We delivered our first CAL1 (Certified Agile Leadership by the Scrum Alliance) this week in Kiev. We went in with an open mind and the clear intent to uncover what makes our approach special and unique. This is what we learned. Building on what we had learned after the first day…
What do participants say?
- Most content is co-created. That creates a strong sense of collaboration with the leaders of the course, opportunities for everyone to lead and lets us experience the choice we have to lead of follow consciously in every moment.
- The course is great for anyone who needs to communicate and wants to increase the effectiveness of their communication.
- “We turned the sheep around. You may be a wolf, but you can choose to be a sheep. And you may be aware that a wolf could be chasing the sheep.”
- I was surprised how quickly trust was created and grown in the group. And I want to try these Temenos methods of story-telling and trust-building with my colleagues.
Assumptions and Intentions we Started With
- There is greatness in every human beings leadership stance that anyone else on the course can benefit from. We want to create space for this greatness to become visible and explicit.
- The main purpose of CAL1 is to start people on a journey of self-discovery and self-improvement. Participants are responsible for where they are starting from and where they want to go next.
- “Agile Leadership” means: know why you do what you do, and be sufficiently aware of how you’re doing it to be able to deliberately improve it. And: everything depends on context awareness and intention. We will refrain from advising or recommending specific leadership practices.
- Leading and following, teaching and learning, speaking and listening, conflict and harmony, are all intricate, nuanced dances in the moment. We will lead by example in focusing attention on these subtle choices, highlighting everyone’s successes, so that we can all learn from them.
Letter to your Former Self
At the end, we all wrote a postcard to our former, three days ago selves, giving advice for getting the most out of the workshop. These are some examples:
- Free up time to accumulate energy and attention – don’t plan anything – do all homework.
- You are ready. Enjoy! Wiser Maiia. PS It doesn’t matter how you like your skirt. Wear pants.