A multi-day training for employees of the WAC and ANO "Alashara" was held in Sukhum in the last ten days of May.

A seven-day training for employees of the World Abaza Congress and ANO "Alashara" was held at the WAC Sukhum office on May 23-31. The board of the WAC organized it with the aim of developing skills and competencies among employees that help the team work effectively and harmoniously as a whole.

 The training program combined several areas. The classes were conducted by invited experts from St. Petersburg: sales and negotiations expert, business coach Dmitry Tverev and voice, speech and public speaking trainer Larisa Kudrina.

 The training involved brainstorming. The team analyzed the situation with the current goals and objectives of the WAC, discussed ways to implement them more effectively.

 One of the stages was devoted to the development of managerial skills with regards to specific situations.

 "We tried to sort out real situations as much as possible. I like to work with specific cases, not with theory, in order to analyze the examples that [the team] has now or had in the past," Dmitry Tverev explained.

 He said that as part of the training, a real interview was held with an applicant for one of the current vacancies at the WAC.

 "We prepared for it with the head of the WAC unit, who understood the fundamental difference in approaches - how it used to be and what it became," he added, noting that in his practice "very few people grasp the essence immediately," and here was just such a rare case.

 The business coach noticed that many cases were built around the fact that the team is "in dynamics".

 "An important point is to understand the sufficiency of the human resource, who are the hands that actually carry out projects, who are the specific executors. What pleased me is that with each day of the training, the heads of departments worked the information through. This means that it was not in vain that everything passed, conclusions were drawn, which are summarized in the program of actions. If they manage to do everything that was voiced, it will be excellent," concluded Tverev.

 Voice, speech and public speaking trainer Larisa Kudrina aimed to prepare employees for public speaking and communications.

 "My goal as a voice and speech trainer is to teach [training participants] to calmly, easily talk about themselves, about their organization, teach them how to negotiate with people and enter into communication with them. We were dealing with voice training, breathing, articulation, diction," she listed.

 Kudrina noted the activity of the Congress team and the interest of the training participants in the result.

 "Everyone was very active. If such meetings are held again, then this is a huge experience and an asset in the piggy bank of knowledge that will help in the work of the office. There is communication within the team - and there is external communication: how we communicate with people outside, how we can present ourselves. We present ourselves in the context of the company and should do it easily, calmly, convincingly," said the coach.

 The WAC team worked out the formats for bringing information to the listener and in practice worked out the presentation of information about the WAC.

 Larisa Kudrina is sure that such trainings are useful for the participants on a personal level as well. A separate block was devoted to working on emotions and emotional intelligence.

 "Work on the removal of physical and psychological clinches is reflected not only in the ability to speak, but also in a person’s confidence, his self-esteem," explained Larisa Kudrina.

In general, during the training, the participants gained knowledge about universal ways of setting priorities, analyzed the algorithm for setting goals, talked about the so-called "green interaction" with colleagues - in other words, about how everyone should communicate and act so that the team is healthy.

 The editor-in-chief of the WAC information portal, Amina Lazba, shared that, as a participant in the training, she learned a lot of useful things for herself.

 "The Congress employees often have to speak in public, so this is also a training on correct public speaking, presentation of oneself, oneself in the organization and the organization itself. We discussed how to properly set tasks for subordinates, how to control work, how to motivate a team and other useful issues. At the trainings, we practiced everything related to the activities of the Congress and the most effective implementation of these activities," said Amina Lazba.

 The WAC public relations specialist Izolda Khagba expressed her gratitude to the leadership of the Congress for the opportunity to gain new knowledge. She noted that the training contributed to "setting the priorities of the organization for the next five years" (the current Congress team has been working for 5 years, the next WAC Congress is coming up, where, among other things, the results for the reporting period are summed up and tasks for the next working period are outlined - ed.).  

 "Without strategic planning, no organization is able to organically develop, formulate and set the right goals. A five-year period of work for an organization with such a volume of tasks as Congress has is a serious period that requires a complete revision of the tasks set, the methods of planning and implementing projects," Khagba said.

 Trainers from St. Petersburg visited Abkhazia for the first time and noted the hospitality of the host country.

 "Many thanks for the warm, truly Abkhazian welcome," Larisa Kudrina thanked.

 Staff trainings will be held on a regular basis. A thematic lecture is also planned to improve the skills of the team this autumn.