Team Academy International Network
Monkey Business in Equador Part 1
May 20th
Henna from Monkey Business with a teamentrepreneur from Takomo (?) Valtteri Melkko are right now working in Equador in the Village of Salinas. Here are the first greetings from them from the May 14th:
Ecuadorians are entrepreneurial by nature, and in Salinas they have done nationally appreciated great work in forming co-operatives to help local farmers to export their goods to the local and international markets. Salinas is a very beautiful, mountainish (altitude 3500 meters) village of just 1200 people, but around it there are 10 000 people living in the area. Those who don´t live in the village are extremely poor, just survive but need support to live fine.
Organizations that we work with in Salinas are taking this situation into account by trying to offer education, access to the knowledge and microloans for the local families to grow out of the poverty.
This is why Salinas School of Entrepreneurship was formed here in June 2008 with the help of Finnish coaches and Finnish Ministry of Foreign affairs. In Salinas people have skills as people in Finland do. We can only offer encouragement and knowledge about how to transform skills and will into action and results. This is what we are doing here now with Valtteri from Team Academy and Timo from Finland and from the founding team of Salinas School of Entrepreneurship.
Our goal here is to try to create a sustainable basis for the project since it is so new. In order to do this, we will establish a facilitator team to work on the project and coach this team. This team will then hopefully be able to secure the diverse content of the project as well as the continuity here.
A lot of work is to be done in here still, and the main improvement to do would be improving the education. For example people in normal school in Salinas have studied English for 3-4 years, and when you ask them “How are you?”, they can answer just “¿Que?”, “What?”. Education styles are like they were in Finland 50 years or more ago, based on learning by heart and listening to the teacher giving the knowledge. Team work, interactive learning and own responsibility for learning are very new things in here. What a great field to work – we´re ignited!
After travelling for about 84 hours from Finland through London, New York, Miami and Panama city, sleeping a bit here and there, also spending an evening in New York, we finally arrived to Salinas on Wednesday evening.
Our first impression about Salinas School of entrepreneurship was: what a marvellous work they have done already! On the first night we were welcomed by the whole team of 30 learners and 4 coaches and organizators. They had prepared a program for the night for us to get to know what is going on with the school. I (Henna) also had to speak Spanish for the whole group right away, and it was okay despite the mistakes make all the time. Valtteri and Timo are fluent in Spanish already, and as a team we can manage.
Pictures from Team Mastery
Mar 17th
A New Learning Expedition starts tonight as our guests arrive to Jyväskylä. Tomorrow morning a Check-in (Everybody gets to speak, say their name, little background, feelings and why they are here) and on we go. This time we will have a group around 6-7 people but with loads of interaction with Teampreneurs of Team Academy. I am excited. We’ll update Twitter and hopefully blog too during the Expedition so even if not you are in Jyväskylä you can follow and maybe even participate in some way or another.
I also finished the Team Mastery report I was working on earlier and for that I went through my pictures of the previous session in Haarlem. I should post more about it at some point but let us get started with pictures. I like blogs with pictures and try to be the change in the world by posting some on my own.
Hanna, Patrick and Pauline
Manu and a local Teampreneur
Learning Expedition to Team Academy
Feb 15th
Ever since I started at Team Academy back in 2004 I have been actively taking part into Learning Expeditions as a representative of Team Academy. I remember my first one in October 2004 when for example Etienne Collignon, Javier Ruiz and Claude Zauber came to see Team Academy. Now, about 4,5 years later I am organizing a yet another Learning Expedition to Team Academy with these same people who actually have by now all started their own Team Academy initiatives. And n fact, Etienne and Laurent wrote an article for the SoL Reflections about their first Learning Expedition. I thought you may find that one interesting as well if you haven’t seen it yet.
So there is a new Learning Expedition coming up and we are expecting an interesting week with plenty of dialogue and good thinking together. This time, besides the normal program, there’s a real speciality as we get to see the birth-giving of the Young Leader Special Training program and enjoy the dinner and Finnish sauna with them on Friday night. Promotional slides are here below. You can also download them here. Inquiries and any questions can be sent to me to ville@banana.fi
Ps. All the Finns and especially ones around Jyväskylä. Next Wednesday you have a chance to see something special as the first international team of Team Academy IPOTA gives birth about their learning from being a team at Team Academy. It starts at 9am at Team Academy. I can also organize a Skype so that people from abroad could follow it through a video call. Drop me a line if you are interested in that.
Written by Ville Monkey
Team Mastery in Strasbourg Photos
Feb 9th
First of all, sorry for the silence with the blog. Many of the Monkeys are travelling and I am working on figuring out the way in the jungle. Good news are that I’ve updated the system behind our blog which means I can add new plugins and staff. And what this means that I am experimenting with photos. Here’s the first post with a new kind of gallery. Check out the photos from the second last session Team Mastery 2 held in Strasbourg. I already wrote about the anniversary of TA Alsace.
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Team Academy Alsace 1-year old.
Dec 8th
Long long time ago I can still remember when I was a penguin at Team Academy. The first year teampreneurs are called penguins over here. Back then and still I am very interested in international co-operation because I believe the more different people the more ideas and better thinking together. So it happened that a group of people especially through the SoL Network from different parts of Europe came to visit Team Academy. among them Javier Ruiz from Bilbao, Basque Country and Etienne Collignon from Paris, France. But with these network masters there was also a man who spoke only few words of English and he was very happy that Sanna Tossavainen (now at Entrepart) could speak French. I don’t remember talking much to him personally but I remember his overwhelming enthusiasm when he took the mic on the last day. He said few words, and I think Sanna translated to us, but what I remember was his energy and enthusiasm. Already then he had a nice big beard. Maybe some of you know his name by now, Claude Zauber.
Me and Henna had the honor to be in Strasbourg 1.5 weeks ago for the local Team Academy Alsace‘s 1st anniversary party. We were there thanks to Pascal’s invitation as a part of the Team Mastery process, me as an assistant coach and Henna as a participant. On Friday they had organized an amazing network celebration where the Team Mastery group gave birth to their new insights on leadership.
Over there and then I realized that this was the dream of Claude that maybe was born four years ago. I felt deeply touched having been there then when the dream was born and now seeing it in reality. Amazing! He had managed to get Pascal on board in fact I don’t know since when. They both were with me and Tatu in Team Mastery that ended this January 2008.
The pictures from the event will tell more than my words. I think celebrations are important because they are a way to encourage the heart.
About Leading Thoughts.
Oct 21st
On the first anniversary seminar of Team Academy en Euskadi two weeks ago I was a bit bored. It was because there were speeches only in Spanish. And the ones who know me better know that my Spanish isn’t that good (yet). Anyways, the fact that I didn’t understand much was good for me because I could keep thinking my own stuff. First I thought about Monkey Business, and how non-dynamic seminars where people have no time to talk together are something that Monkey Business is not. Monkey Business is about people and self organizing. It’s about having fun. It’s about thinking together and it’s about community. In those moments of Spanish flowing from the other ear into my brain and out from the other following phrase crystallized in my head:
- The more control = the more boring.
- The more chaos = the more fun. (This was added by Anita Seidler, thanks!)
In my opinion this is true both for the facilitators of an event and for the participants.I kept thinking a bit more and following crystallization grew in my head: “Team of people with shared values and purpose can achieve any vision (through action).” The last part was from Asier the Funky. And I think the leading thoughts should go exactly in that order. Start with people and values and purpose, then vision. Many times I hear hype about vision but it’s simply not the right question in the beginning. In my opinion any vision is reachable. Tatu reminded me yesterday about the question of Göran Carlstedt to start with: Why are we here? 
Eclosion 2.0 by Team Factory
Jul 3rd
Eclosion 2.0 event in Paris 2nd – 3rd of July What a program! Fantastic Plastic Crazy Drums (seen in the picture), horse coaching, working with mud, having a t-shirt workshop, birthgiving session using a lot of random plays and improvisation, workshop about passion and workshop about the theory U…all under the theme of Initiative of My Life ispirated by a Brazilian blond girl Janine Saponara who grew up in a normal family from a small village but after visiting the capital at the age of 8 always dreamed about Sao Paulo until she finally moved there… The rest is history and the lessons learned are: Origins don’t say where you end at – always sit on a window seat so you’ll see where you need to go!It has been a strong experience for the 2 monkeys here in Paris.
Monkeys in Oslo 8. – 10.6.2008, Part 2: reflection
Jul 1st
Reflections from the EFMD Annual Conference 2008
Does Management Education Really Matter?
Participating to the Excellence in Practice competition of EFMD (Europan Foundation of Management Development) lead us to Oslo to participate this very well managed seminar placed in Norwegian School of Management, BI.
Among the 18 competitioners, Solvay & Team Academy co-operation had been chosen to the final. Competitioners were mainly leading European Business Schools, that are ranked among the 50 best schools in Europe.
Actual competition between the three best practitioners was our test in the eyes of academics, since about 90 % of the conference participants were academic leaders. We did not win even though we were having an interesting show without a traditional power point and action in the end. Audience comments after the session came ”Your session was definetely the most interesting because I could not guess what comes next.” and ”From the very beginning I knew that you won’t win, but the message you have is very revolutionary and we need to listen it carefully.” Maybe the world of Management Educators is not yet ready to give up the power and empower the youth – even though the two keynotes of the seminar, Mrs. Gunn Waersted from Nordea and Peter Lorange who taught for example at Sloan Business School (M.I.T.) clearly said that it’s time for it.
In business schools in general 96 % of schools population is students, while as in Team Academy 98 % of the schools population is students. It’s time to involve this majority of young people into the discussion of Management Education, especially when the agenda is to think how should the education be like to meet todays needs. ”Where are your students?”, I asked from several Deans and Professors in the seminar. ”They are busy with studying.”, the answer came. Next question is, do they study for todays reality or for following the past good paths set by their teachers in conferences like this?
Monkey Business in Paris
Jun 28th
Two monkeys are currently working here in Paris. It’s the super duo Ville and Henna taking over one of the world’s fashion capitals. Good chaos is guaranteed. We are here to give the last boost of energy for the organization of event by Team Factory called Eclosion 2.0. It’s coming up next week. It’s an remarkable event and the idea is to give participants a twist and feeling of team entrepreneurship. Why we want to do that? Because there’s a team entrepreneurship program starting here in Paris coming October and there’s still few places left in the program. The Eclosion 2.0 is happening next week on 2nd and 3rd of July. If you got free time on your calendar, please join us.Here’s some basic info on the event. I think what you can say is that’s it’s an event made together by Finnish Team Academy and French Team Factory, and the dates 2.-3.7. and that it should be good fun 
(different activities, meeting new people, inspiring stories etc) And also inform them about the website www.teamfactory.org where there’s a more info. Participation fee is 15€ for students including everything (travel there and back from Paris, meals mentioned in the program, drinks in the party the first night, T-shirt, accommodation in tents provided by organizers). Is there something people from Team Academy Finland could learn about this event? Here is an video from the last years Eclosion Eclosion 1.0envoyé par TeamFactory
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