Name: Suzanne Verdonschot
Bachelor’s & Master’s: Educational Science & Technology at UT, NL
Work: Researcher and consultant at Kessels & Smit and Head of Research at the Foundation for Corporate Education
"Sharing personal work experiences provides insight and enhances the learning process.”
Although I had an interest in education, I knew that I did not want to become a teacher. However, I did want to know how people learn from each other within a company. That's why I chose to study Educational Science & Technology
Focus on design
This programme focuses on designing learning materials and learning environments. You learn to think like a designer. I use that knowledge in my everyday work, and also when designing meetings. When I organise a meeting, I want to design the different aspects of it, in a way that there is the greatest possible chance of achieving what we want. By creating an agenda with inviting questions as agenda items you get a different conversation than when you use an agenda with statements. The place where you meet also matters, for example, when you want to create new plans for a specific part of a city it is helpful to look for an inspiring place in that area and arrange for a meeting with the people who live there.
Curiosity is necessary for knowledge sharing
As a consultant at Kessels & Smit I am involved in how stimulating knowledge productivity by designing meaningful encounters that allow people to ask questions and share experiences. Sharing knowledge works best when people have questions and start to look for answers. Nancy Dixon, a well-known researcher in the field of HRD taught me a lot about ‘the neglected receiver of knowledge sharing’. She says that knowledge starts flowing between people as soon as one of them has a question and feels invited to ask. I organise workshops and meetings in different types of businesses to improve knowledge sharing between people.
Sharing stories at an organisation for elderly care
Let me give one concrete example: I have worked on a project for an elderly care facility that wanted to do more personalised care. We proposed to organise an encounter to see what kind of experiences the teams already had in that area and started by collecting stories of moments in which they already experienced this personalised care to the elderly in their homes. We organised this appreciative inquiry via online round-table conversations and designed the meeting in several steps. Beforehand we asked them to think back to the last week and think of concrete situations in which they managed to give personalised care. After a short check-in, we made smaller groups that consisted of different people (a nurse, a psychologist, a team leader). In these smaller groups, we invited them to share their stories.
During one of those round table sessions, the story came up of a resident who was very worried about his money and always restlessly walked around with his bank card. The team found out that this man had always worked with numbers. Then they got the idea to sit with him and have a look at his bank statements. They started doing this once a week, and they noticed that this made him much calmer and perhaps even happier!
By having caregivers share stories on how they provide personalised care, these professionals share their implicit knowledge with one another. It is a learning process in which it becomes clear how much they already do and know, what they can learn from each other, and what they still want to learn. After the round-table discussions, we heard that the team members found it very valuable to hear the stories from each other. They felt good because it became clear how much they were already doing, and they felt inspired by each other’s stories.