How 72 hours Changed my Innermost Culture

Foundation Weeks, a fancy name for Hyper Island’s crash-course, is the first module we undergo at HI before starting long-term programs.

During four weeks — Way Week, Vision Week, Ideation Week and Industry Week– we learnt about tools and methodologies to adapt and thrive within a fast-paced, ever-changing world, both digital and analogue, in which we live today.

It’s also a first immersion into self-leadership and self-knowledge, where we get our first try at learning how to navigate within different groups and teams, playing different roles and reflecting on the stands, attitudes and responsibilities.

Ideation Week started with familiar faces, as our Digital Business class got together as a group again: ‘our’ safe haven, after having to mix and mash with groups from other programs the previous week. How quickly we developed comfort zones! How naturally we tend to rush back to them!

On Tuesday, chaos was the order: new concepts, new people, new teams, new task, and a client-based project. It all got overwhelming very quickly, resulting in old approaches kicking in.

I realised how quickly I jump to my old patterns. Should I lead the team? How should I bring conflicts up? And of course: ideas, where am I gonna look for them?

During Ideation Week, we faced our first real-world client: an NGO that challenged us to come up with solutions to build on the work they were doing to raise empathy for the needy in our society today. All of this within the boundaries of technological and financial feasibility.

Day 1

The mood within my group is one of politeness and democracy. It’s all about not talking too much or too little; not taking too much space. We participate with caution, bringing up each step as a suggestion, even though we have a how-to plan to develop our team culture for the next three days. Nevertheless, we hear each other out, pointing out at good remarks, trying to build on every comment, agreeing on whatever is being said, too afraid of saying no, or coming down as too harsh. Very … consensus driven.

However, I’m honestly stressed about everyone’s attitude, including mine. It felt like everyone should stop talking, take decisions and move on; all these ‘formalities’ were getting on my nerves. I wanted to understand the roles each of us would play in our group, get to work, and start working toward success.

But I say nothing.

~How quickly we forget that building teams, communication and trust take time, that each one of us have a different understanding on what success is to us, and that fulfilling the need to be included in a team is the first step~

I try to remember the lessons and tools I’ve been introduced to the past few days, and which now sit crammed in my head, overlapping and contributing to my levels of stress.

Trust the process, I try to remind myself. If uncomfortable, stay there.

I though, wanted to quit and run to my comfort zone.

Day 2

My team is not completely tensed anymore, but we’re still working on it. Each one of us has a different approach, a different background. Still, amidst the chaos, the yet unknown universe of Hyper has a process; everything has a moment, a place and a time.

Our challenge is painfully developed through a series of new tools and a new mindset. The rational part of me knows this is how things should be; I’m all in for walking the talk, putting things in practice. My mind, on the other hand, is rebelling.

“Why, on top of everything, should we develop a two minute, mind-blowing solution, using tools ignored until now?”

A shadow of a concept, democratically built, has begun to appear in a –very– messy form. Enough for today. I leave papers and post-its with low energy, highly doubtful we’ll have anything worth showing on Friday.

I wanted to go back to my old-self, pull an all nighter and bring something which, although my team will not agree on, at least will save us us from losing the client, or worse, get us fired. Wait, did I say “fired”?

Day 3

I wake up feeling inexplicably positive, and surprised to learn that my team felt similarly. We set out to develop the project, eager to see how the finished solution would look like. Although there is still some way to go, for the first time, we feel the ‘move forward’ , confident about all the ideas we’ve developed, and glad we trusted the process.

The day flows smoothly; we’re getting in sync, trusting each other and communicating instead of talking. The reminder of our goal comes back and sheds new light on what we are building. It’s not about the end product; what really mattered is the process we are living together. How quickly we had forgotten!

Day 3 is over faster than we imagined, and I leave with a sense of pride, of accomplishment of having built something bigger than a two-minute video.

D-Day

In one word, Amazing!

We survived our first client, in a three-day process with a completely new team, and left feeling victorious. Faces are beaming with pride, a sense of accomplishment warming our hearts. After the delivery comes the feedback session. If I thought I was done talking about this project, I was wrong.

At this point I’ve learnt to be comfortable with the idea of having a feedback session, even if I still feel uncomfortable and awkward when giving and receiving feedback. I’m surprised by how smoothly things were running now within the team; we managed to enter a flowing state in less than three days.

Looking back, we realised we were affected by different things during our process. Something simple I did or said can make a world of difference to what my teammate experiences. It’s astounding how varied our journeys were, even though we lived this process together.

In the past, I would’ve ignored and skipped this part of the process, just to move on and start working on the next task. Having the opportunity to listen to others’ experiences and sharing mine, expressing our feelings and going back to what worked and what didn’t, taught me a lot not only about the workings of a team, but also about myself, within and without a team.