Petro Janse van Vuuren

June 24, 2010July 16, 2010

Keep Them Safe Stage 3, part 1 – The journey begins

Klapmuts soup drinkers giving the thumbs up

But

on the first and second days, it was pouring with rain. When the clouds finally cleared, the mountains were covered in snow. Needless to say, very few kids came to the activities. This proved to be the first of many unforeseen obstacles on the road to running a successful holiday programme.

Because of this, PITCH teams adapted their plans and issued new calls to adventure. They nursed the kids through their doubts and fears with hot soup and warm smiles and an explosive first week line up! .

For over 3 months we recruited, trained and nurtured about 200 adult volunteers to get them ready, so that they can get us ready. Then the time for preparation simply ran out and the Journey was upon us.

On 11 June Bafana Bafana scored the first goal of the Fifa Soccer World Cup and the following Monday on 14 June KTS kicked off. It was rainy and freezing cold but all over Stellenbosch courageous teams stood ready for kids who needed warm food and entertainment.

It is now nearly 2 weeks later and numbers are increasing every day.

But where do the kids come from? How did they know to come and where to come too? How did they know what they would find when they got there?

While the journey started form the adults and organisers, the kids still needed to be Called to Adventure.

You may have read earlier that we are designing 2 journeys simultaneously.

Keep Them Safe: a story about adults putting together a holiday programme for kids during the Fifa Soccer World Cup
The Perfect PITCH: a story about kids and young people playing and working to express themselves through Arts, culture, sport and entrepreneurship

Of course it is not true that the holiday programme started with marketing. In actual fact, the compassion days each community had to organise in preparation for the holiday programme also functioned as marketing events for the kids and young people.

Many communities followed these up with various events like talent shows and modelling competitions to get the kids’ attention. At the same time we, As back bone team, appointed a group to run a marketing campaign in schools to advertise the programme

At all these events the 3 elements of the Call to Adventure were taking into account:

Who is the target audience? What are their characteristics, strengths and weaknesses?
What do their Ordinary Worlds look like? How are they stuck?
What is our promise to them?

But something went wrong with the marketing… when KTS kicked off, only young kids arrived. There were very few, if any, young people older than 11. What happened?

One reason was that the schools that were visited with the marketing group were mostly primary schools, so the older kids never heard the Call. Although all Secondary Schools were also targeted, few opened their doors for the marketing group.

Also the holiday programme was designed so that young kids would play from 9 to 12 and the older ones from 11 to 14:00. This was hard to advertise and communicate it seems. Youngsters who did arrive came early with the little ones and then left when they saw too few of their own age there.

When PITCH teams saw this trend, many came up with good ideas in the first week to get youngsters on board. Some paraded through the streets with music and mega phones calling the kids out of their homes and out of the streets. Others changed their programmes by using the older kids who came early to assist with the young ones. Eventually in some communities the two sepearte programmes have now just fused into one.

Finally, a team of photographers and writers have added their weight to our project and have taken it upon them to make the project more visible in the local media. We ar forever thankful to them. Thank you to the adult Asset Builders of Stellenbosch.

Eventually we are noticing that the best Call to Adventure for the older kids is the content of the programme itself. The longer it runs, the more friends tell each other and the more kids and young people pitch for the perfect PITCH.

The Perfect PITCH programme is its own ‘perfect pitch’.

Why? Because kids, but especially young people are full of fears and doubts and it takes time for them to overcome these and commit fully to the adventure. Maybe more on that next time as we go a little deeper into the design of the programme itself and look at The Perfect PITCH – preparing kids for their journey.

June 23, 2010

Improv class 8 – 23 June 2010

Physicalization

Physicalization is the method used by improv players to create imaginary locations, objects, and events. The best way to help the audience and your fellow players see the objects and environments that you create is if you see it yourself.

We started the class with a guided fantasy into our imaginations. The adventure began on the beach, moved to a second-hand store, into a forest, into a castle with a table with delicious food, into a room with photos of significant events, into a room with a person on a thrown and finally into a garden. It is amazing to see how your imagination and your past experiences work together to create this dream like experience. It was interesting to hear who everyone saw on the thrown. Luci saw Richard Branson and Nolan saw an old friend who asked him if he liked his place.

In the following exercise we passed imaginary objects to each other. It was funny to see how the snoek turned into a tray with a half eaten sandwich, the prickly worm turned into a fox and the hot bowl of soup turned into a meatball. Or was it the worm that turned into a meatball and the ancient vase that turned into a fox?

For the next exercise everyone had to reach under their chairs and pull out an object without thinking beforehand what it was going to be. They had to discover something and then explore it until they got an emotional reaction from it. It is difficult not to think ahead and just discover something. However when you allow yourself just to discover, your discovery is much more interesting and your emotional reaction much more authentic.

Next we played an environment exercise. For this exercise a location is determined and then one by one each character must enter the location and use all the objects that all the previous players used and then add another object. It is important to remember where each object was placed. A good way to practice your physicalization is to notice in everyday life how you hold different objects. Doing this will help you to be more present in your day to day actions. We picked a library for our location. I really enjoyed the characters that everyone used in the environment. When you do it in a character you find a lot more interesting things to do with the object. Choosing a character and acting and reacting from that character are probably one of the most important improv practices. For me it is also one of the best applications of improv in everyday life. Who you are, is more important than what you do, because who you are determines what you do. Therefore it is more important to figure out who you are than what it is that you are suppose to do.

For the final exercise we played two person scenes where the first player had to establish an environment through physicalization (the where of the scene). The second player had to establish the relationship between the characters (the who of the scene). The scenes were lovely, thanks for everyone’s participation.

Our one word proverb of the class was: Bafana het almal geskok met voortreflikheid.

Comments?

June 23, 2010July 16, 2010

Keep Them Safe Stage 2 – Preparing for the Journey

KTS leaders regrouping at a team building session

But

internal doubts plagued them. The task was a mammoth one and few felt they could make a difference by themselves. Where would they find the time and money? They weren’t trained for this kind of thing? How will they ever be able to keep it up and sustain such an output?

Because of this the Stb municipality, TUG and the Asset Builders Network joined together to run the Keep them Safe project. Its aim: to equip community leaders for the task of running their own holiday programme for kids during the Fifa World Cup.

And so the backbone team, workshop leaders and pitch teams embark on the enormous task of organising 12 holiday programmes in 12 communities across Stellenbosch. 200 adults 10 000 kids and young people. Their first task: to test their abilities by organising one Compassion Day Programme before the actual programme kicks off.

Peter Block author of Community – the Art of Belonging, teaches the importance of allowing people to raise and share their doubts and reservations. Unless room is given for people to identify and share their concerns and fears, they are unable to move beyond getting excited about something and taking action to make that thing happen.

Doubts and reservations should always be allowed into the space and accepted for what they are. Sales people will also know that if you can accept and work with the potential buyer’s reservations and objections, you are more likely to make a sale.

This marks the first of three elements that make up Stage 2 of the story:

Preparing for the Journey

Refusal of the call: When the internal doubts and reservations are too strong and the protagonist does not feel like he/she has what it takes.
Meeting the Mentor: The introduction of a guide that sees the potential in the protagonist and is willing to offer training and mentorship that would enable them to meet the challenge.
Crossing the Threshold: Protagonist must perform a clear action that proves his/her commitment to the adventure.

As the protagonist sorts out his fears, objections and doubts, he becomes more and more ready to make a commitment or not. While many questions were answered during one on one conversations, we also formalised this stage at our Taster launch. We divided the group according to their area of interest: Performing Arts, Arts and Crafts, Entrepenurship, Sports, Education and Community Wellness.

Next we facilitated in each of those groups a conversation around doubts and reservations as well as the solutions the group could come up with together to address those problems.

We knew that if the questions are not heard and answers do not satisfy, the commitment is not there. In the same breath, if those doubts remain after your utmost attempts to overcome them, you do not want the person’s commitment anymore, because their heart is somewhere else. Let me explain.

For Keep them Safe we had two main objections: Where will the resources come from? How are you going to ensure sustainability?

Our answer to both was the same: How can you help us with this problem? Those who could not volunteer their time, see where they could find resources or did not see themselves commit to the dream long-term, were not the right people for the job.

In fact, our entire strategy focussed on balancing the dream with the cost.

IF the potential partner buys the dream, they will pay the price. This was also our sustainability plan: If a community could find the resources (time, money, skills, equipment etc) within themselves they will be independent from outside funding and resources and therefore will be able to find it time and time again for every holiday programme to come. Their independence makes it sustainable.

Now make no mistake, many said ‘we are from a poor community, we have nothing to offer’ and we would say: we will help you find what you need’. We offered training in project management, leadership and fundraising. We also offered training and support for workshops and programmes. We provided guides and mentors for every lack.

By the time Keep Them Safe was over, every community would have a trained team that would co-ordinate and run their own holiday programme with resources from their own community. We called them PITCH teams.

At our Taster launch we therefore included an entire programme of introductions where partners and organisations presented their offerings of training and support. It was a dialogue between the fears of the teams and the offerings of the guides.

Finally, we needed all teams to prove their commitment and so we issued their first challenge: within the next two months they would have to run a Compassion Day programme once in their communities. They had to identify a need within their community and organise the kids and youth to address that need with resources from within their own community – or resources that they found themselves outside the community. Again we would provide training and guidelines.

To summarise, the second stage of every story is the preparation for the journey. IF you are planning a programme or project here are the questions you need to answer:

How will you air and validate your target audience’s doubts and reservations? How can you clarify the cost of the commitment?
Who are the Mentors and what training can they offer? How will theymaximise the strengths of the target audience?
What clear action do protagonists have to take to prove their commitment?

June 22, 2010July 16, 2010

Keep Them Safe Stage 1 – The Call to Adventure

Boy with soccer ball in Kayamandi

Once upon a time

there were leaders who saw young people full of potential all across Stellenbosch.

Every day they would do their bit to help the kids discover and utilise their potential. Yet they felt alone in their struggle against the lack of opportunities, the hopelessness and the moral degeneration that threaten to steal the futures of the kids they work with.

Then one day South Africa, is chosen to host the soccer world cup. With it came the promise of economic influx, more money and more hope for everyone. Also along with it came the predators, those who promise the same, but exploit instead: human trafficking, commercial sex, child abuse, substance abuse. The leaders knew the kids would need to be kept safe. They also knew that the world cup would unleash a wave of opportunity for change and transformation – a wave that they needed to ride…

Yesterday I shared with you that most projects contain at least 2 stories: the story of the organisers who dream the dream and put together the project and the story of the target audience for whom they are designing the project.

Keep Them Safe is the story of the leaders and adults who embarked on the journey of realising the dream of a holiday programme for kids and young people all across Stellenbosch for the entire 4 week Fifa World Cup tournament.

The Perfect Pitch is the story of the kids and young people who sign up for the programme.

I am sharing with you the chronological unfolding of each of these stories stage by stage. Every story has 5 stages:

I The Call to Adventure

II Preparation for the Journey

III The Journey itself

IV Ordeal and Reward

V Returning Home

In real time today 22 June, the stories are both in the Journey stage, but let me tell you more about the Call to Adventure of Story 1 – Keep Them Safe.

Every Call to Adventure contains 3 essential elements:

an introduction to the protagonist or hero – once upon a time there was …
a description of their Ordinary World which includes a problem which they are either unaware of, or unable to overcome – every day they would…
a once in a life time Opportunity that promises a solution, or a way out – then one day…

We issued our Call to Adventure in two main ways from September 2009 to March 2010.

First we(and I really mean Henko, the project leader) had one on one coffee conversations with everyone he identified as possible partners – possible heroes for this story. In these meetings they would share their common concerns about the youth – their Ordinary World and the problems they face. Then Henko would introduce his dream… Because of his heartfelt identification with the plight of the prospective hero (being one himself) and his enthusiasm for his dream, the idea spread like wild fire. OF course Henko would never take credit for the idea since it was sparked in him after a conversation he had with people from The Ultimate Goal, the SA Sports Cohalition and the Stellenbosch municipality. Still he saw the opportunity and started to call everyone and any one to join the adventure.

The Second way we issued the Call was more formalised. In March 2010 we launched a KTS Taster. The aim of this event was to gather everyone who had had a coffee conversation with Henko or one of the others he had ignited, into one space. We wanted to launch our dream formally and explain it to as many ;people as we could gather.

Representatives were brought in from all over the Stelenbosch district and put together in one room to get all the hot coals together and start a bonfire.

Yet now everyone had had time to ponder over the project and some concerns, doubts and reservations had begun to surface. We were moving into the next stage of the story: preparing for the journey… I will tell you all about that tomorrow.

In the mean time, if you have a project that you want to ‘sell’ figure out:

Who is your target audience/protagonist? Is there more than one?
What is their context (Ordinary World) like? What problems do they face that seem insurmountable?
What solution can you provide that will speak directly to this need? What once in a life time opportunity can you identify and optimise (The Call)?

June 22, 2010June 29, 2010

Team Innovation through Improvisation – Part 3

Click here for more information about our Team Innovation through Improvisation Workshops.

Risk

For a team to be innovative individuals in the team must take risks and help the others to feel safe to take risks. Most people are terrified of taking risks because they are afraid of failing and how others will react when they fail. So in order to protect ourselves from others we rather not take any risks. The irony is that some of the most revolutionary inventions started out as a failure. Just think of penicillin that was invented when a scientist noticed that his “failed” experiment was killing bacteria. Or post-it notes that was invented when a researcher of 3M who wanted to develop a very strong adhesive just created a somewhat sticky substance. His colleague accepted the “mistake” and used it to stick his bookmark in his hymn book. In improvisation we say “everything is an offer”, even a so called mistake. Your responsibility towards yourself to help create an innovative team climate is to take risks. Your responsibility toward your team members is to accept their failures and do something with it.

Quick exercise:

Before you start your next brainstorming session let everyone stand in a circle. Tell them that everyone will get the chance to step forward into the circle, then say anything in the line of “I made a mistake” or “I failed” and then give a big bow. The rest of the group must then give a round of applause. This exercise is called circus bow, because whenever a trapeze artist makes a mistake and falls down into the net, he will make a summersault out of the net and bow towards the audience as if that was exactly what was supposed to happen. Ask the following debrief questions:

How did that make you feel being applauded for stating that you made a mistake?

How did it feel to applaud the others?

What can we learn from this exercise?

How can we help each other to take risks?

Click here to read part 1 – Introduction
Click here to read part 2 – Communication
Click here to read part 3 – Risk
Click here to read part 4 – Control

June 21, 2010July 16, 2010

Keep Them Safe – Introduction

Since September last year (2009) a handful of people including myself, started to dream about a mammoth project that will stretch across the entire Stellenbosch district during the Soccer World Cup. While many saw either dollar signs or red flags, we saw a great opportunity for transforming our communities by focussing on kids and young people.

What if we could use world cup fever (or fevah) as a Call to Adventure and community transformation?

The Keep Them Safe project was born.

Today I am thrilled to report that there are holiday programmes running in 13 communities across Stellenbosch targeting kids and young people. The programme is called ‘The Perfect Pitch’ , it will run for 4 weeks and is entirely managed by teams of people from the communities themselves. Today I begin telling our story.

The purpose of the story

From the start I was privileged to contribute my knowledge of story and mythic journeys to help design the entire project as a journey of growth and transformation for all involved.

The story structure of a mythic journey has as its main purpose the transformation of the hero, also called protagonist. The entire story is designed to fulfill this function and every character in the story play his or her role in such a way that the hero can grow. The only difference between the hero and anyone else in the story is transformation and everything and everyone else is there purely to contribute to this.

It follows therefore, that it may be possible to use the structure of story to design a journey of transformation for other people. If you understand how to design a story so that the hero transforms, you can use this knowledge to design events and programmes that would let the participants transform and grow. This is what we did for Keep Them Safe.
Using the 5 basic stages of the mythic journey as well as its sub components, we designed such a journey of growth. As you read about my process, keep in mind that the same principles will be true for any other programme or event you want to design.

The title of the story

Before getting to the first stages, we must first determine the title of the story. The title refers to the protagonist and the challenge of the journey. To keep titles short, one or the other usually valls away eventually, but to get to the final title, both elements need to be clarified. A good example is Sleeping Beauty i.e. the girl who needed to wake” or Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Many stories only have the name of the protagonist e.g. Hanzel and Grettel , others only have the challenge e.g. Titanic. Of course stories have other titles too, but the most common titles are the ones referring to the protagonist and his challenge.

Early on we discovered that The Keep Them Safe project has two titles referring to two different protagonists and two different challenges. Since then I realised that this is true of most projects and it is essential to take the two (and sometimes three) stories apart.

For us the stories were:

Keep them Safe: The story of community leaders working together to keep their young people safe.

The Perfect Pitch: The story of young people creating a perfect pitch for their own lives and their communities.

Today is the first day that these two stories are in exactly the same stage i.e. The Journey itself. So with both stories now running on their own and gaining momentum, let me tell you how we got here, and why the two stories did not overlap until today…

June 18, 2010June 29, 2010

Team Innovation through Improvisation – Part 2

Click here for more information about our Team Innovation through Improvisation Workshops.

Communication

In order for a team to be creative together there needs to be a lot of interaction and information sharing. This can only happen if the communication in the team is very good. Your responsibility towards yourself is to be fully present and your responsibility toward your team members is to fully listen and be aware of them. Being fully present and aware of your team members is referred to in Improvisation as “being in the moment”.

Quick exercise:

Next time before you start a meeting first do the following exercise. Split the group in small groups of 3. Tell them that each person must tell the other 2 in the group what they need to say to be fully present. They should start their sentence with “what I need to say to be fully present is….” One of the other must then mirror that persons exact words by starting their sentence with “I hear that what you have to say to be fully present is…” It is important that the person mirroring does not give an interpretation of what they heard, but try to use the exact same words as far as possible. The other person in the group can then add if any detail was not mirrored back to the speaker. Each person must get a chance to say what they need to say to be fully present. The exercise is not so much about saying what you need to say to be present, but being listened to fully without judgment. When we listen to people like this we help them to become fully present. In essence what we are doing is accepting them and showing them that they are welcome and worth being listened to. When last did someone listen to you completely and made you feel fully present? When last did you listen to someone with acceptance and without judgment, helping them to be completely present?

Click here to read part 1 – Introduction
Click here to read part 3 – Risk
Click here to read part 4 – Control

To read more about the other 6 elements of an innovative team climate watch this space.

June 18, 2010June 18, 2010

Improvisation class 7 – 15 June 2010

Breaking routines

This Tuesday’s class was all about breaking routines. And I’m going to break the routine by writing the rest of the blog in Afrikaans.

HierdieDinsdag inplaas daarvan om klas te hê, het ons almal by Basic bymekaar gekom vir ‘n glasie wyn. Die rede daarvoor was omdat daar ‘n double booking op die saal was waar ons gewoonlik bymekaar kom. Ruan, wat die vorige klas gemis het, het gevra waaroor verlede week se klas gegaan het. Ek het hom toe vertel dat dit gegaan oor storie en dat dit basies daaroor gaan dat ‘n mense goeie storie skep deur ‘n roetine te skep en dan die roetine te breek. ‘n Vinnige voorbeeld is: “Een dag lank gelede was daar ‘n dorpie waarniemand ooit gelag et nie (‘n roetine word geskep). Toe eendag kom daar ‘n bose towenaar na die dorp (roetine word gebreek) en omdat niemand ooit gelag het nie het hy mag oor die mense gehad en hulle sy slawe gemaak (nuwe roetine word geskep). ‘n Jong seun in die dorp ontdek toe ‘n antieke boek met grappies in sy ouma se huis en begin dit lees en vir die ander mense grappies te vertel. Vir die eerste keer begin die mense weer lag ontdek (roetine word gebreek). Al die mense begin toe vir mekaar die grappies oor vertel en soos die mense meer en meer begin lag het die bose towenaar sy mag oor die mense verloor en weg gevlug uit vrees dat hulle hom sal dood lag. En so het die dorpie bekend geraak as die dorpie waar almal baie lag (‘n nuwe roetine word geskep. Maar hierdie slag is die roetine beter as die roetine waarmee die storie begin het). Liezel sê toe dat ons eintlik ook net besig was om ‘n roetine te breek deur nie klas te hê nie maar ‘n glasie wyn te drink. Nolan vertel toe dat hy besig is om ‘n roetine te breek deur op te hou rook. As ons wil hê ons lewens moet beter stories wees is dit nodig dat ons roetines in ons lewens breek. Baie mense is vasgevang in seker roetines wat hulle verhoed om die lewe voluit te lewe.

Die res van die aand het ons net lekker gekuier. Luci en Minki het gesels oor skaapvleis verkoop. Ruan het vertel van sy partytjie wat hy vir volgende jaar wil beplan. En Liezel het ons die storie van die tweeling vertel. Dankie aan almal, dit was ‘n lekker kuiertjie

June 15, 2010July 15, 2010

Team innovation through improvisation – Part 1

Click here for more information about our Team Innovation through Improvisation Workshops.

Introduction

Changes in business environments have resulted in a need for the development of innovative teams, because it is through teams that the management of change through innovation is achieved. One of the factors that play a crucial role in the innovation shown by teams is the climate for innovation within the team. This climate is the same as the climate prevalent in an improvisation theatre group who respond to ideas from their audience, fellow actors and the scenario quickly and creatively and in collaboration with one another. Research has shown that the exercises used by improvisation actors can be used to enhance the innovative climate in a work team. Neuroscience also supports improvisation as an experiential learning tool. Applied improvisation is an emerging field and business schools all over the world are starting to include it as part of their leadership and innovation courses.

The 7 crucial elements of an innovative team climate:

There are 7 elements that play an important role in an innovative team climate. These elements are Communication, Risk, Control, Ideas, Relationship, Vision and Excellence. In each of these elements each team member has a responsibility towards him/herself and a responsibility towards his/her team members. All of these elements are interrelated and need to work together to create an innovative team climate.

Watch this space for a discussion of each of these elements.

Click here to read part 2 – Communication
Click here to read part 3 – Risk
Click here to read part 4 – Control Introduction

June 9, 2010

Improv Class 6 – 8 June 2010

Story was the focus of last night’s class. We started the class with a word association game call Todododo. We struggled with the game because everyone was still up in their heads so we first did the “what I need to say to be fully present” exercise. We also did a relaxation exercise. Being more present and relaxed made Todododo much better.

After that we played a Word association game. This game illustrated how our minds automatically make links between random words. In the next game everyone paired up with one other person. The one had to come up with 4 unrelated sentences that the other had to connect together to create a story. Relating random events together is what makes a story.

Then we played Automatic Story. In this game one player has to ask yes/no questions about the storyline of an unknown story that the other player has in mind. What the questioning player doesn’t know is that the person answering the questions is only saying yes to questions starting with a vowel and no to questions starting with a consonant. The person asking the questions is therefore making up the story without knowing it. This game illustrates how easy it is to make up our own stories. Isn’t it interesting how in life we also often think that someone else is in control of our stories, while we are actually the authors of our own life stories?

The next game that we played was what happens next? In this game Franz was an old man whose hip broke in 7 places and then he was healed by a Native American who let him smoke his peace pipe. Nolan and Minki where 2 Xhosa woman and Minki didn’t want Nolan to visit her home town where there was a big event happening. The routine of the story was broken when Nolan blew up a giant balloon from the gum that fell out of Minki’s grocery bags. Luci then reincorporated the town where the big event was happening by letting Nolan fly there with the balloon.

Key concepts:

Reincorporation: Recycling or re-using ideas or situations from earlier in the story.

Platform: The who, what and where of a scene. Success of a scene often depends on a solid and clear platform.

Breaking routine: Interesting twitch to advance a scene, or to cause status change.

One word proverb: Swart mense hou van eet en drinka

Please share your thoughts.