Celebrating with your team: the why and the how

Celebrating with your team: the why and the how

Posted on by Tiina-Katrina Kaber

Christmas and summer are usually the stars of the team event season. Why not add Halloween, Mental Health Month or Baking Day to your list of celebrations?

It makes sense to celebrate at the end of the year: you can summarize team results, make plans for the new season and dance. A Christmas party sounds completely logical. A Halloween ball or a Valentine’s Day party might seem a bit too much. But why? Every event doesn’t have to be a big gala – you can also find simple ways to celebrate with your team, with equally memorable results!

Why celebrate?

Celebration activates greater well-being in the brain. In addition to personal well-being, celebrating together also benefits the whole group: mirror neurons in the brain reflect the emotions and mood of those around us. If someone close to us practices gratitude, for example, it starts to have a positive effect on our own well-being too. Subconsciously mirroring the celebration of others, we feel the same joy ourselves. In addition to the feeling of well-being from the same good mood, mirror neurons also help us feel closer to our peers. Isn’t it good to be part of a team where you feel well-being and closeness with your colleagues?

Now that the big reason is known, you can consciously start looking for events, anniversaries and theme months with which to train the habit of celebration. Soon we will share a calendar we created, where we will highlight both well-known and curious theme days and months with ways to celebrate them!

How to celebrate?

First, think about what you want to achieve. Is it enough to create a pleasant atmosphere, do you want to achieve better cooperation, or do you want to make new plans in addition to the celebration? Sometimes the combination is beneficial, because the good energy from celebrating creates a nice vibe for setting next steps. However, celebrating is valuable on its own as well, so think carefully if it is enough, or if it is worth combining the celebration with other activities.

How do you decide whether to just celebrate or do something else? If it is, for example, birthdays or an achievement in someone’s personal life, then simply celebrate! Nothing else needed. However, if there is reason to celebrate good results in the team or in the whole organization, then it makes sense to link the celebration with setting new steps so that good results can be celebrated again soon.

What to celebrate?

For instance, on Baking Day, you could simply all meet in the office kitchen and bake something together. It doesn’t take much time or money to put some cookie dough in the oven to then decorate the results with fun faces or your team values. Or, do something good by compiling healthy recipes to send to Food Bank clients with our Recipe for Kindness.

Before Valentine’s Day, you can make cards together. Yes, just like in art class at school, but with your own approach! Instead of regular cards you could make origami animals for each other or your loved ones and write down how you appreciate their fox-like smarts or their hedgehog-like wisdom.

Halloween, however, offers the opportunity to decorate the entire office with skulls and spider webs (just make sure they’re not the real ones!) In addition, you can  increase team spirit with fun games like Quickfire Halloween or Haunted House, which we offer in both online and live versions. You can also order the skulls and other curious decorations from us!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Neliviim-JoogarC3-1-TU7i-1024x768.jpg

And even though October is officially Mental Health Month, it’s definitely one topic you can work on year-round. To open up the mindfulness and mental health topic you can use our Wellbeing method, which invites participants to present their favorite yoga poses, create healthy recipes and write down good thoughts, so that on every random Tuesday there is a good idea to take from the team gratitude jar!

We will soon introduce the whole year’s calendar with awesome theme days and months with ideas on how to celebrate them! Keep an eye on our pages on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram! Of course, you can already start by celebrating your company’s birthday and making plans for a Christmas event. For the latter, you can get ideas from our client event in Tallinn on November 6th. We will be discussing ideas for celebrating Christmas together! You are most welcome (provided we all survive Halloween…) if Estonian is your working language. Or let us know if we should add an English event too.

How to read 44 books in 1 year

How to read 44 books in 1 year

Posted on by Tiina-Katrina Kaber

1st, be a bit curious. 2nd, let your curiousity grow as you read. 3rd, read some more. Easy-peasy! Granted, it helps to have a few ideas of which books to read. 2 books out of my 44 were fiction, 42 to were non-fiction. The previous year there was no fiction on my list and some years I have only read fiction (like the wonderful worlds of Murakami). I hope this article acts as an inspiration to pick up a book (or two) about something you are curious about!

1. Be a bit curious

Note to self: curiosity did not kill the cat! It was worry, if anything at all. So stop worrying – as that might actually kill you – and get curious! Reading a book when not interested can be hard. We all remember books we had to read for school that didn’t really speak kto us. But reading because you are curious about a topic is a whole other story (pun intended).

Another lesson from school is reading to find specific answers. This lesson is two-fold. On the one hand, it’s great to read when seeking out specific answers to questions. If the questions are too specific, however, it can make us virtually blind to any content that is not directly related to the question at hand. So be curious and keep an open mind!

My general question is “how do teams work” which opens up a lot of directions: how do individuals behave? What does good leadership look like? What makes us like some people and not others? How to stay motivated and inspire others? Having one big question and several smaller ones allows me to navigate my way through a vast landscape of books ever written while leaving me lots of options.

Having options can be paralizing, but it also brings joy knowing that I always have a choice. It helps to have my own tsundoku pile!

2. Don’t stress about the books you haven not read (yet)

An example of my tsundoku pile aka books I haven not read yet. Currently 60+ books waiting to be read and before you ask: it does not stress me out at all!

Don’t stress, but care. If you don’t care at all, it will be tough to motivate yourself to read. But stress, leave that to others (like the movers who have to transport all my books when I ever change homes!) In Japan, there is a beautiful word for the books you have bought but not read (yet) – tsundoku. For some, this connects to hording (and I guess from a certain point it might be the same), but for me it connects with joy: whenever I finish a book, I have this delightful moment of deciding where to turn my attention next.

There’s a saying that when you choose your outfit for a day, you essentially choose who you want to be that day. With books (at least the non-fiction kind I read), it might be more about who we want to become. As every book has the chance to change our thinking, our opinions, our behaviour. This is why you should also be careful with the books you read. Check the authors, check the reviews, and find your book-tribe. If a book doesn’t speak to me, I set it aside. But I pick it up again at least a few times. Why? Because with every book I read and every experience I have, I grow. Something that does not speak to me today, might speak to me tomorrow, next year or even further down the line.

3. Build a structure

Just like having bookshelves is a good way to systemize the books you own, so does structuring your day allow for more reading time. If reading is a priority, treat it accordingly. Years ago when I was deciding which path to take in life, I marked down something I wanted: to have 1 hour every day to read quality content. As part of the work day! Not a nice “light some candles, brew some tea and cozy up with a novel” kind of me time, but hardcore reading like I mean business me time to develop myself and bring new content to whatever work I do. That was before starting my own business. As I applied for a great job and mentioned this intention, I encountered some raised eyebrows and got the job!

I buy a lot of my books second hand and I always visit bookshops when travelling: like this old church converted into a bookshop that made us drive all the way up to Inverness, Scotland

Reading an hour a day may seem a lot. Or it may seem a little. It all depends on your perspective. And your perspective depends on your goals and systems. My goal is to support amazing teams becoming even more amazing and having a huge positive impact in the world. I could build a system around a single idea and never alter it until the idea goes out of style or I go out of business. Instead, I build my team development systems on iterating and growth: this means seeking out and implementing concepts from neuroscience, psychology, behavioural economics and other fields. This means adapting and adjusting to both the new info I encounter as well as the specific teams I work with. To that end, reading an hour a day is not a lot. Which is why I often read more than that.

What does my reading structure look like? I wake up and after excercising and meditating I sit down with my morning coffee and my morning book (when reading different books at once, the morning book is usually one that gets me excited and energised while the evening book might rather help me wind down and make me sleepy). Bringing reading to the start of my day prepares me for the day ahead. It also sparks my own thinking and creativity which I need to build my training programs and run them with maximum effect.

I might pick up a book again during lunch or with my afternoon coffee. In the evening, I might read again. What helps me is a general rule of not picking up my phone in the morning before I’ve had my coffee and of putting it down in the evening at least an hour before bed time. This opens up time that would otherwise likely be filled with mindless scrolling or random car videos. (This is not a typo: I am more into cars than cats!)

So build you structures for reading, find your book-tribe, and keep enjoying reading! If you’d like to join a reading club with fellow readers, reach out and let’s see if our book-tribes have enough overlap! You can reach me directly on LinkedIn, Facebook or email.

Smooth sailing in August

Smooth sailing in August

Posted on by Brittany Krijer

August was quite calm with four events for a change. It suited us well, because we couldn’t fit a proper holiday adventure into this summer, but instead we were able to spend a lot of time in various beautiful places in Estonia! In August, we toured around in Tallinn, Alutagus, Märjamaa and near Tartu. In addition, we took some trips to the nearest neighbors, so that all the necessary stuff for organizing team events is still there.

WHY:

For engaged teams changing the world

WHAT:

Go Team, Big Picture, NetWorth

WHERE:

Mäeotsa holiday farm, Hotel L’embitu in Tallinn, Luhtre Holiday house, Alutaguse holiday base

WHO:

Nearly 160 participants from four organizations

Creativity in events: for us and for participants

One big picture took us to Southern Estonia: this time with a picture frame on the roof of a car! Similar events for different teams give us an exciting insight into how teams work. Sometimes it’s hard to cooperate, sometimes it’s hard to do your part. And sometimes we can work with teams where everything goes smoothly, the atmosphere is great, even difficult results are smoothly delivered, with almost no external guidance or hints! This time it was just a great event in a particularly great location.

A new client from the health care sector, who brought their international team to Tallinn, also brought us a unique experience. We were part of the exciting event largly thanks to our good cooperation with Estravel. It was Big Picture that stood out from the team training options offered to the client. However, it was not the usual Big Picture, but instead something quite new! By discussing with the client and sharing experiences, a new method emerged, which we can now offer to everyone else.

In Big Picture, the main emphasis is on participants collaborating during the event. The design of the picture is created hand in hand with a professional artist to create truly exceptional artwork. Team Design ​​is a new solution that gives the participants greater creative freedom to design the pictures as they see fit. Of course, cooperation still has an important place, otherwise it wouldn’t be a real EnterTraining method! As the main focus of the activity is on visual branding and the values ​​of the company or team, it fits very well into our portfolio.

Network like you mean it!

If one company’s summer days are called Good Cooperation Day(s), we are especially excited and happy if we can contribute to the success of the event. Cooperation tends to go more smoothly when people know who they are working with. Sometimes, however, it happens that we have been in the same organization or even in a team for a long time, but our knowledge of each other’s strengths and interests is limited. Then our great netowrking method NetWorth is particularly suitable.

This nice event starter makes the participants both look inward and make meaningful contacts with other participants. However, instead of favorite series or food, the connecting links are preferred activities and also challenges or learning wishes. In this way, you can find colleagues from whom you can learn important content, or with whom you can discuss a common interest.

Challenges to overcome

Something our team finds challenging, is a certain language none of us speaks well enough to run events in. Fortunately, we have a nice partner, who has already helped us by facilitating several Russian-language events, so that the participants of our Go Team event would not be left without an awesome experience due to a language barrier! The very rainy weather in late summer was reminiscent of the first events with the same company at the beginning of the summer. Fortunately, we had planned solutions for both outdoor and indoor weather and everything went smoothly.

While summer officially lasts until the second half of September, in Estonia the feeling of autumn still tends to arise with the start of school. This year, the transition from a hot summer to a cool autumn also supported the transition well. With great joy, we sent one of our team members to school, and the others continue their learning journeys as great development enthusiasts. Fortunately, our field allows us to learn a lot from every event – both by preparing, organizing and analyzing. If the development of your team needs a little support, be sure to get in touch!

Rest in July!

Rest in July!

Posted on by Tiina-Katrina Kaber

July was charmingly quiet at EnterTraining. We organized 5 team events and rested a lot during other times. Fortunately, the events also took us to exciting places in Estonia, so there was no shortage of adventures!

Why:

For engaged teams changing the world

What:

Go Team, The Big Picture

Where:

Narva-Jõesuu ja Toosikannu

Who:

Nearly 320 clients from two organizations

The main methods of this summer were also represented in July: Big picture and Go team treasure hunt. While one takes the participants to various exciting places, the other focuses on the team itself and opens up the values ​​and vision of the team or company through creativity and cooperation.

We were able to spend most of the summer in July in a wonderful place with an unparalleled sandy beach and fascinating architecture. The Enefit Power teams were able to discover them as well as the lighthouse, bathing arches and several spas during a meaningful treasure hunt. Namely, the team events took place in Narva-Jõesuu, where we were awaited by excellent summer beach weather and very great active teams.

We also had a great summer on the shore of the lake in Toosikannu, where the awesome team of Tallinna Vee put together a particularly impressive picture of the Great One! The big picture creates a good opportunity to think about the company’s values ​​and to create something truly outstanding together with colleagues, which will remain for the participants to enjoy even later: the assembled Big picture arrives at the company’s office, factory or customer office to continue to remember the charms of good cooperation and a powerful team.

And that’s it, the rest of the month we prepared the next events, but also rested. We probably went through almost the whole of Estonia!

If your team has another summer event in mind, be sure to get in touch! Of course, the Estonian summer lasts until September, so we will definitely be able to organize something nice, inclusive and useful. Send us a message right here on the website or write directly to: info@entertraining.ee

11 team events in 22 days!

11 team events in 22 days!

Posted on by Tiina-Katrina Kaber

In June we organised eleven team development events, from one full training day with several methods to a combination of four events over 9 days. We had adventures in Tallinn and Harjumaa, in wonderful Ida-Virumaa, and we made a quick trip to the archipelago of Southern Finland. And somehow it all fit into three weeks, so that there would be time to celebrate Midsummer – an important summer holiday in the Nordics!

WHY:

For engaged teams changing the world

WHAT:

Human Bingo, Global Innovation Game, Go Team, Knowing Me Knowing You – Work Styes, IBuild, Networth, Chain Reaction TableTop, Beat the Box

WHERE:

Museum of Coastal Folk, Küla Villa Harjumaa, Pangodi South-Estonia, Alutaguse Ida-Virumaa, Kadrioru park Tallinn, Ravintola Saari Helsinki, Zoom!

WHO:

nearly 560 participants from seven organizations

Awesome ones were invented in the Innovation Club

We had our 1st event in June on June 1st with the youthful team of Postimees Group in Viimsi. To start off the training event, the participants got to know each other’s interests, hobbies and fun childhood stories during Team Human Bingo. Next, ways of working with their differences and similarities were uncovered using the Workstyles method. We then discussed the possibility and necessity of innovation in a strong team while playing the Global Innovation Game. The training day ended with an adventurous treasure hunt in Viimsi to get to know local stories and test the teams’ collaboration skills.

June continued with online events: we supported the “Work In Tech” project run by Smartwork in Estonia by introducing participants to the etiquette of screen presence. As large parts of work and communication has moved online, we often have to present ourselves and our ideas on screen, both when applying for a job and when already at work. Therefore, it is worth thinking about how we are seen and what impressions we leave, as well as what others see and hear through the screen. We are especially happy for the encouraging feedback, such as Karin’s comment after the event: “Very good presentation of the topic and a great speaker. It was a joy to listen to everything. Very good energy! :)”

 

Inventive visual solutions. Photo: Raul Mee

This good energy continued, and we were able to introduce two new methods of team development at two very inspiring meetings! First of all, we used visual storytelling at Estonia’s first HR inspiration festival, where the participants could use visuals to present their journey so far and jointly create a vision of the future, where everything runs so smoothly that HR people can just rest under a palm tree. While this seemed like an impossible mission for some teams, some participants found creative ways to reduce their own roles. The new leadership generation is really here!

HR people solving tangram puzzles

Then, celebrating the end of the PARE season in the beautiful Kadriori Park, we tested our ability to think differently by solving tangram puzzles and creating completely new perspectives! Tangram gives a wonderful opportunity to think both divergently and convergently. If convergent thinking helps us solve tasks with one correct answer, divergent thinking can be more useful when solving problems in everyday life. In the case of the latter, there may not be a single right answer. By creating different connections and looking at the question from several angles, unique and inventive ideas emerge. A tangram puzzle allows for both kinds onf thinking: the pieces can be assembled back into the square from which they were cut, or used to create an image of a cat, submarine or a colleague instead. A fun brainstorming session that’s perfect for ending the event season in PARE as well as starting a brainstorming session at your next strategy meeting!

We helped the bullying-free school team integrate a new team member and prepare the whole team for the summer. Our own Networth method helped emphasize the value of quality contacts and mutual understanding in team communication contexts. To promote communication, we continued with one of our favorite methods from our good colleagues in Switzerland: ibuild.

A great little ferry ride with suitcases and the team down to the side of Helsinki to the island where the Saari restaurant spreads out with amazing sea and city views.

We also had the great privilege to help out our Finnish colleagues with a nice Beat the Box game in a cool restaurant located on a tiny island next to Helsinki. While a large ferry is a frequent means of transport for trips back and forth, this tiny ferry was quite a unique ride! Among our favourite Catalyst teambuilding activities, Beat the Box is definitely in top three when it is important to create a sense of collaboration and belonging in the team and reduce competitiveness.

While there was a lot of travelling in June, we most fequently visited Alutaguse sports and recreation centre in Ida-Virumaa. If the team is large and not everyone can get together at the same time, it may happen that different sections of the team gather for a similar event as many as four times! This is exactly what we did for the Enefit Power team at Alutaguse: on one rainy day, we created a fun Chain Reaction, and three sunny days took us out on an engaging Go Team treasure hunt, where, in addition to exciting thought exercises, participants could find a local tree dog and learn about adventure trails and disc golf in the area. Not to mention the team getting to know each other better.

If you are still thinking of getting your team together for an event, get in touch! There are ideas for inspiration here, as well as on our seasonal events page. Or reach out directly at info@entertraining.ee to start putting a plan in place. Summer here lasts until September!

Goodbye April, Hello May!

Goodbye April, Hello May!

Posted on by Tiina-Katrina Kaber

Why:

for engaged teams changing the world

What:

Orchestrate, hackathon for developing team culture, Haunted House Online, Ibuild, Beat the Box, Focus managment

Where:

Tallinn, Narva-Jõesuu, Helsingi, Tartu

Who:

nearly 280 participants from six organizations

Teamwork like symphony

We have over 200 different methods for live, online and hybrid events. And there is only one Orchestrate. There are team development solutions that have a wow effect and those that bring long-term benefits. Then are those that are a complete pleasure to carry out and those that are a project management master class. All this is combined in Orchestrate: one of our highlights in May!

Sometimes a client comes to us with a very clear wish. Having a musical background, the representative of the ALSO team knew that Orchestrate was the one and only method for them. Fortunately, both while planning and experiencing it all with their team! In just a few hours, each participant learned to play the violin, viola, cello, trombone or percussions to perform a real masterpiece together. The result was truly impressive! With such an experience behind them, any future challenge will seem less daunting.

Working together

We had another challenge in May: one day, two events in different countries. Fortunately, we already had collaborators for one of them: if Estonian, English and Finnish are everyday languages in the EnterTraining team, events in Russian allow us to cooperate with good partners from our great network. People really are the best part of our job: the teams we can support, our own EnterTrainers and the network we can work with!

Culture hacking

It is especially exciting to work with teams that are highly motivated. We are grateful to our long-term partner, Hype, who invited Tiina-Katrina to mentor LHV’s corporate culture hackathon. Such bursts of inspiration, fresh ideas and passionate people are not commonplace, but we saw a lot of the above in two days!

A ghostly Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th worked out well at EnterTraining: we gathered Katana’s global team in a virtual haunted house, from which only the most determined teams escaped. Fortunately, it was a particularly fierce group, so no one was harmed during their ghostly tour and everyone escaped the haunted house to keep moving towards their goals.

Staying focused

We finished May in Lake Peipsi. Yes, in a lake! Tiina-Katrina had a chance to conduct a focus management workshop for Enterprise Estonia in a room in their Tartu office called Lake Peipsi. Of course a dip in the actual lake was in order later on. While nordic swimming helps some of us stay focused, in the workshop we discussed less extreme options like goal setting and taming our monkey brains.

Of course, in addition to the ongoing events, we also need to prepare the following ones, so we planned and organized our June events as well. But more about them in the next overview! Meanwhile, enjoy your summer and if there are any team events that still need planning, check out our seasonal page for inspiration.

One month, 3 EnterTrainers, 8 team events

One month, 3 EnterTrainers, 8 team events

Posted on by Tiina-Katrina Kaber

April 2022 was an exciting month for EnterTraining. It has been a few years since we had many more live events than virtual ones in a month. Clearly spring is finally on its way to Estonia and the pandemic is beginning to recede. Here is a little overview of the methods, combinations, collaboration, and also some mishaps from April. If you are planning events for the upcoming months, get in touch and let’s discuss how to make it truly memorable. Team development workshops can really make a difference. We all deserve some entertraining!

Why

for engaged teams changing the world

What:

team development sessions Virtual Global Innovation Game, Team Human Bingo, Wellbeing, FreshBiz, Beat the Box, Go Team and workshops on Focus Management and Motivation

Where:

a virtual event in Switzerland and Brazil, physical events in Hamina, Finland and in Narva, Tallinn and Laitse in Estonia

Who:

Changing perspectives can help discover new aspects about team mates!

nearly 250 participants from 8 organizations

For some events a combination of several methods works best. For the OP Corporate Bank team day, we combined Human Bingo and Wellbeing methods into one smooth combo. PS! Wellbeing which is built as an online event, was run fully live as a GPS-based activity for the first time in Estonia (and probably even in the world). Using the Go Team app in tablets, we guided teams from downtown Tallinn to the Telliskivi Creative City. All the way, participants made choices on which topic to focus on and only found out their final destination once there. In a cozy yoga studio we continued with a great Human Bingo session which introduced fun facts and stories about team members while bringing out some unexpected creativity and skills!

Another Human Bingo took place shortly in Narva Fortress with the international team of Fortaco. As the team met for the first time that day to kick off a cooperation project, building strong ties by sharing stories and laughing together was just the right fit. Since 4 events (!) were planned for that day in EnterTraining (and one of us was out with a spot of food poisoning…), we were especially happy to be a part of a great network of team development experts to collaborate with. Just like we use Human Bingo to connect and engage event participants and team members, we connected and learned a lot from each other as well.

While our great network offered help when we needed it, so could Tiina-Katrina help out partners at two different events in April. She was invited to a virtual Austrian-Brazilian joint event to talk about everyday innovation and to facilitate one of our favorite methods, the virtual Global Innovation Game. In Finland, however, we ran an engaging live Go Team Treasure Hunt based in a lovely little town of Hamina. While helping our partners create the activity, we learned a lot about the place ourselves. Did you know that Finland’s largest flag is waving in Hamina? And it really is a big one! Discovering new places is a great side effect of creating any new Go Team track. Did you know you can ask us to build a fun treasure hunt anywhere? We are just building the next one in Viimsi.

Need to move a mountain? Start with a great team!

Sometime, things do not go as planned. Sometimes, working remotely can have its challenges. Alas, so can working in close quarters! In April, we were preparing for an event that was postponed due to Covid. With three people working from different locations, it was quite last minute that we realised a bit of a challenge to overcome. Overcome it we did, and thanks to a generous buffer we plan into our schedules, everything was arranged on time. Beat the Box got a team working on a tight timeline as well so we were all on the same page.

In order for each event to run ever more smoothly and to have more knowledge and skills to share, Tiina-Katrina went to school again. After exciting discussions with the lecturers and fellow students from very diverse backgrounds, a course on Coaching Principles in Change Management has been completed. Now, the next changes are once again a more exciting challenge, as there is new knowledge to test and apply. This will surely be the focus for May 2022 – trying out our new know-how in how we work.

Although our work can be quite challenging, it is also a joy. Especially with such wonderful people involved: our team, our clients, our partners. Because of who you are, we keep striving to be better! Sometimes it means listening more, sometimes speaking up. A conversation is where it all begins. So do get in touch. With over 200 solutions in our toolbox, we can draw on the experience of our favorite solutions as well as discover new and exciting ways to enrich events and create truly engaging experiences. All you have to do is tell us what’s on your mind!