Posts tagged Breakthrough
I love you Alex Castellarnau!
Aug 11th
Never met you, never heard about you. Instantly fell in love after receiving these principles freely translated by @Hennaism. Alex you ROCK! Original video here in spanish. These principles make me fly, cry and almost die. Really encouraging me about Monkeys being on the right track. THANKS!
Alex: After more than 5 years of experience in IDEO, we identified six principles to build environments that create innovation
1. “It’s about how we learn, not about how much we gain financially.” Not to do but to learn. The return should be learning, not economic performance.
2. Do not define a job desccription 100 % clearly. Employees come to explore and define what their job is.
3. Helping employees to explore fully their passions at work.
4. Each employee is its own brand. There are as many brands as there are people in organizations.
5. Our leaders must reflect, not direct, they have to be a mirror, no arrow. The CEO goes from executive to be explored and to be evangelist.
6. We have no destination but a good sense of direction. We have some knowledge and we have good tools for the road.
This empowering and explosive flying kiss goes to Alex and Henna, well to everybody who accepts to take it:
Tantourist – playful, everyellow and redcheeked acticboy really feeling alive. YEH!!!
“Follow that yellow man!”
Sep 9th
We allmost missed a flight on our way to Oman SOL Global Forum April 2008 to do our world kick off. In Frankfut Airport staff pointed way for Johanna&Hugo by pointing me running ahead and yelling:” follow that yellow man”. At the same time Henna was holding the Plane… (Btw. my Iphone went just blackout when writing this.)
Since Oman we have been creating more action here and there. And despite that we are still smiling. We see the world as we look at it. Yellow, sunny and bright. As that photo taken yesterday in our office upstairs. Or this one taken in our hoods today morning when cyckling here.
We made our record revenue in August. But we still must improve to keep our enterprise sustainable. Yellow man has got company, friends to work with us. We have been doeing right things right. Maybe. And information board downstairs is updated too!
Hey! I am happy. Life is good. Love. (Iphone still blackout.)
Thanks Monkeys & All. Wouldn´t be here alone.
Tantourist.
New Design Coming Up for Monkey Business
Sep 21st
We’ve made a deal with Jaakko from Kuvituskonttori to design a new image for Monkey Business. But he is not the only one visually talented friend of ours. Also, there’s a very promising young designer working currently at Intotalo who has a skill hard to match when drawing monkeys and other illustrations. Juha-Matti has drawn for example a great comic strip about Tupsu the Monkey and a superman Monkey.
This is our latest Design by the Tiimiakatemia bookshop host Esa. He gave it to us in the first page of a small notebook at the Team Mastery Arena (which was quite a success, by the way!) I think it’s rather cool and maybe this will be the design for our next T-shirt. And yes, the point of this post was to say that if there are some eager designers and or people with some eye for the visual candy please let us know. We are building a roster of artists, and we need loads of graphics in the future. My inspiration has come for this kind of organization and style initially from Mambo from Australia and and more recently also from Control Clothing from Finland. Cool stuff indeed by both of them, I think. Story by Ville Monkey
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.
Team Mastery Arena – Wonderful promovideo
Jun 26th
Our man and monkey Tatu will be MC’ing in this event called Team Mastery Arena coming up in September 17th-18th. I just surfed through their site and found this hilarious and fantastic video where Nic toasts about the event. It’s excellent!
Nic, the creative agent, is a good friend of ours, representing the entrepreneurship coaching center Intotalo in my home region Kainuu also known as The Creativity Valley. He’s helped me a lot in our dialogues about Monkey Business and life and he encourages me always as I know he thinks in the same way with us about creativity, action and learning. Monkey Business! Says Ville.
Feedback about the Monkey Business Brand
Jun 24th
Just going through my inbox as I am doing the Notebook for the last Team Mastery session and I found this email from Henna dated at April 26th 2009. Enjoy! Ville
Ps. Special and big shout out goes to Liher aka Green Monkey (pictured above) as he made a quick comment about the non-working photo gallery of the last post. Thanks a lot! Kiitos!
Moijoi!
In Team Mastery in the Basque Country we had the them of Brand Management and we used Monkey Business as an example. I want to share the results because this is magical. Enjoy and take care!
TEST QUESTION: What comes into your mind first when you think about
Monkey Business?
Kaisu: a phenomenon, strongly personalized with the people in it, different, fun
Liher: funky people having fun. Group of friends. You never know what comes out when you work, but it will surely be crazy and good. You are shakers of everything!
Henkka: Banana, yellow, fun, what are you doing? Are you doing anything? I doubt! Your brand divides people, either you love it or you hate it. It’s different.
Pauline: Dare to be different, no serious. Your product is some coaching…?? Customers have to be certain kind of people to understand you.
Sain: Clever people – sensation feeling! What exactly you do? Ville is the central person, Ville, no me. Ville with Yellow shirt. Innovative, funny, different, crazy, attractive.
Tapio: Good brand. Noticeable. Honest. Young. Future! They do serious things but they don’t give and advertise the feeling of being serious.
So this is how our friends see us. What do you think?
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).
Man who fears nothing got scared
May 25th
Tatu, Hugo and Johanna did a Monkey Session at one school on 19th of May. Here’s a report of that written by Tatu. Ville got a message on the same day from Tatu saying: “It wasn’t a breakthrough, but something worth writing to our blog.” So here we go! Photography by Tuomas Vuorio.
It all started with AV technics which doesn´t work, no sound from video, useless microphone and man who was in response disappeared. But I and Hugo kept on going with good energy. After check in participants had a “thumb-barometer”. By this tool we get fast and instant feedback about participants feelings. And what we got was some mid-fingers among few thumbs. We continued by a question in small groups. Hugo participated in one group and what he faced was a girl who growled angrily to him. And by Hugo this girl didn´t do it for fun. Hugo got scared. And there is no thing which Hugo would be afraid of. We didn´t reach a breakthrough, we couldn’t get them enthusiastic. Did we use our energy for nothing?
Participants were student from vocational school and mainly between 16 to 18 years. But that does not explain their behaviors. Why could not we get them ignited?
1.) Systems intelligence
What kind of system/s we created in the beginning when participants arrived? Importance of start! Did we allow them to slip from being present? Did we let them to create system instead of our system? How to create positive systems among teenagers?
2.) Taking things seriously
Philosopher Esa Saarinen talks a lot about taking things seriously. (Also Ville Keränen speaks for this.) People to be more serious about what they do, for speaking from their hearts and showing who they really are. Putting yourself in the risk of being laughed at and shoving out your emotions. How could our society empower youngsters to be more self-confident, more encouraging to each other and more collective? How could we get youngsters to take things seriously?
I really feel that there is a real need for Monkey Business in this world. Monkeys to make world more happy, loving and collective. Human. Yellow. With you.
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