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Leaving our mark on the CDC

This blog was written by Chris Southgate. Chris is a current member of the CDC graduate scheme.

The CDC is a first class learning environment for a number of reasons, not only because of the formal training curriculum, including the fantastic consulting skills workshop in Les Fontaines, but also because of the opportunities provided to develop as a consultant by participating and managing internal streams of work.

The CDC maintains a variety of work streams to support and compliment the CDC itself in Recruitment, Events, Learning & Development and others such as External events (charity fundraising and support), and through these, CDCers themselves have the opportunity to develop core consulting skills in safe environments supported by senior colleagues. While only a commitment of 4 hours per week, these workstreams can become a source of great satisfaction, achievement and often fun.

Admittedly, delivering large events or projects for the CDC (or the business or wider community) can be frustrating in their development, but the exposure to senior management and the sense of pride and achievement at delivering the elements that make the CDC such an engaging place to work make them really worthwhile activities. The opportunities to lead these streams teach you a huge amount on project/programme delivery, stakeholder management, effective communications as well as time management as you deliver in line with your client projects, and the internal networking opportunities become hugely important further down the line too.

The ability to really stamp our own mark on the CDC stepped up a gear recently with a review of the internal work streams; coordinated by CDC management and driven by ourselves, we have crafted the recommendations for change, and currently lead the change process. Such is the respect for and trust in the incumbent stream lead positions that a small group of CDCers in particular are playing lead roles in what the CDC looks like going forwards. For example, a small group of CDCers are guiding the change process to embed the new activities/processes, some are deeply involved in shaping our recruitment activities on and off campus to increase our brand awareness, and I am involved with shaping large parts of the training curriculum and calendar to update the material and make further self directed learning more accessible – all with a sizable impact on the programme!

Immediately after joining, the CDC had shown me how strong the community is but 12 months in, it is clear that the strong community feel is really driven by our roles in owning, shaping and maintaining it. I’m pretty happy with the changes I’ve been involved in, but I know over time they’ll be iterated for the better, allowing us all to leave our mark on the CDC.