Jessica Fraser, co-founder, Mobile Movement, on innovation.
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Creativity & innovation
I recently co-hosted AIESEC’s Youth to Business Forum where 500 delegates came from 110 countries to engage, inspire and take action on three tracks: innovation, corporate responsibility and leadership.
My last two posts talked about wise words from AIESEC speakers Chris Weeks, Director for Humanitarian Affairs, DHL and what he said about corporate responsibility and Marianne Knuth and what she had to say about leadership.
Today’s post is about Jessica Fraser (that’s her above), co-founder of Mobile Movement and what she had to say at AIESEC about innovation.
- Jess says that Mobile Movement connects those who have with those in need, which is one of the best and most concise descriptors ever. Don’t you just want to click on the link above and find out more?
- when you’re all about innovation you need a community to hold you so you can take those risks (that innovation involves). This was perhaps my favourite point of Jess’s. I like the balance between being brave, bold and innovative with being vulnerable and held.
- don’t forget why you’re doing what you’re doing – in other words lift your head up and take a look at the big picture from time to time
- and finally, Jess says be clear about why you’re trying to innovate
And you? What’s on your innovation agenda?
Tags: chris weeks, corporate responsibility, dhl, innovation, jessica fraser, leadership, marianne knuth, mobile movement
Training & development learning well August blog post round up
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Training & development
Didn’t have time to read August’s posts? Here they are – laid out like a picnic for your perusing – here’s the Rock.Paper.Scissors’ monthly training & development round up. You’ll find all the blog posts for the month of August below.
Learn well in the training & development learning well.
Dive deep into the learning well or take a small sip. Shower yourself in training & development or just get your big toe wet.
Refresh & refreshing.
As you wish.
Tags: aiesec, cross-cultural, engagement, kate sutherland, kenya, perspective
Marianne Knuth, co-founder Pioneers of Change, on leadership
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Training & development
Recently I co-hosted AIESEC’s Youth to Business Forum where 500 delegates came from 110 countries to engage, inspire and take action on three tracks: innovation, corporate responsibility and leadership. My last post talked about wise words from Chris Weeks, Director for Humanitarian Affairs, DHL and what he said about corporate responsibility.
Today’s post is about speaker Marianne Knuth and what she had to say about leadership (that’s her gorgeous photo above).
Of Zimbabwean and Danish heritage, she’s currently in Zimbabwe heading up Kafunda Village.
‘A starting assumption for my work here is that people already know how to work in creative and self-sufficient ways, and that the challenge is to help them access that knowledge – and the self-confidence to act on it – generating concrete and often surprising results in the process.‘
At AIESEC’s forum she had this to say:
- ‘We fear and manage chaos by jumping straight to control. Control is about creating more of the same.’ Her advice was to get comfortable with chaos and see the benefits in it.
- My ears particularly perked up at this being a huge fan of book: 5 habits of Highly Messy People- How messy desks are a sign of higher education and earning power© Click on the link for a review of the book and related resources.
- ‘Start anywhere and follow it everywhere’ Marianne says. In other words start. Don’t wait until you have all the answers, until you have the perfect business plan, the perfect marketing plan, the perfect workshop design, jump in and get going NOW! The resources you need will reveal themselves Marianne says.
- ‘Don’t forget to be playful and tinker’, Marianne advises. Taking a page from innovation, much has been discovered by so called mistakes (penicillin and post-it notes for example). Have a sense of humour and play and explore.
- Marianne defines a leader as ‘anyone who is wiling to serve.’
Wise words. Who is willing to serve (the greater good) near you? What are you in service of?
Stay tuned for the next post about Jessica Fraser, co-founder, Mobile Movement, which connects those who have with those in need, and what she had to say about innovation.
Tags: 5 habits of messy people, aiesec, chris weeks, corporate responsibility, dhl, kafunda village, leadership, marianne knuth
Chris Weeks, DHL’s Director of Humanitarian Affairs, on corporate responsibility
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Social Responsibility
Recently I co-hosted AIESEC’s Youth to Business Forum where 500 delegates came from 110 countries to engage, inspire and take action on three tracks: innovation, corporate responsibility and leadership. That’s my co-host Krishnan Ananthakrishnan, from UNHABITAT, and I above.
It was a real honour to meet some of the delegates and key speakers. Here are some highlights of what the speakers had to say.
Chris Weeks, Director for Humanitarian Affairs, DHL and what he said about corporate responsibility
(that’s his smiling mug on the left)
Chris is an extremely engaging and modest guy. He walks the fine and sticky line of corporate responsiblity with humour and humbleness.
He manages more than 350 DHL volunteers who respond at the drop of a hat to natural disasters. He’s crystal clear about his mandate. They don’t get involved in political upheavals etc, they focus on natural disasters. Period.
‘Stick to what you know best’ is his advice.
In DHL’s case, that’s airport logistics. They use their transport bags, which they have by the tens of thousands (see red bag at left), to fill and transport supplies – going so far as to have them dropped out of US helicopters to those in need.
‘Good intentions aren’t enough’ he says, relaying the case of an airline that encouraged citizens to fill shoeboxes with aspirin, milk, sugar, soap and other necessities. 500 tons later there was a major problem – the shoeboxes had been allowed to get wet and everything was a sopping mess which then had to be re-sorted, packaged and distributed. Much had to be thrown out.
‘If you don’t measure you can’t manage’ Chris says, advising that being on top of what you’re doing, having a monitoring and evaluation strategy in place is key.
Wise words from an interesting guy. What does it prompt you to do regarding corporate responsibility?
Watch for the next two posts about:
- Marianne Knuth, co-founder Pioneers of Change, a global learning community of young change agents, now numbering over 1,000 individual pioneers in 70 countries and what she had to say about leadership
- Jessica Fraser, co-founder, Mobile Movements, which connects those who have with those in need, and what she had to say about innovation
Tags: chris weeks, corporate responsibility, dhl, jessica fraser, marianne knuth, mobile movement, pioneers of change, Social Responsibility
‘Engage and develop every young person in the world’ – how about that for an audacious B.H.A.G.
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Training & development, Uncategorized
Some of the enthusiastic AIESEC delegates
Yesterday I was honoured to co-host AIESEC’s Youth to Business Global Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. Being on stage in front of 500 delegates from 110 countries was energizing, inspiring and simply all round fantabulous!
Wish you could have been there? Check out their site for recorded videos of plenaries, pictures and more.
AIESEC’s B.H.A.G. (big, hairy, audacious goal) is none other than to ‘engage and develop every young person in the world.’ At Monday’s launch I asked each person to write down three things that were required to do just that.
Then at the Forum’s closing I fed their answers back to them in the form of a word cloud.
If you’re not familiar with word clouds they are graphic representations of data. The larger the word = the more often that word is mentioned in the data. The smaller the word = the less often that word is mentioned. The colours are for design purposes only, they aren’t representative of anything else.
Want to know how to do a word cloud for yourself? Stay tuned; I’ll explain how at the bottom of this post.
In the meantime, before you look at how the delegates responded, what are three things you think are required to ‘engage and develop every young person in the world?’
Here is what 500 bright, talented, inspired and inspiration AIESEC delegates think. Remember, the bigger the word the most popular that response was. See if your answers were similar or different.
#1 most common response: passion
#2 most common response: commitment
#3 most common response: innovation
Want to create a word cloud yourself. It’s easy peasy. Here’s how:
- Go to www.wordle.net
- Click on the link: ‘create your own’
- Copy and paste whatever text you want to analyze into the empty box
- Click ‘go’
- Voila! That’s all there is to it.
- Not happy with the colours, fonts or layout? No problem, simply use the pull down menus at the top to instantly change the layout.
- Want to share your word cloud with others? Click ‘print’ at the bottom left or ‘save to public gallery’ on the bottom right. The latter will give you a specific url that you can send to folks.
Enjoy! Now go spend some time with your head in the (word) clouds and figure out your own B.H.A.G.
Want to see a bunch more examples of word clouds others and I have created? Just click here.
I’d love to see any word clouds you create. Please feel free to put the url in the comment section below.
P.S. stay tuned for my next post which will give you highlights from some of the tremendous speakers at AIESEC
Tags: aiesec, bhag, engagement, word cloud
My Kenyan deep dive into delight- part 3 of 3 Learning Kenyan style
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Training & development, Travel
I wholeheartedly identify with the little goldfish above. It was time for adventure, for embracing something bigger. So what did I do?
I moved to Kenya naturally, to continue and expand on my training and development work. This is the third in series of posts, with four more things I’ve been learning since I touched down.
See the other 2 posts for more things I’ve been learning: ‘There’s a 6 foot long green snake living in my banana tree’ and ‘I’ve unlocked a universal truth: shoes take up as much space as you allow them (or 4 more learnings about life in Kenya)’.
9. Aim high
Just like the goldfish above it makes sense to aim high, sometimes ludicrously high. As we walked the dogs in a nearby forest yesterday, a harsh squawking filled the air. The dogs were off like a shot, barking up some nearby trees at the monkeys.
I wanted to say ‘Really?! Do you really think you’re going to catch those nimble monkeys?,’ but then I thought, ‘who am I to tell a critter to aim lower.’
Be unreasonable. Aim really high.
My aim is to come full circle to three early passions of mine:
- fashion design: originally I wanted to be a fashion designer (I was even accepted to fashion design school)
- international development: I worked in international development and global education early on in my career
- literacy: years ago I took some in-depth training to be a literacy volunteer and have been fascinated with literacy ever since
Putting all 3 together, my BHAG (big, hairy audacious goal) is to work with local women to design, produce and sell re-useable shopping bags and turn the profits into literacy work.
10. Waiting 45 minutes for a hot shower
When I got sick last week, the reality of living in a developing country sank in, as with teeth chattering uncontrollably I realized it would be a 45 minute wait for hot water. Grateful for running water period, living here is an adjustment. The scale between the privileged and the poor is immense.
While grocery shopping the other day the electricity went out (a common occurrence). Bathed in the dull, low light of a generator I stood there still, hanging onto my grocery cart, until the lights came on again.
As I walk my kid to school (good bye free public education, hello expensive, privileged private school) every morning we pass a small forested area where I watch a mom with two small children, tending her cooking fire. She lives in the bush. I wonder about approaching her.
11. Freaky commonalities
On school registration day we were ‘translating’ my kid’s prior courses to what’s available here. The appropriate math class was proving problematic so the math teacher was called over. It took mere minutes to discover that he not only taught with but is very good friends with my kid’s last year math teacher. Did I mention we are 14,360 km away from that teacher?
It made me think of walking down the street in Calcutta one day years ago and running into someone I knew.
Freaky commonalities happen as the world goes mobile.
12. Deep dive into delight
Finally, I am here to take a deep dive into delight. Into watching monkeys and eating mangoes. Into international issues and impromptu gatherings. Into custard apples and community. Into a slower pace.
Won’t you join me in diving into a whole other kind of learning?
(Thanks to Stacey Sirelson for the goldfish picture.)
Tags: international development, kenya, learning, literacy
I’ve unlocked a universal truth … shoes take up as much space as you allow them (4 more learnings about life in Kenya)
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Training & development, Travel
At home in Canada, what with our narrow entrance way, I was always after my kids and their friends to keep their shoes to the sides. But no, inevitably the shoes would end up smack in the middle of the entrance way. I lost count of how many times I tripped over them.
Now in my new home, Kenya, it turns out, no matter how big your entrance way is, people will spread their shoes around to take up the greatest possible amount of space.
And so it goes with living and learning. Here are 4 more things I’m learning about life here and how they relate to training and development (for the first 4 see the last post ‘there’s a 6 foot long green snake living in my banana tree.’)
5. Look for the universal:
No matter where you find yourself on this vast planet or who you’re with when you’re there, some things are universal.
It can help to look for similarities and what’s familiar, like:
- in my case a messy entranceway
- all the moms in the store who were dutifully deciphering the school supply lists (I have yet to see a school supply shopping trip full of dads)
- finding hot chocolate (my beloved drink, as a non-coffee or tea drinker)
Turns out finding good trainers who know their stuff is as hard here as elsewhere. One of the first conversations I had when I got here was with a UN staff person over this very topic. Knowing how to teach in engaging, sticky ways, with attention to transfer of learning is a sought after skill.
6. Seek out ‘other’, seek out ‘different’
Balance looking for same with seeking difference.
My biggest example of difference so far has been when I couldn’t track my kid down after school for two (gray hair inducing, stomach wrenching, gut churning) hours. Nairobi is a high security place and, to my relief and amazement, things kicked into HIGH GEAR.
Teachers called all the bus drivers in case he had got on the wrong bus. The school was searched. Friends called hospitals and the U.N. security. A friend and I drove around and talked to security guards.
And then blessed relief. The kind that is sweeter than the sweetest sugar. ‘We’ve got him,‘ the teacher on the phone said, ‘do you want to talk to him?’ He’d been hanging out with some friends, completely unconcerned and unknowing.
Ahhhh difference.
While I don’t recommend this gut clenching kind of difference, do seek out what makes you curious, what makes your eyebrows rise and your head tilt in confusion. It’s a whole other world of learning.
7. Challenge long held beliefs
I am a vehement non-coffee drinker and non-tea drinker. Not because of any high ideals and health concerns, I simply don’t like the taste.
And then.
And then I tried Ginger tea here (admittedly short on the ginger and with extra sugar). Wow! I can get used to this stuff.
Challenge your long held beliefs from time to time. It’ll shake up you, your learning, your training and your participants.
8. Transfer your learning
Learning to work. Working to play. Playing to love. It’s all a mishmash.
Transfer your learning to home, work and play.
For example, how does learning about your entranceway inform your work? In my case it made me think of what is universal.
As I finish writing this post I’m sitting in the UN cafeteria having spent some of the day planning my role in AIESEC’s 2011 Global Youth to Business Forum which I’m co-hosting next week. A little fun, a little work, a little play will make for some great transfer of learning.
Stay tuned. In my next post I’ll share the last of this three part series.
Tags: aiesec, difference, transfer of learning, universal
There’s a 6 foot long green snake living in my banana tree
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Training & development, Travel
There’s a 6 foot long green snake living in the banana tree in my yard.
So said my ‘friend’ Roman the other day while we were out walking the dogs. Trying not to faint, with eyebrows askance, I said ‘Really?’ ‘Sure,’ he says, ‘but don’t worry it’s utterly harmless.’
I was pretty sure he was joking but you never know when you’re in a whole new environment. Must be the tall tales he wove as a former war correspondent (that or he simply likes shocking people). I’m very happy to report there is no 6 foot long green (other any other colour) snake living in my backyard.
And so it goes moving not only to a new home, a new community, but half way around the world to Kenya. Here are the first 4 of 12 things I’m picking up along the way:
1. Humour and play:
The use of humour in any situation, whether you’ve moved 10 hours ahead in time zones or are facing a challenging audience for your brand new workshop, is smart and strategic. You don’t have to be a professional comedian to use humour, you just have to be able to set the stage for humour to unfold.
It’s the same with play. Walking the dogs, meeting new colleagues, going out for dinner, joking about gigantic snakes, it’s all in a day’s play.
2. My reactions:
Self-awareness is my ally. Watching my reactions, staying open, being curious is hugely important. It’s in sync with advice from @devxroads:
“My best expat advice is what you probably know already: stay curious, be patient [with others AND yourself], and enjoy!
I’m watching my reactions to not knowing where the light switch is, how to flush the toilet, what brand of milk to buy and where to find a notary – all things that would be easy peasy at home. Here, not so much. Yet.
It’s like learning. It’s a lovely invitation to what it can be like for adult learners learning something they’re not confident about for the first time.
Also I’m a systems kind of gal. A carrot Life Lenses™. Everything has it’s home at home. Keys? Check. Bag? Check. Client files? Check.
Here I’m constantly looking for things. I’m aware of myself looking for systems. They’ll come to have their place, as will I.
In the meantime it’s exhausting.
Now where did I put my damn reading glasses…..
3. Privilege:
Not only did I move half way around the world, I moved to a so-called developing country. The colour of my skin grants me ease and access that is undeserved. If I get sick, medical help is within easy reach. Not so for most of the rest of the country. My education opens doors that others can only dream of. My Canadian passport is a precious gateway.
And I have help. As in, I have help in my home. A 24 hour guard, housekeepers and a gardener. I find this new territory awkward. And I’m extremely grateful.
Privilege. I’m discovering on a cellular level just how much of it I have.
4. Community:
Nairobi is one of the three hubs for the United Nations (Geneva and New York being the other two). It’s a multi-cultural, multi-racial rainbow of language, dress, food, and customs.
It’s also a revolving door of comings and goings. I’ve only been here a week and yet friends of mine have gone to no less than 5 welcome back or farewell parties.
People have their radar tuned to roots that grow strong but briefly. I’ve benefited enormously from this as I’ve already met a bunch of people who’ve gone out of their way to make me feel welcome (Canadians, Norwegians, Kenyans, South Africans, Swedes and Americans among them).
International learning. It’s here, it’s now.
I’m jumping in the river and joining the swim upstream (check out Wes Darou’s post for a clever take on international learning and international development). Are you with me?
**Confession time – know, as time passes and I become more at home in my new home, that I’m fearful of looking back on these initial writings as quaint or worse, as naïve and misunderstood. Ahhh the vulnerability of putting oneself in the learning seat.
Tags: humour, international development, kenya, privilege, self-awareness, united nations, wes darou
And my big announcement is ….
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Travel
I’ve packed my bags.
I’ve changed my postal code.
I’ve rerouted my mail.
I’ve relocated.
I’m in for a massive adventure. Join me?
I’ve moved to Kenya for a year. Yup, Kenya. The home of the Masai people (pictured above) is my new home.
There will be lots of new learning adventures and more training and development tips, tricks and tidbits. Join me in my journey.
The rest of the posts this week will bring you in on what it’s like to move to a new country from a training and development perspective.
Tags: kenya, learning and development
What’s more complicated – flying a plane or juggling three TV remotes?
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication, Training & development
A while back I was on vacation, alone (temporarily) in rented digs. I had satellite television. Three unusual happenstance.
I grabbed the remote eagerly and started searching for a good show to watch. I searched. I floundered.
I can’t turn the TV on. So I change tactics and switch remotes.
Three remotes later I need a glass of wine. Not sure if it is the wine or the pigheadedness I show as I doggedly (as I mix my animals) pursue my goal but eventually I turn on the TV and the satellite and manage to maneuver both to a good show. At this point I am almost too tired to watch!
A few days later finds me in a tiny plane flying to a remote community to lead a workshop on being a leader in a multicultural community. As we wing our way through the vastness that is Northern Ontario I gaze at the cockpit.
I have a double take.
The controls in the cockpit look about as confusing as the remotes.
Of course they aren’t, but to my untrained eye they look about the same.
And so it is with perspective. How much do we take in? Do we really need 150 buttons on 3 combined three remotes? Who uses 95% of those buttons?
To what degree do we need to tailor our communication for our intended audience – ramping up the complexity if required, or more often than not, culling and simplifying (without being simplistic) as we go.
When we’re teaching perspective is an elusive companion.
P.S. stay tuned for a channel changing, perspective altering announcement on Monday’s post (August 15th).
Tags: perspective