next year's awards week, and a new fresh group of future leaders comes along, Blanchard International wishes the RYLA Group for 2009 all the success for the future and to understand three key messages:
-- Value the differences in people;
-- The power of being able to change behavioural tendencies;
-- Understand the impact of a positive vs. negative self fulfilling prophecy.