The AYE 2008 (Amplifying Your Effectiveness Conference) is now history. I never have time to blog about this conference during the conference–I’m always too busy. Besides, it’s so rich with learning that it takes me awhile to process it. This year (my fourth at AYE), I’m going to look back through my notes and blog a little about each session I attended.

The first session I attended was titled First Steps for Organizational Change: Unearthing the Data You Need and was presented by Johanna Rothman. I say presented, but like all the sessions at AYE, the word “presented” doesn’t convey the essence of the session. Johanna presented a lot of information, to be sure. (And you can find some of the same material on the AYE Wiki.) But the power of AYE lies in the fact that all the sessions are experiential. In this session, we took turns, in small groups, interviewing each other, and observing each other interviewing. And after each interview session, we examined the experience in a debrief. The debrief is the heart of the experience, for it’s where we make our actions explicit to ourselves. And it’s where we share our insights with others, and share theirs.

A few Johanna tidbits from my notes:

• Don’t be afraid to ask for quantitative data before starting an assessment, but don’t expect to get it.
• I take notes [when interviewing people as part of an assessment], but everything is off the record.
• Pay attention to differences between expectations and reality.

Thanks, Johanna, for a wonderful and rewarding session!