Celebrating with TDIndustries’ First Servant Leadership Class in Spanish
January 8, 2014 was a red letter date in the life of Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates and TDIndustries. 13 months in the making, we debuted our first Servant Leadership 1 class entirely taught in Spanish. With an increasing number of Spanish speaking Partners at TDIndustries, it has been a dream and strategic goal to offer our Introduction to Servant Leadership 1 in our Spanish speaking Partner’s first language.
Duane Trammell, who is uniquely gifted in currirulum design and has been honored with many teaching awards, led the curriculum redesign and adaptation. The first step was to review our Servant Leadership One curriculum in English and think about our audience, examine the language, and focus the material culturally so it accurately communicated the principles of servant leadership: Family is at the center of social structure and extended family is very important to our Spanish-speaking Partners. Helping family members is of high value. As we developed the teaching experiences, we developed discussions and breakout activities that compared traits of servant leadership with traditional family values of helping, serving, listening, being there for each other. When the class was delivered, Partners told heart-warming stories of how supervisors in TD had helped in times of family emergencies and won Partner’s trust and commitment of long-term service.
Mike Fitzpatrick opened the class as our Senior Sponsor doing so completely in Spanish. We are very grateful for his commitment and effort. Two outstanding instructors teamed up to teach the class. Luis Duran-Aparicio from Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates and Alberto Sandoval from TDIndustries. Luis has an impressive background of translation and teaching with three years experience as co-facilitator with Ann and Duane; Alberto has a notable background as a TD Superintendent and teacher. Together they delivered the material to the accolades of the class of eighteen Partners. Class participation was extremely high. Having a safe, welcoming environment to speak freely in a first language encouraged Partners to share their experiences.
At the conclusion of the class, Partners were abundant with their praise for the class.
“—I was very pleased by the trust we were given to participate and share our ideas…”
“—This leadership class was a great experience and it will be very helpful…”
“—I learned a lot and I would like to take more of these classes in Spanish…”
“—I liked the entire program; it was fun and full of wisdom…”
Congratulations to all who worked to make this new initiative a great success!
“Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates are a perfect 'fit' for our organization because they live and breathe the Servant-Leadership philosophy. The concept of Servant-Leadership is not new to Southwest Airlines. Our Leaders are passionate about taking care of our Company, and they understand that the best way to do this is to serve others. Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates have become a partner in learning for many of our Employees through the motivational and uplifting presentations they make to our Culture Committee members.”