This is a premier development event for senior managers and organisational leaders. Early bookings have already taken 50% of the limited places available.

The 8th School will be held from 14 - 18 August 2006, and bookings are currently being taken.

Confirmed speakers for the Holyrood Summer School 2006 are:

• Robert Black - Auditor General for Scotland
• Susan Deacon - MSP
• John Elvidge - Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Executive
• Margaret Ford - Chairman of English Partnerships
• Cathy Jamieson - Minister for Justice
• Andy Kerr - Minister for Health and Community Care
• Douglas Paterson - Chief Executive of Aberdeen City Council
• Graeme Pearson - Director of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency
• Dr Malcolm Reed CBE - Chief Executive of Transport Scotland
• Gary Sturgess - Executive Director of the Serco Institute
• Andrew Wilson - Depute Chief Economist of the Royal Bank of Scotland
• Alf Young - Policy Editor of The Herald

Click here to book and for all information about this year's school.

Pi2 – Helping me to influence with impact!

Bookings are now being taken for the 21-23 June Pi2 course. If you are interested in Pi2 click here to request more information or to book on the 21-23 June or 4-6 October courses.

Personal Influence and Impact, known as Pi2, is a three day programme for senior and high-potential individuals and takes a strategic view of influencing needs by focusing on the 'target' for the influence and ensures you select the most appropriate from a range of influencing strategies learned on the programme.

Tim Edwards, Regeneration Consultant, attended out first Pi2 Course and we caught up with him to find out how he has put his learning into practice.

What were your learning objectives prior to Pi2 - what did you really want to get out of it?

Eglinton called me about the course and sent me some background material. It was immediately obvious that it tied in with the kinds of communication, negotiation and influencing skills that I required for my daily work, for critical meetings. Particularly because I was contemplating a career shift, I wanted to sharpen up.

Describe your experience on the actual workshop. What did you enjoy? Did you find anything challenging?

It was intensive - between the pre-workshop reading, the workshops themselves and the reading in between, there was a lot to do. However, the biggest challenge came in the way the material, the workshop methods and the course leaders systematically unpicked longstanding habits and made us look afresh at how we could move various scenarios forward – this went against the grain, as it was a strong group, but it made for an exciting three days. I really liked the realistic nature of the exercises – it was easy to relate them to our work situations.

What did you learn?

To employ a wider range of approaches, especially if I really wanted something to happen or a particular decision to go my way - these are the very situations in which I find myself falling back on my usual techniques. I found that, once I had practised different styles, I had a lot more confidence in approaching things differently, and not counting those alternative approaches as 'weak'.

What have you done since the course? what are you doing differently?

I have tried to consider my approach to important meetings and negotiations more carefully. I have also continued to meet with one of the other participants to review progress on and consider different approaches to the particular real life scenarios we each discussed during the workshops – this has been really helpful.

Would you recommend it to other people and why?

Most definitely. The quality of the course and its delivery are excellent. Eglinton administers it well and provides great support afterwards. Although I was initially a little sceptical, I found that it really does help you change your thinking and that you end up being much more confident in difficult or challenging scenarios.

Thanks to Tim for his feedback, if you are interested in Pi2 click here to request more information or to book.

Katrina Burns was one of the participants in last November's workshop and she was asked to be part of the Management Team. Denise Campbell interviewed her to find out her thoughts on how useful it has been in hindsight.

Had you done experiential learning prior to this?

No, and it took me by surprise. It was fantastic! I knew (from the briefing material) that we had to take part, but I didn’t think that would involve running the workshop. It was a surprise.

How would you describe the experience?

The Management Team bonded really quickly because you had to work together. Every part of the programme showed you what working in a team was all about. At first it was strange deciding what to do and how we would do it. We didn't know we would be able to do what was asked of us but we did it.

It was really good to get feedback from others saying that you had management skills. Experiential training made it more obvious what you were learning. You found faults or problems in what the project groups were doing and you dealt with them at the time, or asked a question at the time. It was much better than being told theory and then trying to put it into practice and finding out it might be different to the theory.

What did you get out of the programme?

It increased my confidence ten-fold. I realised that the Management Cycle is something that I use everyday and it is a continual cycle. Although people don't manage other people they do manage themselves and their work, so in going for promotion this programme showed you what you could actually do.

What was the most challenging aspect?

Taking a leadership role was most challenging. You didn't want your peers thinking that you were taking over, but you realised that you needed to do some things to get results. It made me think differently about my own perspective on managers.

Leading the reviews (at the end and start of each day) was difficult the first time, thinking about how to word things. By the second day you realised you had to do them to get results so it was a driver to complete the job.

How did you view the facilitators in this experiential programme?

I liked the facilitators approach. They provided independent objective feedback and I felt that it was easier to ask for feedback or ask questions because they were not in a (traditional) teacher/ pupil role (or trainer/ learner).

Would you recommend this type of learning?

Yes!

Thanks to Katrina for giving her views. Click here for more info on Learning and Development at Eglinton.