Some Germans say Kassel is ugly, mainly referring to the absence of a quaint old town as a result of the extensive bombings during World War II. Notwithstanding, Kassel is a town of art. It is world-famous for its “documenta” exhibitions of contemporary art.

The town is also home to a fascinating work by German artist Joseph Beuys, initiated in the early 1980s. With the help of numerous volunteers, he planted 7000 oak trees all over town, each of which accompanied by a basalt stone. Previously, he had dumped the basalt stones on the central plaza, forming an enormous heap which many citizens disapproved of. A basalt stone was removed and placed along with an oak only when someone donated 500 DM (approx. 256 €) to the project. The aim was to transform the urban habitat in a sustainable way, and to interfere with the ongoing urbanization.

The oaks are still around, right where people live and work – living monuments of Beuys’ central philosophy: “everyone is an artist.”

Recalling this quote, I thought of the concept underlying one of Syngrity’s signature interventions, Moving Canvases. In this intervention, the facilitator asks participants to paint their company’s values or strategies on large vertical canvases. The whole body is involved – participants paint using their hands, feet, and their colleagues’ support to reach the upper sections of the canvas. The concept originates from the belief that “everyone is born creative” – (Vikram Badhwar had written about this in a previous post).

I witnessed such an intervention during a workshop weekend which Syngrity conducted for an artificial intelligence consulting company in Panchgani, Maharashtra, in May 2018. It was fascinating to see people get up, experiment, argue about colors and patterns, and most of all, get adventurous. It seemed as if participants had forgotten about any limiting formalities and instead accessed something inside themselves which they thought they had lost since childhood. Playing with colors and calling into existence a gigantic piece of art probably tapped into conscious and unconscious kindergarten memories, when failure (and the taboos surrounding it) was still a distant concept of the adult world.

Creativity is not exclusive to those who are defined artists, musicians, actors or graphic designers. This is an essential learning from Moving Canvases. Rather, creativity arises when the workplace allows for empathy, interaction, breathing space, and for the possibility of failure. Almost any success story, ranging from new software developments to the successful entry of a new market, has involved trials and errors, and the embrace of failure. Walking untested terrain, which is what creativity essentially means, is synonymous with finding out what works, and what doesn’t. If there is a safe space to do that, solutions will eventually emerge.

That way, Moving Canvases does not only move hands, feet, colors and work material, but minds and thought boundaries. It creates a space where work routine takes a backseat and people can access intuition and the expressive powers of creativity in the literal sense of the word.

Tanja is a research consultant and holds a master’s degree in development economics, focusing on quantitative and qualitative research techniques. She has documented the work of development professionals and small-scale entrepreneurs in West Africa and India. Her field visit insights became part of a publication series by the German Development Cooperation Agency GIZ based in New-Delhi, which she conceptualized and edited.

The post How everyone can be an artist: Syngrity’s Moving Canvases appeared first on Syngrity Transformation Solutions.

Tanja Matheis, our researcher on the Warrior‘s Path team, documents the implementation of Syngrity’s exciting new experiential intervention. Rumor has it that she is intertwined with her laptop, but she actually loves spending time walking and trekking, in good company, with cheese snacks and a camera. In this series, she talks about her research on the Warrior’s Path strategy of adopting e-mentors to fuel the RIGHT consumption for the participants. Stay tuned for more tidbits.

In September 2018, eight people set out to Annapurna Basecamp (ABC), an arduous trek which most of them had never done before: the Warrior’s Path. A 10-day-trek like this one requires physical training, but the preparation inevitably also leads to deep reflections and emotions about one’s own decisions.

How do you prepare for this adventure, and how can mentors be of help?

The Warrior’s Path doesn’t start with the actual trek, but three to five months before, when participants sign up. The purpose is to create a space of inclusion, exchange and learning early on, that is, a space of mentoring. Soon after participants committed to the program, they have the opportunity to ask questions and interact with the team online, over the phone and on WhatsApp.

However, the idea of mentoring goes far beyond team-participant interactions, making the Warrior’s Path a unique approach in the outbound education space.

A mentor is a person who supports you by sharing her or his rich expertise and wisdom. A mentor creates an environment for the learner to think, question and grow, very much like healthy soil nurturing a plant.

Syngrity realised that a person’s consumption, while training for an arduous task, will determine their readiness for it. Different forms of consumption could be classified as Physical, Emotional and Mental. Syngrity envisaged the thought process and skills required for this trek, and chose experts and teachers from their network to create an inclusive, circular way of sharing experience. Each of these experts mainly focused on either physical, mental or emotional consumption. This information, passed on from the experts to the participants, would help them streamline their focus towards their training. Syngrity reached out to different experts in their respective fields, as diverse as sports physiotherapy, stand-up comedy and martial arts.

The beauty of accessing many minds to share experience.

Experts prepared short talks or practice videos, which were shared with the Warrior Path’s participants during the trek preparation between June and September 2018. The group subsequently watched and discussed the experts’ contributions on a private youtube channel. Participants reflected on how the insights could become part of their individual preparation for the trek. Since all of this happened online, bridging geographies and time zones, the experts are referred to as e-mentors.

One of the e-mentors was a teacher of Tai Chi, Pak Wa Chuan and Praying Mantis in Dubai. He talked about “second wind”, the moment in which an exhausted athlete regains breath and strength to reach her full potential with less exertion. Then he shared an exercise from the Praying Mantis which helps activate the second wind.

A sports physiotherapist gave us tips on the muscles and joints that we needed to keep exercising and relaxing before, during and after the trek. The physical aspects were complemented by a senior theatre and dance performer, a head of a learning and development organization and a renowned stand-up comedian and motivational speaker. These mentors emphasized the emotional challenges involved in conquering one’s internal mountain, and the importance of joy and humor throughout the process.

An internationally renowned spiritual teacher shared practical wisdom for happiness and enlightenment in a joyful and transformational way. He showed us how to get past the inner noise and eventually achieve a space of stillness and silence.

These diverse insights have given participants food for thought and leverage points to deepen their knowledge and practice of awareness. Participants found it easier to tackle steep inclines, merciless weather and mental exhaustion on the trek, because they had already heard of different practices from the mentors. The leverage points that the mentors provided through their talks also serve as an inspiration beyond the trek, e.g. for previously unresolved issues at work or in relationships.

While the network of e-mentors cannot replace intimate and face-to-face relationships with friends, family, colleagues, supervisors or teachers, they do represent a resource to keep in mind and to draw on. For the new rounds of the Warrior’s Path in 2019 and beyond, Syngrity is working towards a broader network, with more opportunities to engage for participants. Stay tuned!

Tanja is a research consultant and holds a master’s degree in development economics, focusing on quantitative and qualitative research techniques. She has documented the work of development professionals and small-scale entrepreneurs in West Africa and India. Her field visit insights became part of a publication series by the German Development Cooperation Agency GIZ based in New-Delhi, which she conceptualized and edited.

The post Like soil to a plant – exploring the digital space for mentoring: E-Mentors appeared first on Syngrity Transformation Solutions.

Tanja Matheis, our researcher on the Warrior‘s Path team, documents the implementation of Syngrity’s exciting new experiential intervention. Rumor has it that she is intertwined with her laptop, but she actually loves spending time walking and trekking, in good company, with cheese snacks and a camera. In this series, she talks about her research on the Warrior’s Path concept development and outdoor experiences. Stay tuned for more insights!

One of the many facets of a warrior is the way she or he responds to a sudden change in the environment. As the group of participants set out for the first round of the Warrior’s Path, they were confronted with a fundamental turn in the program. Were they ready for change?

The first Warrior’s Path to Annapurna Base Camp was successfully completed this September, a promising prelude to the upcoming new programs offered by Syngrity Transformation Solutions in 2019. But wait…wasn’t it EBC, the Everest Base Camp? How on earth did the E become an A, i.e. Annapurna?

Since spring 2018, the team, consisting of Syngrity, Natural Adventure Foundation (NAF) and Go Magic Trails (GMT), eagerly promoted the Warrior’s Path to the Everest Base Camp in Nepal. Choosing the Everest Base Camp as a destination is obvious, given the spirit of the program.

The Warrior’s Path is a metaphor for awareness of the mind, body, heart, and spirit. The program is a culmination of the study of the human body via martial practices and alternative thought processes. Trekking to the base camp of the world’s highest peak requires preparation at the physical, mental and emotional level, and endurance and awareness along the way. The destination has the power to inspire people deeply, as it allows a glimpse at the journeys of pioneering mountaineers, including Edmund Hillary, Junko Tabei, or Reinhold Messner. Hence, the motivation to walk this particular path forms an excellent basis on which personal thoughts, emotions and conditioning can be explored and questioned.

In fact, the destination “EBC” became an allegory of commitment for the team members as well as for the participants, who signed up with a thrill of anticipation. Over the course of several months, the participants trained, delved into tales of Everest ascents, and pondered their potential responses to cold temperatures, high altitude and group dynamics.

But then everything changed. When the warriors cheerfully reached the Kathmandu Domestic Airport in the morning of September 13 to take a flight to Lukla, they learnt that for the past 4 days, there had been no flights due to fog and strong winds. Lukla does have a dangerous airport, with an extremely short runway nestled in the mountains. That same morning, the weather did not look too good either. Still optimistic, the participants made themselves comfortable in the airport waiting area, sipping chai and cracking jokes about each other’s “heavy-duty” luggage. Everyone hoped that the weather would clear up eventually, and that they could get on a different flight in the late morning.

The guides kept checking with the airline. “Still no confirmed flight,” was the recurring message that would dash the group’s expectations. As the weather did not improve, the group started considering a previously unthinkable and more expensive solution: hiring a chopper to reach a landing spot below Lukla, which is not accessible by road. That would add 2 additional hours of trekking to the initial plan, but the participants agreed that this would be valid option. Hence, many calls were made and old contacts were reactivated to engage the service of a chopper.

Since even the choppers were stuck and couldn’t take off, neither from Kathmandu nor from near Lukla, it dawned on the team and participants that EBC might not happen at all. Some participants were discontented and yet stayed upbeat on the surface, whereas others remained silent. The whole group was disappointed.

What happens when the main driver of a project suddenly disintegrates? How do people respond to this sudden change? Well, there are different possible responses.

One is resistance. Sometimes, the desire to achieve a certain goal can become all-consuming, and any alternative seems unworthy to pursue. Behind the reluctance to accept change often stands a strong preference for stability and a fear of change and its consequences. Resistance may be a dead end, with little or no space for solutions.

Another response could be passive acceptance. Not resisting a change can be a convenient way to fit in with a team without having to take responsibility for decision-making. Passive acceptance can also be a reflection of being in the moment, and simply absorbing what emerges.

You can also actively embrace change, and become a shaper of the new workings. This includes the ability to accept change in the first place, as well as the mindset to develop something from the new point of departure. Therefore, embracing change can be a great learning space. An indication of this is when quick decisions are taken.

And this is exactly what happened. Deepak, the head of the tour operating agency, sat everyone down and calmly presented the facts. “You could go back to the hotel, spend another night there and then come back in the morning to see whether flights take off tomorrow,” he explained. Given the prolonged bad weather forecast, another proposition suddenly seemed more tempting. Due to the participants’ flights back to Delhi in 13 days, the group could not afford to waste time, but the hopes to trek to EBC were still profound.

“How about we change the “E” in “EBC” to an “A”, and go to the Annapurna Base Camp instead?”

Choosing this option would mean that the group can leave the same day and start from a trailhead that is accessible by car, in the worst case scenario. The trek to Annapurna Base Camp offers tropical and alpine terrain, and can be completed within 10 days. The base camp offers an almost 360 degree mountain panorama view. It just isn’t Everest Base Camp.

Participants’ responses were instant and surprising given their strong commitment to EBC. “But I told everyone at home I have bragging rights for at least 6 months after I have completed the EBC trek” soon turned into “well, sure, let’s start with the alphabet’s first letter”. One person said, “actually I haven’t been to the Annapurna Base Camp yet either, so let’s do it!” Within half an hour of discussing in a circle outside the airport building, everyone was on the same page, realizing that changing plans quickly would give the group the best room to maneuver.

Hence, Annapurna Base Camp it was! The mountains, and their unpredictable weather, taught everyone a lesson of humility, right at the beginning. There are things you cannot change, but you can adjust certain parameters if you consider your options thoroughly, timely and intuitively. EBC or ABC, the journey is the destination.

Tanja is a research consultant and holds a master’s degree in development economics, focusing on quantitative and qualitative research techniques. She has documented the work of development professionals and small-scale entrepreneurs in West Africa and India. Her field visit insights became part of a publication series by the German Development Cooperation Agency GIZ based in New-Delhi, which she conceptualized and edited.

The post Are you ready for change? Insights from the Warrior’s Path 2018 appeared first on Syngrity Transformation Solutions.