Strengthening collaboration in management team.

23/01/2017

Name educator: Ernestas Lapinskas Name partner organisation: Kitokie Projektai
GENERAL INFORMATION Description of the course: strengthening collaboration in management team. The group consists from top managers of small financial company. The educator have been working with the managers and all company for two years, there is history of successfull collaboration, good relation and trust between top managers and educator. The projects done were always not so much educating as counseling – going deeper into understanding of what is going between managers and in the company and making decisions based on better understading of real situation. Learning was always based on reflection of everyday experience and experience in the frames of seminars. Aim of testing project: look more attentively at moments of “nonreadiness”
PRACTICAL INFORMATION Date(s) of the testing project: 2015 autumn Target group: members of management team Number of participants:12 Nationality of the participants: lithuanian Sex of the participants: ⁮females 3 ⁮ man 9 Age of the participants: 30 to 54 Amount of meetings with the learners: 3
A	Number of people reflecting:		⁮ Solo (1 person) Yes, there were moments of individual reflection.	⁮ Small group (< 20 people) 12 people – there was a lot reflection in small group.		⁮ Large group (> 20 people)
B	The way(s) of sharing:
Verbal:			remembering the events and reactions, sharing and discussing the meaning of events that happened during the hike and relation of them with everyday collaboration.	diary during the hike
Non-verbal:			⁮ Pictures (photos) of a hike were used to remember and look more attentively at different moments of the hike. ⁮	⁮ Text – diary was used for individual reflection.	⁮ Embodied	⁮ sculpture	⁮ Other forms of expression
Digital:			⁮ Padlet	⁮ Social media		⁮ Digital diary
C	Place of reflection (where)		⁮ Indoors. preparational meeting, the reflection day and follow-up day were indoors.	⁮ Outdoors Moments of diary were outdoors, during the hike.		⁮ On-line
D. Steps taken to implement How did you organize your testing project (or to put it differently: as this is a testing project for experimenting, what will be different comparing to the same course you run the previous time)? During the preparational meeting aside from usual situation and needs analysis there was a question raised by the educator – what could be the reasons for this coming seminar to go wrong? questions for diary moments include: what is not happening as I think should be happening, how do I feel about it?
E. Your assessment of the outcome In general, how do you look at the results of your testing project? Attention to what was NOT going on as was expected during hike was actually very fruitfull, the main lessons in reflection came from looking at this aspect of process of the hike. I am satisfied and eager to go on.
F	Connecting with principles: which principle(s) were you taking into consideration mostly when facilitating reflection with learners? Please add 2 sentences about how you were translating the principle into practice. For more information: see postings on principles.
⁮		Raising awareness within learners to ‘own’ their learning in personally meaningful way Using diary and photos to name the themes and connect with them personally
⁮ yes, this was important		Developing a relationship between educator and learners based on trust, openness, empathy, honesty, dialogue and feedback Good contact with the group was established way before this seminar. The educator has been successfully working with these people for two years allready, there were fruitfull and usefull projects before. Preparation meeting – analysing the situation together; discusing the possible outcomes of a seminar, and possible reasons for the seminar to go wrong – during the process the educator was sharing openly his reactions and encouraging reactions of participants. The same stance was kept during all the process – during hike, during reflection of the hike, during follow up meeting.
⁮ yes, this was important		Co-creating the reflective process From the very beginning of the project the awareness (of what is going on and what is not going on, what is happening in the group and what is important) was developed together by looking attentively, exploring together. This attitude of exploration together was kept during prep meeting, diary moments, telling the story of hike, discussing the emerging themes.
⁮		Managing the steering paradox of intrinsic learning processes
⁮ yes, this was important		Creating the right reflective attention of learners The start was during prep meeting – during overview of situation the participants were invited to share their insights and feelings about the situation in the group. Diary moments and story, discussed together opened up more aspects of situation and more questions, and the important thing was to look at them together with attitude of exploring and not hurrying to make conclusions.
⁮		Slowing down and value moments of not-knowing, *Diary moments, looking at the photos and discussing what was happening on individual level*
⁮ yes, this was important		Deepening your questions progressively the themes were first touched, then deepened,when the tendency was noticed, then connected with everyday life
⁮		Recalling that reflection can never be imposed, only kindly invited. Themes were noticed together, the educator was asking questions and helping to name, to verbalize
⁮		Always considering reflection as a broad and deepening process, that should be holistic.
⁮		Being careful how to asses reflection (or not at all)