Waldek Olbryk

Soundedit Festival or business-artists education

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 18:00:11 +0000

The goal of the meetings was to create an open network to foster creativity and transfer of knowledge. We simply wanted to meet, listen to different perspectives, share knowledge. This time it was all about one magic word: SUCCESS.

We met with Tomasz Książek from Philips, Grzegorz Dobranowski from IBM Polska, Agnieszka Jackowska-Durkacz from Infosys, Brian Griffin, Marek Bilinski, Piotr Metz, prof. Piotr Chomczynski, prof. Violetta Krawczyk – Wasilewska, and dr. Aleksandra Krupa – Ławrynowicz who shared their expertise and observations while learning mutually. We came up with ideas about innovation, feedback, collaboration, technology, grit, courage, e-folk, being one step ahead, good timing and fashion or trends, all of them spanning across the universe of business, education and art.

You can watch the digest of the event here:

– In 2018 we added athletes to the guest list

– In 2022 we probed into what we could to together to reduce our environmental impact, how to use the ESG concept to transform our businesses and organizations, and even search for innovations.

Micro-ideas, micro-changes, systems thinking

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 17:00:51 +0000

INTEGRATION is one of the good yet challenging practices in many organizations which I had to chance to observe. For each, even small change you need to find out how the whole concept will fit into your company or your business. Having agreed that it really fits, through tests, checks, feedback and possible adjustments, you can start your uphill journey of IMPLEMENTATION.

Very often many projects, concepts and brilliant ideas simply fail due to the missing managerial buy-in and people’s excitement at every level. Their effects are felt in other departments than initially expected and you may not necessarily have a positive story of change or courage to act.

Each time it’s like an experiment: a new way of doing things without any benefits apparent immediately or only in the long run. At the beginning all changes, even the tiny ones, look the same, whether they are successes or failures. It’s worth trying! Here you can read about small changes and innovation as creativity, all of them implemented successfully: https://waldekolbryk.com/management-by-mathematics/

I believe that once integrated into the system, reviewed and developed, small changes build real value over time. It may be a leap into a different reality…

CARTOON: journey to success by copyright M. Blachon

DYNAMICS OF NATURE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 16:00:05 +0000

Every time I look at an organization, project or team of people, I feel compelled to influence their so-called corporate culture.

Being a leader of some organizations I decided to introduce new habits and working methods which, assuming that they were repeated and developed, could consolidate the competitive edge of the company and improve the quality of work at each reporting level. This was supposed to be the DNA of a group of people who, with some support, would act together with courage and smile.

In the first step, we focused on SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE

We started with the review of each individual contribution and the clarification of each and every position in the company. The starting point was to define the position, together with its role and responsibilities, in order to eliminate any “grey areas”. We wanted to understand the goals of our actions and trigger the learning process. With this, we were able to define what should be done, and what an employee can expect from others and vice versa. This process was far from evident; we needed to build a sense of openness and security. One of the key outcomes was the confirmation that it was OK not to know something. It was also OK to have doubts, and we encouraged people to look for answers. It took a lot of discussions, often quite uneasy when we had some unexpected discoveries, e.g. duplicated jobs, inefficiencies etc.

Considering the above, we used a simple tool called the roles and responsibilities (R&R) matrix, supported by the concept of Situational Leadership (SLII).

The R&R model is a straightforward tool to show who does what in a specific area of the corporate business. It highlights correlations between work and responsibilities and “cleans up” ambiguities. For me this is “a health check” of the work to be done.

SLII®, or Situational Leadership https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przyw%C3%B3dztwo_sytuacyjne , is a theory developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. It assumes that there is no such thing as one best style of leadership. Effective leadership is task-relevant and the most successful leaders are those who adapt their leadership style to the maturity (‘‘the capacity to set high but attainable goals, willingness and ability to take responsibility for the task and the relevant education and/or experience of an individual or a group for the task”) of the individual or the group they are trying to lead or influence. Effective leadership will vary depending on the individual or the group you influence, and on the task, job or function to be executed.

Myself, I realized that SLII® is a great tool to nip in the bud the tendency to feel ashamed when asking questions and the “I know better” approach. By implementing it, the company gives its teams and individuals the right to openly ask for advice, look for help and share knowledge at different levels of the organization.

By doing these two exercises in a coordinated way, we challenged the organization. We strived to achieve better clarity, openness and trust. This in turn fostered new habits within the organization which next had to be kept alive. All in all, this was the starting point: defining the skills and knowledge that you should have in your organization with an open attitude to the known and the unknown.

As a follow-up, to induce better COOPERATION, both internally and externally, I proposed the review of the cooperation process both within teams and in contacts with customers and partners.

In my experiment – again based on a very simple tool – the team would take an effort to understand how they cooperate, considering their intuition, thinking, perception and feelings. The exercise builds self-awareness, creates better teams, and improves the quality of communication.

The tool is called Extended DISC® (https://www.extendeddisc.org/) . This is an assessment method which eventually helps you maximize the performance of your people. It helps eliminate costly mistakes, waste of time and resources. By implementing DISC®, the organization discovers different behavioral styles, while acknowledging and accepting the diversity within teams, and triggers reflections on different communication patterns. All those processes can be covered with the same single DISC® tool.

Once you know how to align the model with yourself, based on the same narrative you can move on to analyze other people, in your team and in the company. It becomes easier to ask questions, cooperate, listen and observe. Everything will go even more smoothly if you add openness underlying this model. SLII® will be a perfect solution to do the internal analysis of the company. This is just the next step towards so much wanted trust.

Let’s just focus now on the external world and our clients. These dimensions are made of people and teams, their own beliefs, behaviors or values. The better your self-awareness, the easier the work with clients. With a good dose of openness you will be able to understand what they need, and to see if you can provide them with solutions that meet or exceed their expectations. For me, this activity is all about discovering DISC behavioral patterns among clients and other people as well. It helps build sustainable business relationships, based on solid foundations and active listening.

Then, (this was another step in my experiment), as we’ve made the effort to get the clarity and build skills, knowledge, openness and cooperation, both internally and externally, our teams, whether in whole or through every individual member, would act more knowingly.

The time came for CHECKS and improvements. This was the moment for INNOVATION, REFLECTION and LESSONS LEARNED from the past.

We started internally, again in our own team. We organized lessons learned sessions for specific projects or ways of working, and even tried to co-devise projects and services together with our clients.

Once we made the whole journey, we were ready for new situations, on-going improvement and review of tools, all of that in a more and more evolving environment. I realized that all these phases happen in parallel. The whole trick is to do them better each time, reflecting on the past and re-integrating improvements into the company.

This is the picture I got at the end of the adventure from the team who would never rest on their laurels.

THE ROLE OF THE COACH

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 15:50:15 +0000

WO: What is the role of the coach in improving individual players and the team as a whole?

Szymon: First of all, the coach is a teacher.

WO: And a friend?

Szymon: He can but doesn’t have to be a friend. He has to be a teacher and leader, and needs to win the trust of the players. I think he also needs to be a good psychologist. You can yell at a player and this will work with one, but not with another who would need calm conversation, some praise and positive feedback as well. Can the coach be a friend? At the beginning, when I met Kuba, I called him “Mr. Jakub”. He’s my employer, he is on a higher level than I am, so I feel respect. But it’s also a friendly relationship. During a game there a different coach-team member dynamic is at play. We use the terms “coach” and “player”.

Szymon: The same goes for work, for business…

WO: Michał, how do sports influence the job of school principal? Are you the boss, or part of a team?

Michał: I’ve always seen the coach as a great authority figure, even when I just started playing. My coach was 25 years old, he must have just graduated from university, it was probably his first or second year on the job. For me, as for the whole team, he was someone who knew everything there was to know about basketball. He watched NBA games, which to us was something out of this world, he had uniforms sent over to us by his friends from the U.S. From the very beginning he was a great authority figure, even though when I think about it today he didn’t have a lot of experience or authority in the world of coaching.

WO: Let’s say that you see that during the game one player does something differently compared to what you initially planned. You talk to him after the game and he says “Well, I thought of something new and it worked. We won”. How do you react, as coaches? Do you introduce this new element into the game, or are you against because it was not in the original plan? How do you perceive innovation coming from the team?

Szymon: If this new element works and the team is successful, we are happy. If the person who thought of something new is creative, I think they should be given the opportunity to show creativity. If the point guard comes up with unusual plays let him develop and grow, especially in junior leagues. In senior sports, when big money and huge pressure are at stake, or when it’s the national team, in my opinion there is no room for creativity as it can cost the team too much. However, if I block creativity in a thirteen or fourteen year-old player he will stop growing.

WO: Do you allow risks? Changing plans mid-game?

Szymon: For risks – yes. If a given player is in a particular situation this means that he can do something that another person would not do.

Kuba: Going outside the box means that you are the one to take the risk.

Tomek: You are the one to take the risk because you know you are the best, and you are able to achieve what you have planned. I think that in order to be successful you need to go out of the box sometimes. This is what happens when the best player gets the ball in the last seconds of the game and if he fails, he takes the responsibility for his decision. LeBron James won the game because he scored a tie, blocked, and then scored a win. It was one person, one individual who won – the best player in the world. This is something you cannot plan, it’s impossible to plan a throw or a block

Kuba: It’s a matter of statistics; teams write them out to know what play to make at a given moment.

WO: And what about observing the competition?

Kuba: This works even in junior sports, with eighteen year-olds playing basketball in Poland. The coach is prepared and before the game he shows everyone the patterns of the opposing team. He focuses on their weaknesses, and on elements they’d use most frequently. In handball, a goalie who is going to defend a penalty shot is told how the player he faces threw penalty shots in the past and how he might throw now, how he reacts under stress, when people usually resort to tested solutions

WO: So it’s a standard…

Szymon: The goalie is told that there is 68 percent likelihood that the opposing player will throw in the upper right corner. So I think that the system of checking out the weak points of your opponents, analyzing their game patterns, and finding out how they react in stressful situations proves that sports came first and led the way, before business models were created.

WO: How do you find your best talents, and how do you develop them? You see someone who played out of the box, and that’s your cue? Or do you watch their growth path over a period of time? Do you focus on growing individual talents, or only teams?

Szymon: We care about the whole team, and talents will always stand out. You can scout for talented players, go to school tournaments, pick up boys for your team. You spot talents right away: a boy is nine years old, but he can throw three-point field goals and perform jump shots extremely well. But then, once he is on the team, I won’t treat him in any special way just because he is talented. I treat all the players equally. How would the others feel if I played favorites and kept setting the leader as an example? Everyone is treated the same. The one thing I can do is to give him more difficult tasks during practice, because what is difficult for other boys would come easy and natural for him. In order to grow talents you need to create challenges, expect more and more.

Kuba: This is precisely why the most talented players don’t become coaches; they had it easy since they were nine years old. They tried something twice or three times and had it down pat.

Michał: But at the school we look for talents, of course. Coaches travel to games to watch players. We are trying to grow the business. We have four schools across Poland, we share information, encourage players to develop their talent with us. When someone joins our team we will make sure they stay with us; we organize their sports education and their regular education to help them grow and develop.

Kuba: In junior sports you need to be very cautious because talents can emerge quite late. Marcin Gortat is a great example: he started playing when he was seventeen, which is very late for a basketball player. I am not sure, I’d need to check, but he may be the only player in the history to start playing at the age of seventeen, and then he landed in the NBA. On the other hand, there have been many players who developed their talent and skills very fast, everyone thought they would have great careers as athletes, but this didn’t happen, and one of them works at a fuel station now. They developed faster, had physical capabilities, were talented, but at some point they simply stopped growing.

I spoke to the management team of the Marcin Gortat School:

Michał Feter – principal of the Gortat School in Łódź for the last 4 years. Previously, for 10 years Michał worked as a coach and management advisor (including project management), and was responsible for prospecting external funding for projects, evaluation, and coach competencies. He is the author of over 200 grant projects. From an early age he has been fascinated by sports. Spain is his hobby.

Szymon Nowak – occupational therapist, teacher and publicist by education, who has been active in volleyball for his whole life. He loves working with people and for people. Before joining the Gortat School he worked for the Dziewczynka z Zapałkami and JiM Foundations. At the School he is responsible for marketing and for the development of the volleyball project. Coordinator of the Gortat School Business Club. He does what he loves by working in sports.

Tomasz Solarek – graduate of the University of Łódź with a degree in English. He used to play basketball for the ŁKS sports club and the University of Łódź, and worked for 7 years for the Marcin Gortat MG13 Foundation, where he was responsible for coordinating the Marcin Gortat Camp project. At present, he works for the Gortat School and the Gortat School Business Club. He is responsible for collaboration with American colleges to prospect sports scholarships in the U.S. for Gortat School students.

Jakub Urbanowicz – graduate of the Łódź University of Technology with a degree in Management. He used to play basketball for the ŁKS sports club and the Łódź University of Technology. He is responsible for the development of Marcin Gortat Schools in Łódź, Kraków, Poznań, and Gdańsk. Co-creator of the Gortat School Business Club. President of the ŁKS Male Basketball Association.

Passion2Value The concept of conversations and projects based on the combination of passions and values from various fields. By working in a specific setting, exercising or developing your passions, e.g. in sports or music, based on broader knowledge and skills from other disciplines, you can learn something as an academic discipline. You can create valuable things and enjoy yourself, at the same time.

Covid Talks – athletes and artists on a different gear

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 15:30:45 +0000

In these strange times we all stay at home with our families, and taking out the rubbish is a big deal as this is a chance to go outside.

For me, the Plan A was to co-organize the Polish Championships in Kettlebell Lifting scheduled for 21 March, and to take part in the European Championships, in Gaillard, France. The event in France has not been cancelled yet, but I am sure it will be in the upcoming days. So, I needed a Plan B. Now, when I stay at home, what strikes me the most is that I don’t have to hurry – and this is strange compared to my “normal” life. First, this is the time to do what I’ve never had time to do before, like working on my research paper. Second, it’s the time for my family: it was a challenge at first, but with each new day spent at home you adapt and learn to enjoy it. Third, I had two boxes of books, recent industry publications I’ve been buying over the years; finally I have time to dust them off and have a read. Fourth, it’s the time to catch up with my exercise, to refine my hand stand techniques and my evolutions, and to practice my “animal movements” as much as I can do that in a home setting. Plus the stretching part, always slightly forsaken. Fifth, it’s the time for me to finish all the audiobooks I’ve put aside. Sixth, I can now check the offer of postgraduate studies. I’m doing this for a simple reason: if I don’t learn new things I feel like I’d get stuck. I still believe that if you engage with people who are more experienced and have been in the business for years you have the chance to ask questions and capitalize on their experience. That’s the best way to grow. I need to do something. I am not someone who’d stay put or watch TV. I’d feel like I was wasting my time. I believe that I need to squeeze it as much as possible, even if there is plenty of free time right now.

The key thing for me is not to get panicky and manage the time reasonably to avoid any wastes. Sport-wise, I have the pleasure to be the part of an international organization; this is a special time for all of us, and we have no control over the situation. All over the world competitions are now being cancelled. Locally, here in Poland, we are trying to compete online just to recognize and appreciate the time spend by players on preparations, and the same option has been considered internationally. Two months ago no one expected that this could have happened.

For the time being, I am not relocating my activities online, but I have it in the back of my mind. Moments like this give you an opportunity to take a break and reflect. Over recent years, the pace has been really hectic, I’d do my training and work non-stop, with a short slot for the family during the day. Now, we are living the moment when the clock is ticking at a slower rate. For a week I’ve been at home with my family, we have a lot to catch up with. This is a perfect time to enjoy being together.

When you grow mentally, you also grow physically. Having a mental training is the order of the day. When I train my mind, my body grows as well, and this is just as important as lifting weights or any specific type of physical exercise.

I think that everything I’ve written down here adds up to the individual wisdom regarding recent developments. It is wise and sensible to use this time for yourself, your growth, your family and your future.

WO: Kajto, what was your plan for 2020?

KK: Working hard to win the World Championships.

WO : And today, with everything that is going on right now, what is your Plan B, or maybe even Plan C?

KK: You’ll smile but the plan is still the same… winning the World Championship. As long as you keep fighting, you are a winner. I’ve been preparing all the time.

WO: What do you mean? I’d expect that under normal circumstances you would meet with your team, the mechanics, coaches and so on…?

KK: (laughter) We’ve talked about this a lot, even in the context we had a few weeks ago. Anyone who is ambitious has always struggled with time management. They would simply be short of time. I always thought that time was what I missed most. Now I’ve changed proportions and opportunities are unique. Today I spend time on analyzing the footage and reports, or doing invaluable reviews of onboards.

WO: What do you mean by “onboards”?

KK: Onboards are pieces of footage from the competitors’ cars. I’d also like to see the places I’ve never been to, get to know the routes from a year or two years ago, look at the turns, stones on the road, roadside ditches, just to see what this year’s route might be like. I’ve been taking notes and doing things that I would have done less/differently before… This is a key element in my preparations.

WO: OK, so this is what Kajto has been doing. And your team?

KK: We are supportive of each other, all the time. Over the years we’ve had the chance to get to know each other and find a fit. My team has a lot of drive and ambition. We know how to support one another in tough moments, and we have open communication. I think this time it will be a lot of hard work together and another, quite unusual test for us. We already have some ideas about how to get through these moments, still discussing, implementing and improving. We keep trying to figure out how to live in today’s situation when there is so much need to reflect on how we operate together, in our team, and in the reality around.

WO: Let’s take a slightly different perspective now. What does Kajto consider as “a word of wisdom in hard times”?

KK: In my opinion being wise today means being particularly tolerant. Maybe this is why we have stopped. Now, you get so much tough news and information reaching you, and this is why we should come together and act as one. I hope that with time we will be able to draw some important lessons from this experience, for ourselves and for the world we live in.

WO: We can all see that the world has changed and many “new” aspects will stay with us for good. One of them is the digitalization in many areas of life. How does this affect you? You’ve mentioned footage, analyses, reports… Is there anything else?

KK: I’ve just come back from Mexico, and emotions are still fresh and intense. I am still analyzing the rally, which means I have not fully grasped everything yet. But yes, we live in a digital world and I am doing my preparations at home. For example, I will finally have the time to practice in an amazing professional rally simulator which I have for over a year but have not had to chance to test…

WO: Thank you for this conversation. To end, I’d like to ask what will be your wish to others and to yourself?

KK: I think mainly patience and the faith that the sun will come out in the end. In the short term, the ability to set your priorities and to strike the right balance in every situation, especially in such a fast-moving world.

Ola Bednarek is an ordinary athlete with a bit unusual passion. She swims in Open Waters in summer and in winter (in temperatures below 5 degrees). She is a student of Biomedical Engineering at the Łódź University of Technology.

What does an athlete do in such an unusual moment?

I think, most of all, she doesn’t lose motivation to train, set new goals for the future, and create new projects. For me, this is the time to gather my thoughts. Now that I spend most of my time at home, I can read, for example about the English Channel I want to swim across (to see how to prepare physically, and to check formal requirements). I’ve been also working on my university projects; we develop them via on-line apps with other students.

How do you train now? Do you train at all?

Unfortunately, it’s hard to replace swimming with on-land exercise but given the circumstances you need to adapt. Every day I have a different set of exercises on land, and also do ideomotoric training, often used in sports psychology. Of course this will not replace swimming in 100%, but with such forms of exercise and training it will be easier to “feel” water again, when I’m back in the swimming pool. I do hope that it will become warmer outside soon and I will be able to swim longer in open waters.

How do you experience such a sudden change?

Well, I won’t hide that what I’d need now to feel happy is the swimming pool. I remember the last day I went there to pick my equipment, and I felt sad when leaving as I didn’t know when I would be back. This change has its pros and cons. I definitely feel more rested. My parents say jokingly that I am sleeping off the last 12 years as now it’s for me to decide when to do land exercises, so I don’t have to get up at 5:00 a.m.

What counts most, considering the habits of someone as active as you?

Right now, it is really important to manage my diet in a sound way, as the exercise I’m doing cannot replace what I did in water. You need to be careful and avoid weight gain as it could make it more difficult for you to get back into shape. Motivations is also key; to keep upbeat and stay away from negative thoughts. I have to stay as focused on sports and effort as before, because this isn’t holiday time yet.

In 2020, what was Plan A? Plan B? And maybe C?

My Plan A was to take part in the Otyliada swim, but it was cancelled only a few days earlier, the Grand Prix of Poland of course, and the Main Polish Swimming Championships in a long course pool, but also in many open water competitions, such as the Polish Championship, which may also be called off. I also wanted to try to do the minimum required in the European Open Water Swimming Championships.

Of course I have a Plan B: when this is all over I would like to swim across the Gulf of Gdańsk. Later on, there may be other competitions, and in September I definitely plan to participate in the 17 km swim in Austria.

My Plan C is that if all the competitions are cancelled, I’ll have time for my internships. I have to complete them before my university graduation.

How do you stay fit and stick to things that are the most important in your discipline?

I’ve talked about how I stay fit in point 2. As far as motivation goes, I have not stopped writing my training journal where I jot down my motivational thoughts. Instead of water practice, I simply record my land exercise sessions. I read books and watch films, this helps me find the peace of mind.

How would you define the wisdom regarding the world and current developments?

To be honest, we shouldn’t downplay the risk but without getting paranoid; after all when the lockdown is over, the risk of infection will always be there. The virus will not disappear just like that. I believe that if we are meant to die of the virus, we will die anyway. I think that measures in place had a frightening effect, which helped manage the society and make people comply with rules. If I were to sum it up, I could quote one of my favorite sayings: “Let us remember the past with gratitude, live the present with enthusiasm, and look forward to the future with confidence”.

To what extent have you relocated and can you actually relocate to the digital world?

I use the Internet much more than I’d usually do. This is because I study at the Łódź University of Technology and our work involves a lot of research, writing papers, and preparing projects. I communicate much more often with my friends online, by e-mail or via apps which support remote coworking. To what extent can I relocate to the digital world? Well, there are certain limitations. As for conference calls, here where I live the quality of Internet connection is so poor that this is an issue. I prefer e-mails and university group chats instead.

Amarok (https://www.amarok.pl) is a band founded in 1999 in Poland. Amarok’s repertoire is the author’s instrumental and vocal-instrumental music. It is a mix of such genres as progressive, ambient, trip-hop and world music. Amarok cooperates with significant artists of the prog genre such as ex. Colin Bass (Camel), Mariusz Duda (Riverside, Lunatic Soul).

At the moment, we are waiting to see what will happen next. The situation is very dynamic and we have no long-term plan at this stage.

We can still continue working on the input to our album. Creating music is what counts most for us, and we can keep doing this because it is relatively not impacted by the developments in the outside world.

We’ve started to communicate more on social media. We are also considering hosting an online concert, since there are no other options at the moment.
We could start planning concerts for the autumn, as many of them have been rescheduled from March, April and May.

The wisdom of the day would mean the ability to be mindful, to watch and to refuse to take on board missions which are impossible under the circumstances.

It seems that the great majority of things people are doing right now is about moving on-line and we will do our best to develop this as well. The key is to act as far as possible, maybe slower, in genuinely new circumstances, but still keep going. The upcoming days will probably give us some more answers.

Marek Biliński – is one of the best known Polish composers, a pioneer of electronic music in Poland, an instrumentalist using the most modern, as well as classical keyboard instruments. (www.bilinski.pl)

WO: Marek, what does a musician do in such an unusual time like this? How do you prepare (and do you prepare at all), both now and for “the time when it’s over”? How do you experience this sudden change? What counts most, especially for someone as active as you?

MB: I’ve always worked from home, so little has changed here. As to the restrictions on the freedom of movement, I don’t really experience any of them because I live in the countryside, outside Warsaw, among 100-year-old oak trees. All I have to do is to go out on my terrace and I can feel like I am in a park. I have a space to walk my dog.
You simply need to understand the situation the world is living right now and face everything what happens with humility. The mankind has no other option. Myself, I’m catching up on my work and doing my everyday business staff.
For now, the Internet has been working, and the GPS has been working, so I can stay operational…

WO: Do you have any plans? Something going on in your mind?

As far as my plans go, let me remind you that I wrote my album ”Ogród króla świtu” [Garden of the King of the Dawn] during the Martial Law in Poland, in the 1980s. Once I’ve managed to dig my way out from the greyness of everyday life, now pushing me down more and more, maybe I’ll write or record something that I’ve been thinking about all the time, night and day, nonstop…
Against all the odds, I try to keep going, and catch up on my work. In short, I’m still working according to my Plan A for this year, with some slight lapses. The Plan B is already there, just in case. The Plan C does not exist because no one can predict how the current situation, and the restriction in place, will evolve.

WO: How does today’s situation impact the market as a whole?

MB: Artists are greatly impacted, technically and organizationally. The essence of our day-to-day work, our close contacts with fans, is not possible now, and fans are actually the ones who keep the artist alive. We try to stay in touch and do strong messaging via social media – now more than ever – but this lack of personal contact is really painful for many lovers of our work.
To give you an example: we’ve recently released a rerun of our old album. As it was the case with previous releases, we had planned meetings and events with fans in Warsaw and Cracow. They all had to be cancelled for obvious reasons. And concerts, too: we had four events scheduled from now till June, and this will not happen. Of course, this drains our budgets as well.

Check some reflections from the Directors of Marcin Gortat schools( https://en.szkolagortata.pl ) These schools are places that value sports and education – both teachers and students feel these two activities are equally important. Other key values are passion and encouraging growth.

How do people of education, those who are passionate about sports and driven by the belief in continuous development and team work respond to the COVID-19 pandemic? Is there anything that they do differently than they used to? Will any of their new habits stay for longer? What have they learned? What conclusions do they draw from this unexpected lesson of life? What’s their wish for themselves and for others in these moments, so unusual for everyone?

Michał Feter – Principal of the Gortat School in Łódź

The epidemic has offered us all a time of respite and the opportunity to slow down. All at once I found time to catch up on my readings, but most of all to clean my working files and to have some more intimate thoughts and reflections. I do hope that some of these new habits, as the ability to find some time slot only for myself, will stay when we’re back to normal.

Faced with today’s situation we’ve understood that it would be deceptive to think that our times are free from any civilizational concerns, like war or famine. At any moment order and peace may be crashed with no control over new developments ahead. I think that this has been a lesson of humility; the pandemic has showed how small and helpless we are when faced with unexpected disasters.

I’d wish wholeheartedly, for myself and for others, that such pandemics will never happen again. This lesson helps us understand that nothing is given once for all and that it does not always make sense to make long-term plans. We should learn from this.

Adam Lachowicz – Head of Administration at the Gortat School in Cracow

New restrictions and guidelines have not caused any major changes in my life. There are not so many things that I’d do differently. Frequent handwashing has always been very important to me, so COVID-19 made me only more aware of the issue. The anti-smog face mask… Well, I bought one three years ago, and now it’s back in my good graces and got the second life.

Throughout the pandemic it was business as usual; I’ve only cancelled my extracurricular activities. There is less traffic on the roads so commuting is less time consuming. Because all sports facilities are closed, I have more free time during the week, which I mostly spend reading

During the pandemic, much more concerns are being voiced about the exploitation of our planet, including the greenhouse effect, droughts or raging wildfires. I have become more aware and have changed some of my habits. Right now my water consumption is more reasonable and I do sort my waste more carefully. I know, this is not a great feat but it’s definitely more than I used to do for the environment, and it’s a small victory for me. I am sure that these habits will stay with me when the COVID-19 pandemic is over

I think that today’s situation has put us all to a major test, in many ways and at different levels of life. It has tested our humanity, empathy, our approach to the instructions of our decision-makers and the ability to comply with and respect new regulations, not necessarily of convenience. This is also a major test for families and our close relations, whether we are apart or stay together 24h a day. It’s a true check of our friendships and relationships. We are discovering how we value and respect the work of others. I mean mainly healthcare professionals, bus drivers, couriers or shop assistants. Suddenly we’ve realized that people who do poorly paid jobs are so much needed and cannot be replaced. We’ve understood that life without open groceries, pharmacies or fuel stations is simply unimaginable. So, this is mainly the test for our common sense.

My wish to other people and to myself would be that we stay healthy, keep calm and, as I’ve just said, reasonable, for our planet and most importantly for ourselves. I’d wish that we all are more literate in using various media, able to cross-check the news we get and, as a result, draw our independent conclusions.

Ania Dyszy – Head of Education at the Gortat School in Cracow

What has changed in my way of doing things because of the pandemic? Well, apparently my life is now marked by “compulsive behaviors”. When I get to work, or when I’m back home, I disinfect my wallet, keys and eyeglasses. I think these habits will stay with me for long. As for the positive changes, I’ve learned to appreciate small things, to enjoy them. I’ve definitely slowed down in my private life. I’ve learned to enjoy the time spent alone, I’ve started to read more, especially about new trends. To sum up, I exercise a lot and spend time thinking. Honestly, I do hope that these changes will be for good.

The pandemic has tested my self-reliance and taught me to see my priorities as they are. It has challenged many of my behaviors and beliefs. I’ve learned two important things: a new way of looking at the world and people around me, and how to cut down on my shopping. Being perfectly honest, this was my weak point, and now this urge to overspend has been stopped. What prevailed was my ambition to care more for the planet. This is my self-defined goal to avoid buying unnecessary stuff as long as possible. I wonder how long my resolve will last (laughter).

My wish to everyone, including myself, would be to enjoy our everyday life and nurture in us what puts a smile on other people’s faces. It’s also good to think on how to reevaluate our lives and build a new order of priorities. Let us grow with calm, wisdom, kindness and empathy.

SPORTS AS A WAY OF LIFE – INTERVIEW WITH THE TEAM OF THE MARCIN GORTAT SCHOOL

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 13:00:43 +0000

PART 1

WO: You run a profitable education and sports business. How did you start?

Michał: We were always interested in sports and very active. We practiced sports together. Everyone in our company was somehow active in sports.

Kuba: It’s important to stress that everyone we work with was very active in sports. People who run the school and manage our projects were all very active in top-level sports for at least ten years.

WO: Is your business not a bit like sports?

Szymon: I think the two are very much alike, mainly in terms of cooperation. At the Gortat School we are a group of individuals who would not be able to do certain things on their own. Because all of us have been involved in sports since early childhood, we know how to cooperate. In every business, just like in sports, we have successes and failures, and when these failures occur, when we fall, we need to know how to get up and go on. Resistance to stress is key, and you can easily compare the value of this ability in everyday life, either in business and in sports. When the game starts it’s easy to play well or make difficult moves on the playfield. But when each time scores 23 or there is a tie break, when the end of the game is close, stress levels are obviously much higher. If you learn how to deal with this in sports, during many games and practices, it’s easier to capitalize on this experience in your personal life and in business.

WO: What sports do you teach at the School? I know that the list is long…
Michał: We have football, basketball, volleyball, hockey, figure skating, handball, rugby. Only yesterday we struck a deal, and now in Kraków and Łódź we will try to introduce American football. We’ve been also actively developing curling. As for individual sports, we have judo, karate, badminton, muay thai in Kraków, tennis and table tennis, cycling, horse riding, and water polo.

WO: So, you have both individual and team sports. What does each type of discipline –individual and team one – teach players?

Kuba: Both teach persistence, I think. How to fight and win with yourself, plus the responsibility for the final result.

Szymon: The differences between the two are mostly about team work, which we think is of key importance. Still, those who practice individual sports also work in teams, they have team competitions in cycling, badminton. There are games and tournaments between clubs, where individual results affect the final outcome of the whole team in the competition.

Kuba: On a team, with a bit of luck, you can somehow hide a player who is in poorer shape that particular day, like one of eleven footballers (not the goalie, though), or one of five basketballers. It can be done, you can always pull a weaker player out of the game or replace them. In tennis this is not an option.

WO: What in your view is a guarantee of success? Personally, I think you can only identify elements which contribute to success but there are no guarantees. The only thing you may know for sure is failure, and the rest has to be earned.

Kuba: We could easily show you ten players from Łódź who played basketball over the last twenty years and had much more talent for the game than Marcin Gortat. But Marcin is the one who plays for the NBA, not them. There were players who had the same physical capabilities but this changed nothing because they did not have his work ethic.

Michał: Success is built on character, physical capabilities, psychological strength…and some luck.

PERSISTENCE, QUICK WINS AND PLANNING

WO: A quick win or persistence – what counts more in sports? Can this experience be used in business settings?

Szymon: Persistence, definitely, just like in life. What does a quick win actually give? Quite often people would stop striving to be the best once they’ve become successful. In my opinion, you can only build yourself and your future thanks to hard and long-term work. This is relevant for sports and for business as well. Nothing of short-term will bring success because it will be over here and now. Our goal is to build a person through sports. So, long-term work is key.

Kuba: I think becoming successful quickly is OK, there is nothing wrong in it, but it’s always harder to keep your championship than to win the title for the first time. Your success may come quickly, but then, in the next season or year, you will only be able to repeat that success if you work hard. A quick win happens only once, and in order to repeat it you need to invest a lot of effort.

Michał: Definitely persistence. Our record of experience shows that you need to work hard, and if success comes your way you are very satisfied. Nothing is given forever or taken for granted, whether in sports and in business. There are always ups and downs, so we work hard, and then those successes will last longer.

Tomek: It’s a lot of fun because in many ways it’s all about pure statistics. With art or music things are very subjective; someone might say Kraftwerk is the best, someone else would prefer Guns’n’Roses. But in basketball it’s all about pure statistics. If you score thirty points in the top league you’ll attract the attention of foreign teams. You can like or dislike a player, his ego or his behavior on the court but if he scores thirty points every night then he is the best, period.

WO: In business more and more people would say that “shots from the hip” do work. But still there is some “strong excel work” behind them. A balanced business, with stable income, can guarantee a safe market position and steady growth. I get the impression that in sports you have many opportunities to test the value of persistence versus quick wins.

Szymon: You can really see that at our school. We only admit those who are the best in the city of Łódź or in the region. The basketball team that we’ve been building is made up of players who fare the best at the school or in regional championships. They win all the games but things get less rosy when they go to play in other places across Poland. We teach our “Gortats” that short-term successes don’t really matter. This is a key task for the coach. It’s the coach who shows them that a high school game, even with a one hundred to twenty win, means nothing if they lose a game at the regional level. For us this is a really important value. Our coaches teach young players who are about to graduate and start their adventure in business that things won’t always be rosy and wonderful.

Sometimes we do come across students with an overinflated ego; they often come from small towns where they were true local stars and for a couple of years literally everything went their way. Then, they join a team made up of twelve other kids just like them. Some deal with this well, others don’t, and some go back to their local communities because being a star is what counts most for them. This is particularly true for young teams; we try to teach players that they won’t always be stars.

WO: And what motivates them – a success or a failure?

Michał: The failure, definitely the failure. If something does not go well in sports or in business it will stick in your mind and will push you to look for solutions. You get angry that things are not going according to the plan, as they should. Sometimes you find the reason for this setback in yourself, and sometimes in others. You ponder how it’s possible that despite so many discussions and suggestions your employees still don’t follow the rules. You start wondering whether they are the problem, or… maybe you are the problem. In sports it’s exactly the same; you try hard, you win on the playfield, but you see that others on the team take a totally different approach. Is this the reason for the defeat? You’d simply look for solutions. If there is only success, your business is growing, the team keeps winning, your senses are dulled, your responses slow down, and you are no longer ready for analysis or for growth.

Kuba: If the defeat does not drive you, you are not a true athlete. Success is not something that can be achieved overnight. If you get broken by your failure, you will never succeed.

WO: There are athletes who would say that it’s not about how many times you fall, but rather that you rise up this one extra time…

Kuba: People work all the season to win the league championship or to be promoted to a higher level in the tournament. I remember when our basketball team was fighting to advance from one level to the next, and once they got it they played and fought again, to go even higher. They got success but it only lasted a couple of minutes. Chemical reactions kicked in, everyone was euphoric, but two hours later emotions were gone.

WO: So how would you motivate a team that has won everything, that’s the best? Is it ever possible, in sports, to feel that you are the best and that’s it? Or is it natural to look for new challenges all the time?

Kuba: You look for new challenges. Do you know any team that has achieved everything?

Michał: You can find many cases like that in professional sports, in basketball or in football. It seemed that Real Madrid achieved everything that was up for grabs, that they won all the prizes. Nothing on the team actually changed, the club worked as usual, but all of a sudden they started losing. They dropped out, they lost twenty points, even though nothing special happened. In sports nothing can be taken for granted, nothing is given forever.

Tomek: This is all so complex… The core of the team is the same, but one player leaves, a new one comes in, and the chemistry between the players will change: the team as a whole is ruined. Every member of the team is a professional, top of the top, the best in his class, but suddenly something starts going wrong. Another example is when a player gets injured and suddenly the whole team has a problem, even though they are all champions. Isn’t it the same in business?

CPART 2

WO: What have you learnt from sports? What lessons do you use as leaders in your business, as team members or in your personal lives?

Kuba: I’ve learned how to live with stress. I started practicing sports at a very late age, so I was always a newcomer who had to learn a lot. When I managed to catch up and made my way through it, I moved on to stronger teams, and the story would repeat itself. It was very stressful. I had to cope with this all on my own, learn to tackle the situation my own way. I started off as a non-athlete, and after two years I was at the senior level. It was never easy, and it was a really big deal. I learned that in a work environment there are figures of authority and you simply have to listen to them. It’s obvious that you need to listen to the coach and believe his words; it’s a basic rule to follow. I learned that every day someone could be critical of me. The coach is not there to be nice, he is there to make things work better. It took me a while to handle criticism well, but I got used to the fact that every day I could hear some critical feedback, and I needed to draw conclusions from such assessment. The last thing I learned was that from the moment I became an athlete my day would no longer look like it did before. All my friends from the high school were done with school at 2 p.m. and had lots of free time. My days were very different: school, practice, games, sometimes with travel to other locations. All this taught me to use my time to the full, every single day. There is no such thing as 8-hour days on the job – you need to work as long as it takes to get everything done. Sometimes this means from 8 a.m. till 8 p.m., sometimes just from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Tomek: Sports give you self-confidence that makes you stand out. Sometimes genes do help. For example, if you’re tall you will stand out at a business meeting. I owe my whole life to basketball. There were two things that influenced my career: my English skills and basketball. Ever since I was a young boy my father took me to practice skating, swimming. I played tennis, but it was basketball that stole my heart from day one. I started practicing and playing right away. I also stood out at school. Athletes are usually very much liked, so if you do sports in elementary school and next in high school, and you win games for the school, people like you and admire you, you become popular. You practice a lot so you look good and you’re popular with girls. All this builds self-confidence, and it’s great. You also learn to take care of your belongings as sport equipment is quite expensive. You appreciate the fact that your mother takes you shopping to buy an expensive pair of sports shoes. They cost half her monthly salary, so you take good care of them.

Szymon: First of all, sports taught me to cooperate; in particular team sports will teach this, and I’ve been playing volleyball all my life. Second of all, sports teach you to be on time. Every time someone was late for a practice or for a local game he got a series of penalty throws. If the team was traveling to a game and someone was late, the coach would decide to leave without them. So, if someone was not on time once they learned the consequences and were never late again. Another thing – although I am not sure whether this is key – I learned personal hygiene. Some people are taught this at home, others aren’t. Some players didn’t take a shower after the practice. They got one warning: they were told “please bring a towel next time”. If they didn’t, they had to take a shower in their clothes, and that’s how they learned. So, in general, yes, playing sports teaches many things.

WO: What’s in your view behind the statement that practicing sports “teaches” you something?

Szymon: Practicing sports teaches discipline, humility, and, from a very early age, how to win and lose. When I started playing at the age 13 I learned that when you lose you can’t break down, you need to get up and go on, get back to practicing and keep working.

WO: At some point, each one of you was more or less a professional athlete. One of the basic questions I ask myself in business is what makes people go on. So, what motivated you to want more?

Szymon: There is one thing my wife doesn’t understand to this day – this concept of competing and wanting to win, which drove me from the very start. I finished my career as a professional athlete and moved on to non-professional sports but still, whenever I am on the playfield, I want to win. My wife still doesn’t understand that I want to get up at 7.00 a.m. on Saturday, because I have a game at 9.00 a.m. and I need to get there on time, play and win. I want to win!

Kuba: Rivalry, competition. First, we competed with each other: one-on-one, three-on-three, five-on-five. In jogging you compete with yourself. Athletes who have had great and successful careers usually go on to compete in casinos. It’s better to be active in the amateur league than playing casino games, with our salaries…

Tomek: When I was a young player I used to think that I would play top level, in the NBA. I was sure that this was going to happen. In the end it didn’t but now I work quite closely with the NBA, which gives me a lot of satisfaction. This also means that I still move around, I feel like I have done something, made a change. I come back from a practice and say: “Things are good, I did some jogging, and nothing bad happened”. I used my time well, my outlook on life has changed. Competing makes you feel like you are doing something good for yourself.

Michał: We felt this and now I see that other players at our school feel the same. When our students are sick, parents will call to excuse their absence, but if there is a game the following day they will show up, no matter what. This sense of competition, the possibility of watching a game even from the benches, makes them want to go on. Practicing without the possibility of playing and competing would not be the same…

WO: So, passion is not everything. It’s also the pleasure of winning and the drive to win that makes you get up early and practice?

Kuba: Winning takes character. People who fear competition don’t go into sports.

WO: What is the role of sports in organizing your life as a whole?

Szymon: It’s a very important role because sports help organize life both in the case of young and older players, who have already discovered what sports can give them. Without the values that you learn through sports – for example, getting up at 7 a.m. regularly for practice – you can’t do well in your adult life, when you need to get up for work in the morning. I think if you learn the basics of humility in junior-level sports it’s much easier to succeed in sports at a more senior level.

PART 3

WO: I once heard a well-known athlete say: “If you need to convince your child to go for a practice, if you have to wake them up, help them get dressed and so on, they will never be an athlete. Let it go and focus on something else.”

Kuba: I was a teen and all I could think of at 2 p.m. was that I had a practice at 6 p.m.

Szymon: Practice was the most important part of the day.

Tomek: I remember senior years in my high school. It was the hardest time for me. I was at school until 3 p.m., then I went to a very advanced English-language course, which lasted until 7.30 p.m., and after that I had a team practice from 8 p.m. till 10 p.m. This is how my days looked like four times a week, and then I had the game every weekend. At the time it was no big money, other students did lots of things in their free time, and I was busy four times a week, until 10 p.m. Weekend games, which often involved travel, ruined my weekends. This went on for years. Money is a benefit that you can wait and hope for if you do well, but it doesn’t come all on its own from the very start.

WO: Let’s talk about a sports team and the way it is organized. How do you build your teams? Do some of you watch young people during practice. Do you check the performance of the class and the team against the class, and next evaluate players and define their role on the team? Do you know any formula for success or do you rely on your intuition when building a football team, or any other squad?

Kuba: The first thing we’d look at is involvement, engagement, and the willingness to work; this is ninety percent of what a successful team is about. Having a star on the team is not that important. What you need is a group of people who are built to work hard. Success is when you have a mix of people who work hard but are also predisposed to being team players, who do function well on a team.

Michał: We follow the developments in the sports market very closely, as you do in any other business. We know where we are. We support collaboration with partners and sports clubs. Because we have our own idea of sports clubs that we would like to work with we may take a lot of risk sometimes. We realize that collaboration will not always be easy, but we do work to find solutions to show our partners what benefits they can get from working with us.

Failures do happen sometimes, and we need to part our ways with some clubs we have worked with. So we look for new partners, like in any type of business. We relay our philosophy: we tell people how we want to build the school to make sure it will work to its best, what counts to us and what our values are. We tell them that we don’t run a factory but an institution which works with young people, with kids. We don’t want to partner with those who don’t look at things the same way we do. Unfortunately, in the world of sports there are still lots of people who would only look at grants to be won and points to be scored to get more money in the end. We want to have a team which may not necessarily score as the best in some areas but is built from scratch, according to our standards and beliefs rather than in line with the wants of someone else. We have a very consistent vision of what sports should be like at the Gortat Schools, and we try to stick to our rules when recruiting clubs and people. There are values behind what we do.

WO: People believe that in extreme settings, like the army, the Navy Seals, team members should be think as follows: first the mission, next the team, and my ego comes last. Do you also think that way? Do you believe that thinking within a team, in this order of priorities, is the best way to go? First the mission, then the team, finally the ego?

Kuba: The order that you’ve mentioned is great, of course. I think we do it exactly this way, intuitively. No one on our team has a huge ego. No one would put themselves first, before the mission or the team, we’ve never had such issues. I think we’ve implemented this model precisely because we all think that way, and we try to prioritize our values in this particular order.

Tomek: We go back to the basics because we’re athletes, and sports are like the army. The mission, the team, and the ego at the end. If someone is unable to be a team player, they can play table tennis or practice martial arts instead.

Kuba: Someone have organized things smartly, and this way of doing things suits us very well.

WO: What about new players? What’s the role of other team members and the coach in recruiting new people? You all say that the team is important: one person disappears from Real Madrid and there will be no more championship, and no one knows why the dynamic has changed. How do you build new teams?

Szymon: It’s often intuitive.

Kuba: I think we are not a typical business with standard recruitment; we don’t advertise and look for employees. We’ve built the company based on a group of people that we’d known for years.

We spoked as a team:

Michał Feter – principal of the Gortat School in Łódź for the last 4 years. Previously, for 10 years Michał worked as a coach and management advisor (including project management), and was responsible for prospecting external funding for projects, evaluation, and coach competencies. He is the author of over 200 grant projects. From an early age he has been fascinated by sports. Spain is his hobby.

Waldek Olbryk – Believer in the development of organizational culture by working on aspects which may have a shaping effect, based on the client’s and the user’s perspectives. He believes in the “life-long learning” concept. He loves the P2P (People2People) approach in all business-related areas, even in traditional B2B (business2business). He is open to exchanges between cultures and industries.

SPORT AND RULES OF FAIR PLAY

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 12:00:14 +0000

WO: In sports, the desire to succeed, sometimes at all costs, is related to ambition and the need to compete. How do you manage to convey and maintain the belief that sports have their rules and that fair play is rewarded? I know that the determination to win is very strong, especially in professional sports, and that it’s difficult not to cross the line. This is part of sports education, I reckon. What is the role of fair play in sports?

Michał: I am sure that this is the top thing for us, and we have no trouble with players crossing that line. I’ve been managing the school for four years, and I don’t recall anyone wondering, along the way, whether it is better to play fair and lose, or break the rules and win. We keep repeating to the coaches, the clubs we work with, and the players: there is a line that we do not cross

WO: I’ll ask you now as teachers. What do you do when you have two teams of young players who want to win at all costs, and you see that something is not going in line with the rules.

Kuba: There are two levels of fair play, the way we see it. One is that doping, taking substances to boost your body performance, all these types of measures are against the rules of fair play. This goes without saying. And there is also a second aspect to playing fair. Let’s say that there are two teams on the court, and three, four judges who run the game but treat them differently. I’d see it quite often in basketball. We do have so-called “good fouls”. How do you go about this? Well, there are limitations: the player has the right to foul five times in one game. Sometimes he needs to use them to stop an action, for example.

Michał: But in this case this is just part of the game.

Szymon: Yes, but not all parents will understand this. They’d more and more often ask us: “How come? How can the coach persuade my child to practice fouls during the game?

Tomek: For me it’s out of the question: it’s as if we were to prevent handballers from fouling when such allowed fouls are simply part of the game

I talked to the management team of the Marcin Gortat school:

Curling vs Servant Leadership

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 11:00:44 +0000

Let’s think how we could compare the rules governing team and individual work choosing the game of curling as a source of inspiration. It’s about transparent communication, based on respect and listening or cooperation. What if we all met on ice…?

Curling requires strategic thinking, precision, dexterity and also perfect sync between people. Here, each team member has their role to play and serves other colleagues at specific stages of the game. There will be no victory without cooperation. Is the idea of servant leadership, i.e. the leadership where the boss supports/serves their people may be of use in our comparison with curling? Let’s say that the leader’s role is to bring out the best of their people, to open up opportunities for them, show them meaningful directions and motivate them to strive for excellence. The good skip, or the team leader in curling, would do that. They know the strengths and weaknesses of each team member and show them the way. At the same time, they “move the stones” as well, and contribute to the joint team effort.

In each case, everyone in the team, irrespective of their specialty and position, should provide support to others. In curling, as part of their team work, good sweepers are key to winning the game. Curling originates from the 16th century Scottish game based on fair play rules. The team work driven by appropriate values and approach is the way to win such competition with sustainable results.

Curling

Servant Leadership

Player

Players follow the rules of fair play and integrity as paramount for the whole game. The curling player would rather lose than win unfairly. Even in the most important competitions it is expected that players would report their own mistakes or fouls. After the game winners usually buy a pint of bear to the loosing team.

Team

Curling is a precision sport, practiced in teams. Due to the level of skill, accuracy and complexity of throws, and the need for appropriate strategy make curling is a true “chess game on ice”. All the players need to be committed, support one another and enhance their skills.

Roles of team members

During the game each team member plays a precisely defined role. Players cooperate to get the best result.

The skip, or the team leader, imposes the rules and is the main strategist.

The thrower throws a stone with adequate force and precision to lend it the right speed, rotation and direction.

Sweepers correct the trajectory, sweeping the ice with the right force and steering the stone into the right direction. That’s how they reduce its rotation and extend the distance of its glide.

At the end of the game, it’s the team spirit which is decisive for the victory.

Values

Curling players play to win but never to humiliate their opponents. A true curling player would rather lose rather than win unfairly. None of them would purposely break the rules of the game or any of its traditions. If they do so unintentionally and are aware of it they will be the first one to report the breach. While the main goal in curling is to define relative level of players’ skill, the spirit of the game is still about good dose of rivalry, goodwill and conduct of honor.

It is said that curling is a game for gentlemen.

Leader

Here we act within the leadership philosophy and a set of leadership practices where the leader-servant takes an auxiliary role as they want to serve first and lead only in the second place. They are considerably different from someone who takes a leading role mostly because they want to satisfy their drive for power or their need for material assets.

Team

The leader puts commitment, support and team self-improvement first. The idea behind servant leadership is to motivate manager to adopt a style based on the encouragement given to people to strive for perfection, and on their support rather than a conduct focused on direct management and control. The leader should concentrate on coaching and providing their people with skills they need to become leaders themselves. Staff members should be given an opportunity to make use of their newly granted powers.

Roles of team members

The leader identifies the potential of each individual and assigns them the scope of responsibilities accordingly. The key feature of the leader is to know how to use the creativity of each person for a better action of the entire team. On the other hand, the team as a whole should foster the creativity of its each individual member.

The leader makes sure that all team members can make use of their individual talents to achieve joint business and other goals.

By building people-to-people relations, the organization is no longer a place just to earn money but an environment where people want to be, treating one other with respect, and being responsible for their own work for the sake of the joint mission. The feeling of belonging to a team is of prime importance here.

Values

In the hierarchy of values, the benefits of one leader nurturing another leader prevail over their own personal gains. In other words, the leader severs others rather than himself/herself. Leaders should know how to use their knowledge and avoid any abuse of power. At the same time, this is an excellent path to achieve shared goals and develop, individually and as teams.

Servant Leadership vs Sport

Supporting teams is like “sweeping” the ice with a brush in the path of the stone in curling. It means joint planning, value-based support and fair play. That’s how we organized joint workshops for leaders on ice. The program came as an experiment but proved that the rules of this unique discipline can inspire leaders, help build one-off teams and create a unique narrative on how to win together.

TEAM WORK

One for all, all for the one. It’s all about the teamwork.

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 10:00:09 +0000

WO: Is there anything you’ve taken from sports and you use today in your job as school principal and member of the school team?

Michał: I think it’s team work and its rules; the experience that I’ve gathered in sports helps me in my job. I know how to plan tasks when managing a team of a few dozen teachers and coaches. It’s quite a sizeable team, and various issues may pop up from time to time. I remember how roles were allocated in the teams that I used to be in, how problems were solved by the coach or by team members on their own, despite their different views on a number of issues. Indeed, you come across strange individuals both in sports and in business, and you need to know how to deal with them. The way the whole team works is definitely crucial.

WO: What is the team’s role in winning? Do you win and lose together, as a team?

Szymon: Precisely! You win together and you lose together. I hate it when a coach says “we’ve won”, and when the team loses, he’d say “they’ve lost”. At the end of the game the coach gets a medal as well. So, I believe that if we win together we also lose together. You need to remember this from the very start. You need to show your players that they are one team. And they need to be treated as a team.

Kuba: The team needs a coach, the team needs a leader, and the leader needs a team. Coaches don’t win and lose on their own. In basketball, we tend to say that if the team loses by twenty points, the loss is on the team. If the team loses by one point, it’s on coach. It’s the coach’s responsibility because if the two teams are on the same level the coach is there to contribute with that one winning point.

WO: On the other hand, in sports, it’s the stars who count. In one interview Stephane Antiga said that there are only stars in the national team, and this is also a big challenge. With a team like this it’s not easy to foster the belief that the ego comes last. At times, you devise the game with a specific player in mind. All in all, there are big names in football, basketball, or volleyball.

Kuba: You need stars to motivate others. Stars are the figures that young players try to live up to, they are their role models.

WO: But stars are individuals from outside the team, a role model to match, the one you’d like to follow. But what is the role of a star on the team?

Tomek: I never played on a team who had a star. We’re talking sports, and let’s be open here and say that for me it all boiled down to playing professionally, even if a month of playing at a club in the town of Zgierz paid around 200 zlotys. In the NBA every player is a star. Most probably, they were already popular in high school. Next, they joined a team where one person made one million and someone else fifteen million dollars, but they were all very wealthy and they were all true stars. And this is where problems start: they all have big egos. They all make lots of money but struggle with the same issues as any other team: the coach didn’t let me play…, someone did not pass the ball… The coach has to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to make the team work as a whole.

Kuba: I think that even on the national team you’d say that someone is a star. Other players will not have an issue with that provided that they prove their “stardom” on the playfield and during practice. If in a group of twelve of the best players in the country you find two who will take responsibility and do good in the World Cup tournament or in the Olympics, others, even if they are stars as well, will simply accept that even in a star-studded team there are some who are leaders.

WO: OK. So, we’ve now come to a team with a couple of stars. Each of them, in their own view, is better than the others. Some are better, some worse. According to your experience, what will motivate players on a team more strongly: playing with people who are better, or with those who do less well?

Szymon: This is exactly the dilemma we had to tackle in basketball. We have forty boys in our high school and at times those who play in the first team are shifted to the second one as we believe that the change will be of service to their self-development and growth. It’s better to play on a weaker team than be on a strong one and sit on the bench. As we focus on their long-term growth, we make such decisions, even if they often meet with great disappointment from the parents who want to know the reasons for such a move. They’d say “you’ve recruited my son to play”. Well, that’s the point. We want him to play.

Tomek: In my opinion, playing with those who are better would motivate a less proficient player to always try harder and advance to the next level. So, in sports, in order to develop you should play with those who are better than you. But this is always an individual decision and the coach has to make the call. He has to know who will be motivated to play better and who will get stuck knowing that others do better than them. Some would be motivated when praised, others when they are criticized or yelled at. They’d think “OK. I’ll show him what I am capable of. I’ll score these thirty points out of spite”. This also helps develop a player. The coach needs to identify those who need a praise and those who need a “kick in the pants”. This is also the matter of personality.

WO: Do you ever come across players who help others thrive, who are leaders of sorts and will say “play like this, do that”? Or does everyone play only for themselves, even if they are on a team?

In volleyball, in the Krótka Piłka Association, we have kids from the second and third grade. You look at them and immediately spot those who will become leaders. So far I have come across two such cases: I watch them grow and develop, I observe how they behave on the team, how these young people – because they are very young – can cheer on their friends in the court. I once had two four-player teams who played simultaneously, with a cap of fifteen points. On one team I had a boy I’d not spoken to before. At some point he took a time out to talk to others. I asked “Kowal, what happened?”, and he replied: “Coach, we were winning 13:9, but all of a sudden it was 13:12, so I took a time out”. I stared first and left him alone. I can see that he’s a leader, he’s developing so well and motivating his friends, he’s taking responsibility. It’s such a pleasure to follow his growth and observe his attitude. Such cases are quite rare, though. I’ve been working with the Association for three or four years now and over this time, there have been only two boys who were fantastic leaders at such a young age.

We spoke as a team:

2035

waldekadmin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 09:00:20 +0000

The future is approaching much faster than you could imagine. Many technologies which today seem to be science-fiction will soon be upon us and become standard in our environment. Think of “A Space Odyssey” or “Star Wars”. Many of my childhood fantasies are now part of reality… As a fan of stories, cartoons and music, I’d like to share here with you an idea which came up among friends from the Academy of Fine Arts, and was supported by a great piece of music composed and performed by Marek Bilinski (On the Other Side of the World ). We decided to put forward a vision about… 2035 or earlier.

We wondered whether some of the ideas featured in movies will yet again become part of our lives sooner than we could expect… (?)

We assume that by then the Internet will become a fundamental human right and that the human population will have unlimited access to data storage and downloading capabilities. Therefore, everyone will have a digital presence as well as a physical one… (?)

What about making devices interconnected through the Web… will they help make our lives easier…, Will they put us at risk of losing our privacy…(?)

Will we all wear 3D printed clothing connected to WiFi, acting as aids, with colors changing according to our mood and the ability to monitor our health status (?)

How many glasses or lenses will be connected to the Internet to enable us to see the world through applications, and controlled with our eyes rather than with our hands… (?)

Will we really need cars or simply use 3D printed autonomous machines for work, entertainment and free time, including for holiday travel…, How will they influence the way we plan and manage our cities, communication or deliveries….(?)

Will the mobile phone still be part of our lives or will it become embedded into our bodies…(?)

Will our health be online all the time, and, if needed, will human organs be created by 3D printers and hopefully integrated into our bodies(?)

Many innovative solutions from the military, including robots and software, will automate human work… not only jobs which seem easy to replace … (?)

Will AI be able to take on a major role in corporate work and not just do repetitive tasks… (?) What about AI joining Management Boards to support decision making? How will AI and all disruptive technologies define the labor market and … How should it be managed in terms of education, including life-long learning … (?)

We hope you will enjoy this movie about the world & the family in 2035 …