Posts tagged Team Academy
A Monkey in Turku since 14th of May 2011
Jun 23rd
What can I say? As a graduate from Team Academy, I have the courage to act first and think later. As you all can see, I live in Turku now and haven’t regret it one bit. (At least for now)
To be honest, I had planned moving to Turku for a year before I finally did it. Luckily I did not have to move alone, my long-term boyfriend Pekka joined me and has been so supportive during these first months. I am also privileged to have some amazing friends here, and they have helped me to feel like home here.
This has been an overwhelmingly busy spring – I was travelling around the world with my team company Co-op unelMania form 23rd of January to 28th of March. After the trip I managed to finalize my studies and final thesis – all this in one month. In May it was time to move to Turku, set up my own company and join the yellow world of the Monkey Business. What will I be doing here in Turku as a Monkey? Well, stay tuned, I’ll keep you posted.. 
Now that I look back what have happened in April, May and early June – I still can’t really believe I managed to do all this. Yet here I am- fresh, new monkey-entrepreneur in new city, Turku, with graduation papers in my hand. Like my sister said it; “Now you are done with the University, it is time to head towards new challenges.” She had also cut a picture of a brave little mouse and taped it to the congratulation card – Mickey Mouse with a text; “See anything you do as an adventure” It feel like it is a good guideline for the near future with the Monkeys!
Thesis about Team Academy by Esa Saarinen
Nov 26th
We still are squatting in the premises of Team Academy, and today when I came from the surprisingly close-by grocery store I thought once again: “Team Academy is great because in here it is ok and encouraged to be excited.” Why did I think that? Well, I had just seen one Teampreneur painting graffiti related to the 24hr birth-giving of Team Company Dilectio. He was enjoying and laughing while doing the painting. And then Kaisu of Dilectio saw the graffiti, and she clearly was very excited about that.
That reminded me of the 7 thesis our friend, the explosively insightful philosopher Esa Saarinen has coined about Team Academy. He introduced these in the Team Academy’s 15th anniversary seminar in January 2008 where me and Tatu were the MC’s. I thought I should post them here to remind people who have seen them before, and maybe there are some to whom these are new.
The Core Reasons to the Success of the Team Academy: Esa Saarinen, the Famed Finnish Philosopher speaking
- Thesis 1 In the Hall of Fame of Experience-Based Learning Team Academy is # 1
- Thesis 2 Some People Speak, Team Academy Acts.
- Thesis 3 Team Academy Brings Dreaming Back to Professional Education.
- Thesis 4 Team Academy Calls Out to Young People to Express their Sincerity and Joy, apparently as the Only
Educational Institution in Finland. - Thesis 5 In the Endless Fight Between Stick-Disciplinary-Narrow-Mindedness and Breaking Out from Barriers, Team Academy Chooses Excitement.
- Thesis 6 The Core of Team Academy is Based on the Most Sustainable and Solid Foundation of Finnish Basic Values: Robust Pragmatism and the Spirit of Equality.
- Thesis 7 Team Academy is Based on the Power of Community and the Human In-Between, but behind it All is an Individual Who is Willing to Give Out His Everything for the Cause that Matters.
My favorite is maybe number 7 phrasing very nicely the connection and relationship between the individual teampreneur and the team/community. What are yours?
Ps. We are planning to organize an after party for all times Paphos-meeting in January together with Esa and the Paphos Alumni of Design Factory.
Monkey Business – Story about our name
Oct 15th
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.
Greetings from Basque Country
Sep 29th
Yellow greetings from Basque Country. Here I have visited Gaze workshop (thanks for invitation!), Manahmana and today at Mondragon Team Academy. I wanted shortly share a little marketing idea from the first Team Company of TAE Manahmana. See the picture below. Make one for yourself, and spread into appropriate places! Also see Maialen and Aitor of Manahmana in the other picture.
Festivals in the Workplace – Presentation by Roosevelt Finlayson at SoL Finland Meeting
Apr 4th
Couple weeks ago I had a chance to listen a presentation by Roosevelt Finlayson. He’s a man from Bahamas and he has done 12 years of inquiry about the connection and similarity between a workplace and festivals of Caribbean e.g. Carnivals. He started to wonder why people give everything for organizing their shows for the carnivals but do not do the same in their work places.
I got to know Roosevelt a little bit when we met in the SoL Global Forum in Muscat, Oman in April 2008. And now when I heard he will give a presentation at SoL Finland’s members meeting I had to go there because I am quite interested in his work for couple of reasons.
Fireworks of one show of Rio Carnivals 2008
Firstly, I was in carnival in Rio last year during my trip around the world. See the picture above. That was a great experience, thank you Paulo for hosting me and Tapio there. Secondly, I think Team Academy is using festivals quite a bit in it’s processes. Third reason is the Esa Saarinen’s fantastic James Bond philosophy. In that the 5th point is following the real meaning of things is revealed in Bahamas. So one day I want to go to Bahamas and understand the real meaning of things.
What Roosevelt told about people who participate organizing festival reminded me of what Pekka Himanen talk about people writing code in his book the Hacker Ethic. In both cases, people are enthusiastic about what they do, are willing to work long hours, they want to do their best and get even better, they feel that they are appreciated and part of something bigger than themselves could achieve alone. The challenge is to bring this into practice. How can we build workplaces where people are like coders at their best or people working for the festival?
In the meeting there was also talk about power of images in building the vision and the power of self-organizing. He mentioned open space as a starting point for a new way of organizing.
This is a question that has no simple answer. (Maybe?) But for this complex issue of building organization Roosevelt brings the ideas of Festivals. He encourages people to organize festivals in their workplaces also literally. They offer people chance to take responsibility and thrive in a position other than their usual one. They are also good for bringing up the spirit of the organization, networking both internally and externally and celebrating success and learning. Like Kouzes and Posner say in their book The Leadership Challenge: Encourage the Heart! Is there a better way to bring up the spirit than celebrating together?
In Team Academy, where I used to learn on a daily basis, there are many festivals. Some are internal and some are open festivals for the whole network including customers and partners. When new penguins (first year teampreneurs) join the Team Academy in August there is a so called baptism party for them. After that they are officially part of Team Academy. That’s usually on the first week when they arrive. About after a month in early october there are the first ones of the bi-annual rocket days. The Rocket Days is a two-day event where whole Team Academy participates. This is the real carnival. All the teams are dressed according to a theme. For example once the general theme of the rocket days was the middle age and thus one team was dressed as farmers, the other one as monks, third one as nobel folks, some as slaves etc. So teams are clearly distinguished from each other. The other Rocket Days are held in March.
Ville & Tapio in Rio Carnival 2008. We got to pose by the truck.
The biggest festival of Team Academy is the anniversary held around the 19th of January. The biggest party so far was the 15th anniversary which was also the day when Team Academy reached it’s vision to be the top unit of entrepreneurship in Finland. We had about 300 people in a seminar on Friday and 500 people celebrating in a gala on Saturday night. That was a nice party. Monkey Business (Ville and Tatu) were the MC’s of the seminar and Tatu even continued to host the gala. That was probably also the most international of our festivals as it had Ignition participants there as well as people from the first Team Mastery who actually did their final birth giving at the seminar and people from a Learning Expedition. All that was a good fun.
What are the festivals of your organization? Or your tribe and network?
Ps. Yesterday we were working at Aivomyrsky. It was loads of fun. Good action. I’ll post about that soon. It was a one kind of festival for young people interested in Entrepreneurship. Written by Monkey Ville
Ps2. Pictures and post in Finnish about the above mentioned Rocket Days at LeTim’s blog. Highly recommended!
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
Monkey Business on Wordle
Feb 18th
I found this cool little thing called wordle through this Kaospilot’s blog. It basically collects the words of a website and makes a cloud out of them. I am a curious guy and wanted to give it a try and here it is.
Team Academy is up a lot. Well, it defines us well. Also I am happy that in a way it looks very humane but also that it has got some surprising words coming up quite big. Please, make a comment and drop links to your wordle’s. (http://www.wordle.net)
Another thing worth mentioning is that today we’ve tried to broadcast video and audio over the internet from Jyväskylä. Thank you Ralf and Nic for your help and interest to make this happen. What this means in practice that more and more we can do live shows and broadcast them all over the world. We will keep you posted on the developments and future broadcasting.
Yellow regards, Ville
Ps. Thanks Tapio from Dialoguelife.com for correcting my wrong links.
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
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