Friday Blog – Bruxelles Gold Star Pupils

Monday’s Star pupil

Matias wowed us by bringing clarity to the mess on the floor. EU EXPERT - GOLD STAR!

 

                             Tuesday’s Star Pupil

We saw the true depths of Mark's geekiness with his super duper systems thinking map. CHART CHAMPION GOLD STAR!

 

Wednesday’s Star Pupil

Xenya uses her charm, networking skills and generosity and shared her boss with us. GOLD STAR!

 

Thursday’s Star Pupil

Asif showed his incredible skills in negotiation and influencing, he will be our Barroso forever. GOLD STAR!

Friday’s Star Pupil

IT Guru extraordinaire. Thank you for all the help. GOLD STAR! (please turn your photo around, we still need your help)

 

The weeks sayings:

“Paralysis by analysis” Elena

“The nuns will kill us if we don’t come for dinner now” Edward

“We’re not knitting yoghurt here” ??

“How was dinner? – Cheesy” Jono

“Systems drinking” – Pedro

“Shi(f)t happens!” – Unknown

“Sustainable development is about treating the world as if you intended to stay” Julia quoting XXX

“You can sleep when you’re dead” Greek philosopher + Bon Jovi

“I was being lobbied over cornflakes” Carla

“Speak through the Chair!” Asif

 

Runners up

Aphrodites Helper!

 

 

OVERALL TEACHER’S PET – prize goes to……. ASIF!

….in their own words (Tuesday)

Part 1 – LAP presentation “Sustainability personalities”

Efrain – “It validated our desire to test it with the group based on the feedback. We hope to get even more detailed feedback from people taking the test. It encourages us to do it.”

Frank – “The process of giving a presentation helps you focus as a team.”

Mark – “We got much more, and useful feedback than I expected. We were struggling with getting a large enough sample size and the group offered to access their networks to help with it. That was great to get this gift from the group.”

Part 2 – Business and the transition to a low carbon economy

Matthew Bateson, Managing Director of the WBCSD, Energy & Climate
“I am optimistic about the ability for us to achieve sustainable development, but pessimistic that the negotiating systems we have in place will achieve it.”

Part 3 – The hot topic / Climate policy

Philine Scholze, Advisor Employment & Social Affairs Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament
“During the simulation session, identify the key actors and try to get to know them.”

Remi Gruet, Senior Regulatory Affairs Advisor on Climate and Environment at the European Wind and Energy Association
“Stay with the facts, don’t try to convince them of something that does not exist but present your position so that it can be taken into account (don’t bullshit).”

Nils Ladefoged, Member of the Cabinet DG Climate Action of the European Commission
“The climate change challenge is here to stay. The the sooner we get our heads around it, the better we are off.”

Wiebke Herding, Freelance Facilitator and Communications Consultant
“The big question was to think strategically how you can influence things. Sometimes you are not in a position of formal authority, formal power so don’t really have the resources. But if you think clearly about who you want to influence, what do you want from them, and how can you ask for it in a way that they can give it to you can make a lot more change than if you had the formal authority and all the money. My wish for you for Thursday is to find a solution to the dilemma we are in.”

Jason Anderson, Head of European Climate Change and Energy Policy at WWF European Policy Office
“The principles of using low power to gain significant influence for NGO in EU institutions is about whom to influence, how to make decisions, how to create the right message and how to effect outcomes. Map out the stakeholders according to the level of power and influence their carry, against their level of support for your message.”

Some opinions from LEAD associates:

Sarah – talked to Jason Anderson and Wiebke Herding: “She thought the guests provided a really useful framework to consider who we will talk to and how to achieve our goals. They managed to make what seemed like chaos – clear.” She thought Wiebke Herding was particularly great as she kept the session on track. He top tip for negotiation was to have a good understanding of our own positions (BATNA!!!)

Yaara – Was in a session with Remi from the Wind Energy Europe who advocate Wind projects in Europe. “Their goal is for 100% renewable energy in Europe by 2050!! She said it was very useful. It gave her an overview of what happens in the negotiations – but she wasn’t personally able to gather information that was relevant for her role.”

Victoria – “I was in a session with Matthew from WBCSD. Possibly because he was about to leave…he was very open about the limitations and challenges to engaging business. He talked about the defensive (level playing field etc.) and the offensive (greater incentives) measures they advocate for in the WBCSD. I particularly liked what he said about the need to tell good stories in order to engage business and cut through the complexity.”

Part 4 – LAP presentation “Sustainable luxury – true cost of fashion”

Carla – “Putting the presentation helped us to clarify the journey we have gone through, how much we discovered during the past six weeks, how much research we had done already and it helped us to clarify where we wanted to go.”

Julia – “I found the reaction of the group quite positive, some people told me if I had more time I would definitely join your LAP. It was a confirmation that we are moving in the right direction. We got a lot of valuable inputs, really good and useful recommendations which we will build into the project.”

Xenya – “You just said it beautifully!”

 

Part 5 – System Thinking (Tuesday Session)

Alan – “It was really interesting to understand how we are linked to the different activities, how we are part of this world, we are part of companies, we are part of institutions, so I really enjoy having time for thinking …  my own relations with the different actors or parts of the system can go towards your house, the market, institutions, the world and at the end the planetary boundaries. It was also enlightening to see that out of the 9 planetary boundaries we have already surpassed the threshold of three.”

Nadejda – “the session was really insightful. Very interesting in terms of human nature, how people work together, what mechanisms there are for people to agree.”

 

Part 5 – … a little exercise (Sonda, bamboo stick)

Yanina Taneva, Managing Directress of the Ideas Factory, Sofia
“You see how a system could or could not work when many different stakeholders try to put their input without thinking about the whole system. We saw that it is important to listen and to have strong leadership. We raised the stick because everyone wanted to provide their input. It is a good metaphor for the limits of growth, it’s about egos. In the end you managed to lower the stick because you managed to revise the process, some people voluntarily left, and there was very good leadership.”

… and then? Bon appetit, enjoy work and good night!

Monday – Haiku Monday

EU

Get in the queue

There is no policy

Only lob’ EU

 

Systems thinking

positive feedback, coil

Systems thinking

Oscillations on oil

Resilience or collapse

Systems thinking

Gloom and doom relapse?

Drinking

The hub-linking

Socializing with

Systems drinking

LEAD – Brussels reloaded

The big get together (Part II)

The plan for the week (Blue hat!)

And these are our “factual” expectations (White hat)

We look forward to learn:

• Systems – and someone mentioned Resilience …
•  Personal development – we are humble enough to believe we can improve
• EU – if you are in Brussels and don’t discuss EU is like going to Rome and not seeing …
• Climate Policy [30% by 2020]
• Skills negotiation: BATNA [it’s not a trade organization]
• LAP [this is not a dance!]
• Fun + Friendship [lots of it]

We will have lots of work and ideas around Lead Associate Project (Yeah, that’s what LAP means! It not a dance!) (Green Hat)

We talked about sustainable fashion! It was lovely! We just adore it! (Red Hat!)

[Really, we talked about hats!]

The expectations on the food were set really low! This was to contain risk. (Black Hat)

However, either food was great or the appetite enormous. Only an orange was left! Isn’t it great to be in such a nice space, with such lovely people and having such great food?! (Yellow hat!)

My semi shift to village life in France.

Our family at our new old house in France

Juliane asked me to write a blog about the learning involved in setting up another home in France.  For a start it means dealing with an azerty keyboard on my husband’s computer which has been set to querty so this blog is going to be very short on punctuation as I just can’t find it = where’s the hyphen guys?

As I try to post this blog, I realise that it was really learning how to post a blog she was aiming at. If you’re reading this, it means I managed, eventually.

Straight off from the London session, on Saturday morning, I set off  in a truck to move a pile of stuff from where it had been in our attic, our garden, in other people’s houses all over southernEnglandto our new/old house inFrance. My 17 year old daughter volunteered to help Tim and me, so the three of us were collected from our hired van on the Eurotunnel freight carriage and transported by bus to the front of the train where all the drivers spend the journey. The first thing to hit us was the distinct aroma. Days on end in an articulated truck without access to a shower does seem to develop a particular athmosphere. However as the only women in this all male environment, it was the stares that got to us. They tried not to be obvious but they failed. My daughter thought nothing of it, it was normal to her, subject as she is to daily wolf whistles on the street. I wanted to get a camera out and take pictures to make them realise what it feels like to be observed in this manner.

Driving the most un aerodynamic vehicle I have ever been in made me acutely conscious of the impact of the wind. The southerly cross wind felt like it was head on both there and back, but the impact on the fuel consumption was astronomical. Those removal companies were not overpriced after all. We dumped our load, left Tim camping in, with a bed and table but nothing to sit on and drove back to London.

A couple of weeks later when my long suffering youngest teenager, Iona, had eventually got her summer holidays from school we set off again to spend most of August in France.

Iona and her friend Bronte enjoying our first week in France

We traveled over listening to hours of life at Blandings Castle (PG Wodehouse = aha! Found the parenthesis and exclamation marks!!!) perfect entertainment for the two exhausted but excited thirteen year olds on the back seat. They map read me to Metz IKEA (luckily just beside the motorway as they are no girl scouts these two) where we picked up a sofa for the house. I strapped it to the roof with more than mild paranoia and miles of rope and set off. Banish those images of Biba’s car trundling down the French motorways with a floral sofa roped to the roof = it was IKEA = flat packed (now there’s an exaggeration), boxed but nearly sofa sized.

We arrived at the house, safe and well and just in time to make it to Isidore’s, the local restaurant, a barn with tree sized refectory tables and a small menu of local foods including the house soup of ‘everything in the garden except the pebbles’. Isidore’s is a local institution, only open on Saturday nights, apart from the whole month of August when he serves only potatoes.

There followed an intense week combining entertaining the teenagers while equipping the house. As we’ve kept our house inLondon, we’d only moved furniture which was excess to requirements inEngland, a very motley collection of mendable tables, tired beds, slides and swings. I now had to make the house liveable. While the teenagers slept the mornings away, I trundled home with daily roof loads of electronics, chairs and garden furniture. My muscles were developing very nicely.

The last trip was to pick up the additional bedding I’d ordered for the ten people who were to stay in the house the following night. The girls were with me, so I stuffed as many mattresses as I could into the car and tied a double mattress and bed base to the roof. Full of confidence after a week of this, I set off down the motorway. When the rain started I was worried that the plastic wrapping wouldn’t keep the mattress dry. Then the wind got up andIona, staring at the load on the roof reported it flapping around. We stopped, re strapped and continued. Same again. Then the whole load flipped off my roof in front of a truck, luckily far enough in front of it to avoid calamity as the truck changed lanes and continued unharmed. The storm was in full throttle by now. Almost blinded by the torrential rain I hauled mattresses and bed bases out of the path of the oncoming traffic, in to the side of the motorway and strapped them back to the roof, differently this time. A good half hour passed without anyone stopping to help and then white van man came to my rescue. Rivers of rain running through my clothes, I looked at the clean, dry, kind driver and sent him away. I’d virtually finished my re strapping at this stage. A very gingerly driven journey later, as we pulled up in front of the house, the rain stopped, the wind dropped and the birds started singing. Trust the birds to rub it in!

Slow worm stranded on our kitchen floor

Wildlife has provided another layer of entertainment in our new home, spiders thrive in this climate and grow to unimaginable proportions. My son’s girlfriend with a pathological fear of spiders had to sleep beneath the unswept anciently cobwebbed rafters of the attic room. Insects invade my bedroom, the like of which I’ve only ever seen in aBorneorainforest, centipedes with myriad spindly legs, beetlelike giant wrigglers, flies with amplifiers. A slow worm or small snake got stranded on the kitchen floor, unable to negotiate the slippery surface, while tiny frogs and enormous toads provide regular outdoor entertainment. A virulent wasp sting left me with a balloon like hand.

I suppose it is because our house is on the edge of the village that it has such a thriving wildlife. I’ve never lived in a village before, only outside its edges inIreland, or in the city. It’s a new experience, and a good one. We’ve been thoroughly welcomed by the little community of our street. The day after our arrival, while I was pottering around in my pyjamas atmidday, surrounded by cardboard and pondering IKEA instructions, Tim introduces a lady from across the street who invites us to a soiree to meet our new neighbours.  A week later, the man across the road kills a pig and comes to our house with an offering of offal. I’ve never cooked heart before so it is my son, who’s done six months as a chef in Vodka Revolution who gets the job. And not a bad job he makes of it either. The following day, the same man is back with a pair of outsized marrows and when Tim returns the bowl that the offal was delivered in he comes home with the heart of a hart, a deer that Robert killed in the forest that morning! Our culinary skills are certainly being put to the test.

We've got grapes!

Yesterday was Ascension Day and the Vide Grenier, or car boot sale, which accompanied the petanque, fishing matches and general nosh up, completed the kitting out of our kitchen. But at the end of the day our little village in eastern France put on an amazing display of fireworks, far outstripping our expectations of a village event,  a veritable bombardment, revealing the pride and strength of the community we’ve just joined.

Time to work on my French I think.

Biba

LEAD Europe London Module Day 5

Friday 15 July  — Thank You!

Brought to you by the My Car (Mark Yulia Carolina Alan Rolf)  Blog Team.

Warning: some of the more outlandish things said below are not true.  If in doubt contact the My Car Blog Team.

Urgent: if you don’t have time to read everything do look at two things:

1)      Do the Doodle — we (Cohort plus Melina, Julianne and Edward) want to get together for a night of beer and boogie-woogie in Brussels before or after the course so let us know what day suits

2)     Check out “Stuff to do” below as this is stuff you should do before Brussels!

So What happened?

Fuzzy Rabbits

A stressful start to the day with many fuzzy heads from the ale and wine the night before.  Eyes were as wide as the empty stomachs of those who missed breakfast with the realisation that we were making a presentation ‘to outsiders’ at 10.30!  In true Darwininan group dynamics those who were most hung-over and late for breakfast were selected to present.  A cohortee was overheard saying: “What! Me present!  No Way! . . . [protracted pause] . . . Present what?”

Team Coke was smart enough to avoid the morning mayhem by making a video presentation which has apparently now gone viral among Coke and London 2012 staff.

Asif and the ‘working lunch’

Thursday’s blog team inspired us with a video blog of the previous day featuring Asif and his take on the U process including a step-by-step how to build a model from the leftovers of your dinner.  (Its rumoured that the video has gone viral among UN staff. “This is a whole new side to Asif that I didn’t know”, said Ban Ki Moon in UN News on Saturday.)

Shock and Awe — Pecha Kutcha shows us the depth and genius of our cohort mates

Where have the Ghandis gone? 

Mathias took us through his career with some slick geographical graphics and into his thoughts on leadership.  Organisations are full of Ghandi’s who can do good but the leadership is usually made up of Hitlers.  Does power corrupt the Ghandis or does the system favour the Hitlers?   A great presentation — “perfect flow” said Nadejda, ‘inspiring’  said Carolina.

Globetrotting in Stiletto s

Xenya — our ‘environmentalist in stilettos’ – gave us an insight into her globetrotting career and her African-Australian-Russian-Swiss family and her ambitions to link fashion and sustainable development.  Xenya showed us some striking images the most memorable was probably the Massai woman in designer sunglasses who would pay more for the shades than she would earn in a whole year.  “We need to improve our dress sense” says Xenya if we are going to really make an impact among certain audiences.  (The My Car Blog team is constructing a dress-sense improvement monitoring system for unveiling in Brussels.)

Dancing Queen

After telling us about some of the more challenging aspects of Russia like ‘bears walking on the streets’ Yulia bust into dance to rapturous applause.  All without losing her place in the Petcha Kutcha.  Yulia energised the room as she took us through her life journey and passions for meditation dance and a Moscow garden.   The business sector in Russia better watch out as Yulia is clearly focussing her energy on them.  And we need to get ready for Brussels where Yulia is taking us dancing!

Challenged!

Katie from Hackney council and a representative from ODA joined us and Katherine from Coca-Cola skyped in.  A slick but humble introduction by Jono and Lisa  set the scene. Team Coke played their presentation  and Biba and Rolf took us through a recommendations on community engagement and ensuring benefits to the local community post-games.

Feedback from the challenge hosts was very positive they said that our suggestions were “not naive” and hit on many of the issues that they were already considering.  Katie and the ODA guy were especially interested in Leo’s ideas and experience in using music to integrate communities and strengthen the social fabric.  Alan bowled us over with his rapid and sure response to . . . . from Coke’s questions how would you spend £25,000.

The Lion in our mist

Leo gave us a powerful presentation on his life and work.  His courage in working in city outskirts including the favelas of Rio — which many people are too afraid to enter – is truly admirable.  His career journey is one of passion moving from Telefonica to the field of sustainable development.

A holistic life

Carla gave us a witty and intriguing story of her life.  Her calm and smooth presentation held many  surprises such as Carla’s background in holistic medicine, meditation , business,  and coaching.

Leading Polish Business

Ola wins the prize for modesty.  Her presentation took us through the high-level work she has been doing in Poland with Price Waterhouse Cooper on sustainable business.  Her work on sustainable business for 2050 is exciting and inspiring. Ola is clearly involved in a very strategic area of change in Poland and has a lot to teach us.  She will be in high demand in Brussels!

Mother of Leaders

Elena gave us an insight to her career from engineer to talent management in the super tanker that is British Petroleum.  Elena’s determination and energy came through very strongly and when she said she likes to lead ‘like a mother’ it was clear that she can providing strong but caring leadership.

Brainstorming projects

We started to firm up ideas for our LAP projects.  Groups on business, vision and social inclusion brainstormed on what could be done over the duration of the course.  Ideas are firming up around new models of business, business education, creating a vision for sustainable development and many other ideas.

The Lead Network

Lead Fellows Jennifer Otoadese and Paula Haddock took us through how they have used the Lead network giving us ideas and advice for our own engagement.  This gave us a critical piece of the puzzle regarding our future participation in Lead.

Stuff to do

Edward took us through a short but important session on “stuff to do” post- London (that also means before you get to Brussels for the rule benders out there):

• Personal development plan (do the exercises, share them with Edward if you like and share your self-assessment with your Learning Trio)
• Ning your Book Review – you should put it under “Resources”  (reviews should look at why you chose the book, what it’s about and what you learned)
• Send in LAP proposal by 29 July and put it in the relevant Ning Room.  You should also try and find a coach or mentor who you can provide feedback on the project from time to time.
• Watch Edward’s Presentation on leadership and give him some feedback as it’s the first time did something like this.
• And be ready to receive a system thinking task and preparation for negotiation simulation in Brussels – you will be given a role (e.g. Prime Minister of Germany) and will need to do some research to be able to fulfil it properly.

 

Feedback

Unfortunately some of us missed the feedback session which was an emotional but wonderful experience.  We each wrote something positive about each of the other Cohort members.  The act of writing about each person gave time for reflection about what we really appreciate about each other.  It was very emotional reading what colleagues had written – they reinforced some ideas we had about ourselves but didn’t dare believe and showed us aspects of ourselves that we had never even thought about.  The experience brought us closer to each other — “you could feel friendship crystallising in your heart” said one male cohort member who prefers to remain anonymous.

THANK YOU!

But by far the most moving moment of the week was presenting flowers to Edward, Julianne and Melina.  We have all been inspired, exhausted and emotionally charged by the week.  The creativity and hard work behind making it happen was very clear.  So Edward, Julianne and Melina on behalf of us all (and once again): A BIG THANK YOU!  And see you in Brussels!

To stay in the LEAD mood whilst waiting for the Brussels module, please enjoy these quotes from London:

“Bin adoption”	“Rush Rush Rush!!!”	“I’m Turkish”
“Ben the Bin”	“Tap the Oyster card”	“Did you bring the staff?”
“Walk the talk”	“Don’t forget to bring your passport”	“Speak for your tree!”
“Break the rules”	“Pecha Kucha”	“Brick/Green/Gold”
“Systems thinking”	“Pacha mama”	“U-Process”
“Planetary boundaries”	“Support our home team”	“AHA-Moments”
“Olympic Games London 2012”	“Recycling together / the UK gets better!”	“See you in Brussels!”

Finally, some inspiring quotes on leadership and sustainability from established leaders:

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader”
John Quincy Adams

“You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself”
Nelson Mandella

LEAD Europe London Module – Day 3

Yesterday, Wednesday July 13th, was another great day of learning by doing as part of the LEAD Europe 2011 London module. At the end of the day, four of us (Nadejda, Yaara, Frank and Sarah) got together to reflect on and blog about our experience of the day. Here is what we thought:

Nadejda: Frank, what stood out for you as part of what we did yesterday morning?

Frank: Well, we started early at 8am! We were promised an interesting breakfast discussion, but unfortunately could not take breakfast into the conference room! I smuggled a few croissants as a solution! After that, we were off to a great start and quickly got into the flow of things. We had two great speakers: David Grayson at the UK Cranfield School of Management and Gib Bulloch at Accenture Development Partnerships. The topic of our discussion was social intrapreneurship.

First, David Grayson gave us an outline of the innovation brought into organizations by social intrapreneurs. These are people who have the vision, the mindset and the means to build more sustainable organizations and they do that from the inside. David said that socialintrapreneurs’ initiatives tackle environmental and social challenges profitably.

Nadejda: What messages stood out for you in the discussion?

Frank: ’Progress is made when you have a cafetiere and a percolator approach.’ In other words, top down leadership is needed to push change through and bottom-up action need to be bubbling up. Also, ’a prerequisite for leaders today are partnership brokering skills’. What was also said is that ‘we need to move from the tyranny of the ‘or’ to the genius of the ‘and”, in other words, we need to integrate and work collaboratively in order to address our today challenges.

Nadejda: I agree, that was a great start of the day! And then we had some Pecha Kucha presentations, right? Yaara, would you tell me about those? What is a Pecha Kucha?

Yaara: Hm, Pecha Kucha comes from Japan as a term and is a fun way of making a Power Point presentation. The rule is 20 slides, 20 seconds each. We have been using the Pecha Kucha format in order to present ourselves, our interests and aspirations to the LEAD Europe Cohort 16 group. It has been so fun! I love the Pecha Kuchas we have had so far.

Nadejda: I agree! They have been absolutely brilliant. What stood out for you in the Pecha Kuchas we had yesterday?

Yaara: I really liked Laura‘s way of presenting, she was so excited and engaged! Her passion about education was great! The message I got from her presentation was the importance of education in sustainability. Then I loved how Pedro used photos in his presentation. It was great to see how his family had influenced him to develop both personally and professionally. Then we had you Nadia! You had a very clear structure in your presentation, with a clear passion about what you are doing and your ambition came through very clearly. …

Yaara: And then, what followed? Was it the U Process? What did you think about it Nadia?

Nadejda: Yes, then we had an introduction to the U Process as a way of suspending judgement in sensing, understanding and addressing problems and situations. It was good to make the distinction between technical (simple) problems that can be solved by getting experts together, and adaptive (complex) problems that can not be solved by technical solutions but by consulting stakeholders. This is what the U Process is for, to enable adaptive problems to surface up, then ‘presence’ the most appropriate solution and co-create a new reality.

Yaara: Did you have an ‘aha’ moment as far as experiencing the U Process?

Nadejda: What brought the U Process home for me was the game we played after we got back from our field visits. We acted out stakeholders we interviewed. It was so great! As we went into the game, I had more and more stakeholder messages coming into me and acted them out to express what the stakeholder experience was. So did everybody else. A great way to suspend judgement and sense together as a group.

Yaara: I agree. The U Process discussion also fitted in nicely with our introduction to and understanding of systems thinking over the previous two days. Both systems thinking and the U theory made us adopt a non-linear approach to understanding situations and finding solutions.

Nadejda: Yes, I agree.

Frank: And then, what about the site visits? Sarah, what did you think about your group site visit?

Sarah: Yes, as part of our London 2012 Olympics challenges we have been meeting some of the stakeholders. It was great to get out of our conference centre and meet them yesterday afternoon. At our meeting, Alex from the Olympic Delivery Authority gave us lots of information on the Hackney Council planning process and then we were inspired by the diverging views of the Hackney people. I really liked it when we first got to Hackney, it is an interesting area and vibrant area and we could see and smell change everywhere. Apparently the Olympic Games are a great opportunity for building affordable housing for young families in the area and in this way revive the area.

Nadejda: I agree, the site visits were great to get a sense for our challenges and meet the stakeholders. Then what happened, Yaara?

Yaara: Then, after we got back and reflected on the site visits, we had some very fruitful discussions in our learning trios and quartets about our learning so far. We all felt this was well needed after the very interesting and super intense last three days!

Nadejda: I agree, it has been both very interesting and intense. I am looking forward to the London module remaining two days.

LEC16 London Module Blog – Day 3

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