Collective power unleashed

Last week, I had the privilege of facilitating a workshop for a unique group of people. My friend Peter Kuyt ??had organized an offsite gathering with like-minded freelancing friends. Most of them had never met each other before face-to-face, let alone spend a few days together on location. As creative as ever, Peter had dubbed this midweek get-together "The Otterlo sessions," referring to the local Dutch town nearby where they were staying. Serious branding for sure.

To prepare for the workshop, I had joined their weekly Friday morning coffee call to learn about their expectations for this session. Their primary purpose was to explore their collaboration as a collective. Some of them had already joined forces in some projects. However, they felt there was even more potential when combining their complementary expertise more structurally. It sounded like an excellent assignment to me as a Scrum Master to accelerate their development from being a group to becoming a team!

Here's an overview of the exercises I designed for them as part of the workshop:

1?? Share something personal and find out if others can relate. Cue: "I guess I'm the only one who....". Fun and easy way to get started and deepen the connection.

2?? Share a success story about collaboration and explore the underlying values (Appreciative Interview). From the individual values, we aggregated their shared values.

3?? Personal strengths & weaknesses: taking it one level deeper in getting to know each other. They had an impressive palette of complementary strengths together. The participants were quite vulnerable in opening up about their weaknesses. To me, that's a sign of courage and trust.

4?? The wonder question: how does it look/feel when your collective is a success? This question sparked their imagination and helped them align their views for the future.

5?? From ideas to action: what are the first actions to take to get started as a collective? We plotted these actions on an Effort/Impact matrix to determine priorities.

During the workshop, Daniel, David, Kees, Paul, and Peter went all in and were very open to each other when sharing personal stories. Apart from all the serious personal and business stuff, there was plenty of laughter and fun. Halfway through the workshop, I gave them a tent pole for the so-called Helium-stick exercise. It's a fun and insightful assignment where the participants must work together and communicate clearly to lower a stick to the floor together. Funny enough, the assignment played out entirely differently than ever before, but still, there were plenty of learnings. That was an excellent lesson for me as a facilitator.

They were all delighted with the workshop's outcome. The newly gained insights and actions exceeded their expectations. And instead of feeling exhausted after a half-day workshop, there was a sense of energy in the room. One couldn't wait and started their actions immediately as we were waiting for a delicious home-cooked meal by Chef Daniel.

When driving home on my motorbike, I couldn't help but feel proud and privileged that I was able to help these creative fellows on their collective journey. Despite all the rain, I was smiling all the way home.

Take care and till next time!

Kind regards,

Herman / Scrumpy Dad

I help people stay loyal to their goals and values and create more happiness for themselves and their loved ones. ??

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