Do you remember that we announced the launch of Asia Tomorrow Together, the Underdogs’ global coach training program last May? A company of its words, from July 1–4 we delivered our very first coach training online, with seven participants from three countries in Asia.
Continued from Asia Tomorrow Together — Underdogs Global Coach Training #1
Underdogs Coach for Startups — What You Need to Do
From Day 2–3, the participants focused on working on the 4 Steps Approach, the Underdogs Social Innovation Startup Approach, with practical coaching guidelines and workshop practices for each step. The participating coaches were asked to be more intensely engaged, take relevant actions, and be more responsible for their communications.
We had asked our participants to come up with a business idea based on a specific social problem — as if they were entrepreneurs themselves. To fully understand our approach and how to utilize the provided tools and templates, the participants were then asked to practice themselves from all the steps, from defining the problem to developing the completed business model from their initial ideas.
As much as understanding the details of training contents, it is critical for all Underdogs coaches to be excellent facilitators and communicators. To maximize the engagement from each participant, every session had open discussions followed by individual feedback from the group. This particularly helped to develop the participants’ facilitation and communication skills, being in the entrepreneurs’ shoes, and learning from each other’s excellence.
Breaks in Between
All work and no break makes everyone dull — we know this for a fact! Here are some more fun activities and refreshing opportunities prepared for the participants.
Breaking the ice
Like it or not, in many cases it is also the coaches’ job to break the ice, so we advise our coaches to be familiar with some ice-breaking activities. This time, we tried one of our favourites, ‘I See You’, drawing your partner’s face without looking, and see how it went!
Conversation with Underdogs coaches in Korea
The participants had a brief virtual tour around the Underdogs office, featuring a special interview with the coaches in Korea. Through the interview, some of the newest projects were introduced, as well as sharing the challenges of being an Underdogs coach. It was a great opportunity for the participants to say hello to their new colleagues and feel welcomed by the team.
Small talk with an entrepreneur
It is always ‘fresh’ to hear what the entrepreneurs have to say about our training, so we invited an Underdogs alumni to join us virtually. Seunghee Heo, the founder, and CEO of Blue Mustard, shared how the learnings and skills developed from the training were applied in real business setting. It was also a testimony on the key strength and competency of the Underdogs training program.
Kahoot! Quizzes
What would be a better way to test your learning than…… quizzes? Kahoot! is a quiz platform where you can create your own set of quizzes and check your learning. We had a good amount of games to play with this, reviewing the keywords and messages from the training as well as including some questions just for fun!
First Step, and Moving On
To complete this intensive learning journey, the participants were asked to fully prepare to deliver presentations and leading workshops on the last day. This was to make sure that everyone had understood what needed to be understood, and also was confident in delivering the key messages from the training.
About 10 different topics were selected and the participants randomly picked which topic to present, as they would if they were working with entrepreneurs. By the end of each presentation, lecture, or workshop, there was feedback and facilitation provided, to make sure that there was enough interaction within the group. Also for each topic, some examples of real cases in a challenging context, and stories from past training sessions were shared for better learning.
With everyone successfully completing their tasks, finally, it was time to wrap it up.
We would like to thank again to all our new Underdogs coaches for your active participation in our Phase 1 training. The four days were intense, as all Underdogs training is, and yet their participation and commitment have shown us the rapport that has been built between us.
It is our hope that with our newly trained coaches, we will be able to identify new opportunities across Asia, and share Underdog’s training experience with wider communities. Also, the Underdogs Startup Approach will be further developed in collaboration with these global coaches, contributing to the contextualization and localization of entrepreneurs' training program for maximum impact.
As of September 2020, these coaches have already completed their Phase 2 by joining the Underdogs Global Camping as facilitators, last August. If you are interested in our Coach Training Program, please leave us a message at global@underdogs.co.kr
