My experience of BloomHQ’s Community of Practice - by Matt Davis

BloomHQ and their facilitator Bop Murdoch have designed the Community of Practice event to be a welcoming and safe space for sharing challenges. The session was opened with ground rules and we were reminded to respect our commitment to our employers by keeping our challenges generalised and anonymous. Even though there were new faces to me on the call, the ground rules created trust and respect for each other, increasing my comfort in sharing my challenges I was facing. 

The session was unique and powerful, and was something that I have not experienced in other meetups or communities of practice. I volunteered to enter the hot seat, and my challenge was the central topic for the session. Bop facilitated the session using a sequential questioning technique, where all the participants asked me a different coaching question, and I could pick the question I wanted to answer. This technique was repeated several times allowing me to pick my journey through the questions, focusing on what I needed to address my challenge. 

The experience was impactful and I walked away with clarity, actions and felt like a heavy weight was lifted from my shoulders. As a people leader, I was navigating a large organisational change by putting my team first, but was lacking my own support system. The series of questions helped me to see my challenge from multiple new perspectives and led to realisation moments. As a result I felt lighter, empowered, and immediately took my next steps in a positive direction.

I highly recommend coming along to the Bloomers Community of Practice. If you have a challenge you are facing, you might be lucky enough to enter the hot seat and have a transformational experience like I did. Otherwise, as a leader, the event allows you an opportunity to connect with peers, and practise your essential questioning and active listening skills. And who knows, you may ask just the right question to turn someone's day, week, or even career, around.  

Written by BloomHQ’s community team member Matt Davis