Monkey Business

Many people ask where does the name Monkey Business come from. Here is the story. Fresh from Angers where it all started, now written at Team Entrepreneur’s office.  Team Mastery 1 participants Gilles, Laurent and Herve got a three year program launched here with 18 teampreneurs just two weeks ago! Sanna is coaching here with Gilles. Fantastic job, guys. Fantastic.

Herve Explains the name of the game called Experience Economy to the teamsters.

The name of Monkey Business has a strong connection to Angers, a city in the Western France. Me and Tatu started in Team Mastery’s 1st promotion back in Dec 2006 in Finland, and then the second session with the theme of Leadership was held in Angers. Team Mastery is an international coaching program for people who want to learn team coaching Team Academy style.

So the second session was about Leadership. And as all the weekend/adult/entrepreneurs programs coached by the Team Academy / Partus there is a birth giving of new knowledge in the Friday evening. (The sessions are from Thursday 12pm to Saturday 12pm =48hrs of intensive dialogue and team work). I remember that this particular session was not so easy for me. It was confusing – maybe it was about the difference between a coach and a leader, and also I remember one member of our team was not comfortable with the atmosphere, as it seemed very business oriented with the aim of creating more and more entrepreneurs – Where is the idealistic part and saving the world? Well, I remember that in our birth giving we asked everyone that what is their mission in this world or what they dream about. I think almost everyone dreamed of a better world in a way or another.

Then, the second birth giving was about Fertile Emptiness. I remember Sari, Emmanuel and Javier R. (in the picture above on the right taken at the Team Academy Euskadi’s 3rd Anniversary) was in that group. But what was really the ignition for our name was the third team’s birth giving about the Evolution of Leadership. It was a theatre play and it took place in the gardens of our agriturismo place. 1st scene was from the jungle were monkeys were leading one another by running around and making loads of noises. That was a key. Laurent from CoMind and Tatu could really make some cool (and loud) monkey noises and movements. Another interesting and hard-to-forget scene of that birth giving was the 3rd scene were Claude from Strasbourg and TA Alsace had climbed in the tree, and repeated the word “Awareness”. (Tatu confirms this story and say that it was harder to actually get him safely down but we managed.) It was the Guru-model of Leadership. Then there was a still 3rd level, but I cannot recall what that was. (Tatu says it was working and learning together). Here’s a picture of Claude whom I was happy to meet this Sunday.

So it was in Angers that the seeds for our name Monkey Business was sowed but the name came up in the third session of Team Mastery in London. Our friend Javier Ruiz of Labein and TA Euskadi brought with him a game that went like this: “If you were an animal, what animal were you?” Tatu said Monkey, I think I said Puma (because I used to play Ice Hockey in a team called Pumas). But then Sanna said that I would be Sloth, which is a kind of Monkey, too.

Well this game wasn’t quite enough to make the name yet. There were some people talking about the book by Ridderstråle and Nordström called Funky Business. It was Tatu who was around in another conversation where he heard Monkey Business, and a bulb lit in his head: “That’s it! That should be the name!” And the good thing was that we were going to go and do in our first coaching project outside Finland with Labein right after the session in London so we got to develop our idea of Monkey Business a bit further. On that trip we also met with folks of Funky Projects, and the artist called Lady My who eventually draw the famous Banana for us. But that is another story that deserves a post of it’s own.

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