It’s easy to share successes, and we certainly love to do that. It’s harder to share when there has been disappointment. However, we work experientially with our participants and that is all about learning from our experiences – and sometimes even more so when things don’t work out the way you want. So, in the spirit of practising what we preach …

Last week saw the end of an era for us. We delivered the last ever module for the graduates at National Grid.

Our relationship goes back to the days of Transco (and even a bit before that) running various modules for graduates. In 2005 we secured the whole graduate development programme and between then and now we have worked with many hundreds of graduates. Over the 10-year period we faced several re-tendering exercises, securing the contract each time. Until, finally last year, losing out and the contract going elsewhere.

Last week we had a fantastic few days delivering the final module – not just for us here at Interaction, but also for the 2022 graduate cohort. They were a fantastic group of people and our team thoroughly enjoyed working with them. And, given the final activity was building and flying a drone, it was fair to say we went out on a high in more ways than one.

It was lovely to receive this email of thanks…

"I just wanted to reach out to say a BIG thank you for the delivery of the development centre last week. It was great to see the Interaction team delivering a great few days – I know the Grads enjoyed it. I also wanted to say thank you again for all of the years of support and energy you will have given the programme. Your legacy will live on as the Grads progress in their careers. I know we’ll be connected via the student programmes – but please do keep in touch."

This graduate programme has been such an important and valued part of our world for a long time and working with such talented individuals has been incredibly rewarding. We were, of course, heart broken when we lost the contract. However, things change, and given a lot of what we deliver and coach with early talent is about resilience and using emotional intelligence to get through difficult times, it would be hypocritical if we couldn't do that ourselves.

So, we did, and as a result business is good, we are stronger and we are excited about the year ahead.