Posts tagged Coaching
Learnigs from the Jungle!
May 7th
Working together really shapes the partnership and cocreation. Last week Wed 28th of April till Sat 1st of May we had a learnig journey called Jungle Trip. It was first real cocreational project with CoMind. It took place in Helsinki, Jyväskylä and Taulun Kartano, Toivakka. Dialogues took place in plane, train, buss, smokesauna, pool, lake, walk… Thoughts were ignited by Esa Saarinen, SOL City, Team Academy and Design Factory. And we did learn a lot. Here is my short reflections about Jungle:
1.) Dialogue. Well obviously it´s the key element in cocreation. There can´t be shared undestanding without dialogue. And in Monkey Business we have learned to do “dialogue on the spot”. Short sessions between coaches- what´s happening and what do we want to happen next. Then we know what is the next move. When we know what we are aiming to – it´s easier to improvise. -> Goal!
2.) Culture. Or system. From the aspect of interaction. Someone has to lead in the beginning to make people interact. And then take care about culture througout the process. And this is something that separates TeamAcademy from many places. And this is something that will have a big role in DesignFactorys future. Team Academy is very down to earth and pragmatic, learning by doeing. Design Factorys comes to the same play-yard from different aspect, knowledge focused. And strongest tool in TeamAcademy are Leading Thoughts and yearly process of checking them.
3.)Braveness. We only become exellent by following our passion. We know who we are and how monkeys do things. We have to stand for our cornerstones. Our friend PAMPAM said it nicely:”The more serious someone is, the less I trust him/her”. So we need to remain the contact to our heart. Speak from it and to follow it.
What did you learn?
Thanks alot CoMind and all adventurers. “Unexpected is the spice of life.”
Tantourist, still alive.
Three Hour Workshop about Team Learning and Team Academy
Oct 8th
Now, as the topic says, the case is to host a three hour workshop about Team Academy and Team Learning. This is a nice tricky case. I think.
How to stage an experience of Team Academy in three hours?
How to make it so that people have fun and they learn? (In this case learning quals to change their behaviour, at least get one thing to put in practise.)
Should we show videos or tell some facts about Team Academy?
I am doing this with Anita from Creative Impact. We have never done a workshop together for a customer. I have worked a lot with her in the Team Mastery 2 and in the SoL’s evolution process, but we have not delivered things like this before together. It’s interesting to work with new people. I think we are about to learn something. I feel that. It always happens when working with new people. And learning is fun, when doing mistakes is allowed and even recommended.
Another interesting factor is that I have not met the customer ever before. We have changed some emails, and he has participated in the SoL Spain‘s event that was about Team Academy. And now he is inviting his colleagues and friends into this workshop. Exciting. I think we need to talk with him more today in order to really know what he wants. What kind of results he is looking for? And what kind of results are the people he has invited into this workshop looking for? As Anita put it very well: What is the question that calls us into this meeting?
I think the questions above are very important if we think in the same way as Einstein used to. “If I had one hour to save the world I would use 59 minutes to figuring what the right question is and then 1 minute to actually solve it.” This is important because we have to do our a kick ass workshop with the right theme.
Anyways, we are thinking to start from the individual and personal mastery. I think in workshops it’s absolutely crucial to be on the personal level. What I can do to change this world? I get furious if people outsource the problem beyond their reach. As Gandhi says, we have to be the change we want to see in the world. And as Viktor Frankl says: “You can always choose your own attitude.”
Peter Senge asks in his book Fifth Discipline in the chapter about personal mastery two-three questions: More >
Team Mastery 2 last session starts today
Sep 16th
I am so excited. And I just can’t hide it. I ‘m about to loose control and I think I like it.
The Team Mastery 2 (TM2) process’ last session starts today here in Jyväskylä. We got friends coming from Basque Country and Madrid, plus Strasbourg and Angers as cross-fertilizers. We have had a great process that started 16 months ago in May 2008. Then we had first session with this team that is nowadays known as the Power Rangers. (Partypeoplesayyeah!)
I participated in the Team Mastery 1 (TM1) process together with Tatu between December 2006 and January 2008. It was great and that is were the foundations of Monkey Business were born. For those of you who haven’t heard Team Mastery, I should tell you that it is a coaching program for people who want to learn team learning coaching the Team Academy way aka with Partus methods. It’s organized by Partus and coached by the legendary Johannes “Partus” Partanen along with Hanna Heikkinen, and myself (Ville) now in the second process.
This TM2 process has been quite special. Ever since the second session in Markina, Basque Country where our theme was customers and marketing there have been external customers / partners involved in our sessions and at least in the birth givings. Also in Markina we came up with a concept “Tribe Fiesta”.
The third session about leadership and leading thoughts was in Strasbourg hosted by TM1 participants Pascal and Claude. In there we had many cross-fertilizers from the TM1 and also we celebrated the 1st anniversary of the Team Academy in Alsace (TAA). It was phenomenal, and the challenge the Power Rangers faced with the birth-giving was for the entire tribe of TAA.
In the fourth session about Innovation we were in Haarlem, and worked intensively with the local Team Academy. Yet again the Power Rangers found themselves in a challenge bigger than before, this time with the teamsters and the dynamic situation of the Team Academy in Haarlem (TAH). There we got to see the real power of this Power Rangers team, and they did amazing job coaching and empowering the teamentrepreneurs of the TAH.
For the fifth session we travelled back to Basque Country and were hosted by Mondragon University Team Academy team, Sain, Sari, Jose-Mari and Aitor and all. First celebrations in San Sebastian and official launch of LEINN, the Teampreneur program in Mondragon University, which got awesome press coverage (11 or so articles published in Basque and Spanish media). The session was about brand management and offerings, and we made it simultaneously with the new teams of Team Academy Euskadi. Whuh. “How do you coach brand?” was the question and I think the new teams got to see what the Team Academy brand is all about.
So here is a little diagram about the levels of challenge the Power Rangers have faced. And this time it’s even bigger. The rumours tell that it’s going to be about 150 people in the Team Mastery Arena event where we have our Team Mastery 2 process going on within it. Hmm 
Very exciting indeed. This challenge include coaching the Partus Learning Network coaches and the SoL Network’s leaders and Academics. I mean, now the friend leaders coaching skills are being tested. “Intervene when you feel like you shouldn’t and do not when you feel like you should.” That’s the rule number one of team coaching by Johannes. Maybe that one is something to remember now? Maybe not? Maybe we need to abandon all old theories and come up with something completely new by standing on the shoulders of the giant. I am curious. Also our Monkey Man Tatu is MC’ing the whole event!
Power Rangers, I am proud of you. I am sure this won’t be the last time we meet and we are about to engage into a new journey. Thank you!
Ps. Here are some more pictures about our process.
Ps2. I have been taking notes throughout the process, and made some notebooks on the go, so after putting them all together and maybe some further co-creation it will be published as a book or pamflet of some kind. That’s exciting, too.
Ps3. I will also ask Henna to write some’s reflections about this journey from a participant’s point of view.
Pictures from Illikka aka Eräelämys
Jun 23rd
The summer is here in Finland and some of the monkeys are already having their holidays. I wanted to do a little post with a link to a photo gallery about this wonderful place that we have been using for some coaching and also for own retreats. It’s called Saimaan Eräelämys and I find it amazing. Every time I go there my mind starts to relax and I feel good. We did organize the second part of the Penquin Expedition 2008 there last August. This year the place is booked around the time of the Penquins arrival so I think we will offer you a possibility to do a something like the Jaworski’s solo experience explained in his book Synchronicity right after the Team Mastery Arena event on Saturday the 19th of September.
Here are the pictures of Illikka behind this link (requires flash player).
Spark Coaching at Rymättylä
Jun 1st
Rymättylä 25. – 26.5.2009
It was Monday morgning at 6.30 am. Red Toyota literally slinged itself from Jyväskylä to near by Turku´s archipelago, a town called Rymättylä. We were about to coach over there. In the car sat two bananas (Hugo and Johanna) and with them there were Satu Haka from Cromita and Vellu Junkkari from Brand Brothers Ay. Four of us were going to do something known as Spark-coaching. In Rymättylä there were 14 chef students and their teachers waiting for us.
With students we talked about entrepreunership and their future goals. Also we asked how does a good workplace and good leader look like. We talked about learning, attitude for life and the “carpe diem” philosophy. Students told us that during those two days they learned that it´s not so bad to be an entrepreneur and that they had had really good conversations among themselves. They had got insights also about teamwork and entrepreneurship.
While we were coaching the students, the radikal teachers planned about renewing the whole degree programme. That in September they make the school few teams and with those teams students make theirs studies. In the teams there would be students of first, second and third years. In fact, the biggest achievement was start to conversations between teachers and students. It was a good start for co-operation between them. This new plan looked good and in Tuesday we ignited the red Toyota towards Jyväskylä and left Rymättylä with good feelings.
Written by Johanna the Monkey.
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.
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