“Design as Religion”
Guiding Excellence through education
Education is the process through which we acquire skills, knowledge and abilities. It is the path that allows us to shape our minds, our careers and our lives. Every time we learn something new, we participate in this process.
Continuous education, together with further education and the acquisition of new skills have become the pillars of growth.
It is our commitment to continuously educate & improve ourselves that keeps the TRJ team agile and ready to embrace new opportunities. We consistently invest in internal education, ensuring we stay ahead of industry trends and best practices to improve ourselves and our clients’ results.
Facing the challenge of education is, above all, to seize an opportunity that cannot be renounced, and investing in team growth is a path which leads to extraordinary results.
We had the pleasure of discussing and exploring this topic with Pasquale Acampora, CEO – Master Trainer & Mental Coach of blackship, with whom we have established a strong partnership.
1 – As an expert in the field, how would you define the role of education in the current professional and personal context?
“I think that, in all businesses where people play a strategic role, education is and should be one of the tools for attracting, retaining, and enhancing talents. Education should not only serve as a mean to acquire new skills, competencies, methodologies, and tools but should also be a valuable support in conveying and solidifying the corporate culture that underlies how skills are utilized, amplifying its effects (or, when misused or absent, diminishing them).”
2 – What opportunities emerge when education is considered not only as a single one-off activity, but as a continuous process?
“I believe that education as a continuous learning process is the only option. One-off activities often result in a waste of money and time, leading to frustration. Just as athletes do not think of improving their performance with two or three days of training each year, we cannot expect to have a serious impact on people’s results unless we first transfer skills and tools, which then have to be ‘trained’ and ‘consolidated’ on a daily basis. This makes education not an activity, but a culture. For education to generate a return on investment, it requires the time needed to consolidate a skill, which brings, as an effect, a tangible impact on the performance of people and the organization.”
3 – What are the main benefits that education can bring to an organization, considering the ever-changing world of work?
“The benefits that education can bring depend heavily on the type of training chosen. I believe that, for education to be worth the investment, it must have an impact on the individual, the team, the organization, and their respective outcomes. I believe that an investment in education must have a clear, specific and measurable objective, only then can the benefits be not only tangible but also quantifiable. If I think of the aspects we as BalckShip work with, some of the requested objectives include: improving the well-being of people in the company, enhancing teamwork skills, developing leadership abilities, time management, generating revenues and margins, and acquiring tools and methodologies that enable individuals to have a common, shared, and replicable process and language.”
4 – What strategies do you adopt to maintain high levels of motivation and engagement during education courses, especially considering the various learning methods?
“One of our core beliefs is that trainers in the classroom must be personally accountable, not only to apply, but also to achieve results agreed with our clients. If the desired objective is to educate the group on teamwork and leadership, our trainers must have worked and managed teams, they must help managers save time and their team members to grow. If the objective is to improve selling skills, the trainer must have a sales background. Therefore, education becomes a transfer of experience, not of content.
This is what people want: not just tools that they can find in a book, but understanding how to apply these skills within the context they operate in. This ability is not developed by ‘teaching’, but by practicing. You don’t learn to cook from a “cooking trainer” but from a chef. You don’t seek a personal trainer who isn’t in shape, but a trained professional who, with their personal examples (not just their words), can inspire our actions. Another essential element, in my opinion, is a strong practical and experiential component: every content must be applicable and usable immediately within the specific context; only in this way do people not only have the opportunity to engage and involve themselves, but also to understand how to use each tool, within their own reality.”
TRJ per l’Architettura – “DESIGN AS RELIGION”, Chiesa di San Lorenzo – Palermo