This is a sponsored post on PCDN
The other day I saw an image on Instagram saying ‘doing the work is the short-cut’. What does that mean? What is the goal for the short-cut and what does doing the work even mean?
A human desire to unleash the superhero inside of us
In my work with Amani Institute I have facilitated personal and leadership development trainings for over 300 changemakers from all over the world since 2013. Our Fellows are often people who already work with social impact but feel that it’s time to invest in themselves as professionals to fully unlock their potential to lead and create change. Or they are professionals who currently work in the private sector and look for a way how to align what they do with a larger purpose in life.
One thing that keeps coming up in this works is a desire in people to find a quick fix that will help them, miraculously, become better leaders and innovators in an instant – or find a job that aligns with their purpose. This is common and quite human, I might add. Who wouldn’t want to be able to just ‘flip a switch’ and unleash the superhero inside themselves?
Learning how to walk our talk
Alas, if you think you can simply study a bunch of frameworks to immediately innovate and lead, well, I am afraid it doesn’t work..
This is why during Amani Institute’s 9-month Post-Graduate Program in Social Innovation Management we ask our Fellows to actually go through the steps of our framework by working on a real life project as a practice piece.
We don’t want to hear you talk about change, we want to help you walk it for real. Failures are welcome and part of the process – in fact, often it is our ego’s attachments to impressive outcomes that becomes the main obstacle to dive deeply, grasp the tools and examin how we might best be able to work with them.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be ambitious about the change we want to create – on the contrary. However, social change only happens when people are willing to test, review and adapt their approach to make it possible.
Bringing together ambition and humility in the learning process
After one month of online learning, during the 4-month Immersion phase in Kenya, India or Brazil, Fellows live, work and train essential professional skills around Leadership, Management, Entrepreneurship, Communication and Problem-solving. This requires them to both come with an open mind to learn as much as possible, and yet exercise all the needed humility and perseverance to learn how to walk the talk.
In the 4-month remote Action phase that follows the Immersion Phase we ask Fellows to do the work, again, but now in an even more real-world scenario: they apply the learning in the country where they want to live and work.
What helps to unlock our potential and shape our careers
Doing the program does not miraculously provide participants their dream job or make their dreamed social enterprise real – but it enables them to take one brave step after the other to do what they need to do to create a better and more just world. They can count on powerful communities and networks, they build their muscles in one of the most innovative cities in the world, they train with global experts from the field. But none of that takes away the fact that they need to do the work.
Learn more about Amani Institute’s Post-Graduate Program in Social Innovation Management
If you want to know more about the program, please feel free to get in touch, watch this video and check out our program page .
The next class starts in July with a 1-month online Foundation phase followed by 4 months Immersion in either Nairobi (Kenya), São Paulo (Brazil) or Bengaluru (India) and a 4 month Action phase in the location of your choice.
International Application Deadline: June 10th
