1. TA Brazil
Learnings from the process and our 3
months time in Brazil in August-
November 2011
Henna Kääriäinen, Valtteri Melkko
14. joulukuuta 11

2. 14. joulukuuta 11

3. 14. joulukuuta 11

4. Background of this project
• Brazil TA initiated in 2009 when Senac São Paulo together with Banco Santander
Brazil called Finnish Tiimiakatemia to Brazil to hold a 2-weeks long TA
Experience workshop. It was a big success! In order to know TA more and get it
started in Brazil, Senac made Learning Expeditions to TA Finland and TA
Mondragon, Spain in 2009-2010. Senac’s internal KickOff week for Tiimiakatemia
was held in May 2011 and it involved 10 directors, 40 students, 100 coordinators
and teachers, 10 core team members and 10 partners: Santander, Natura,
Grandene, Microsoft, the HUB, Irizar, Fagor, SoL Brazil and CDI among others. The
KickOff week strengthened Senac’s decision to aim for launching the TA degree
program for Brazilian market. We also planned 7 pilots for starting to implement
TA in Senac in 2011-2014.
• The process has been all about co-working, both physically in Brazil and by Skype
from Finland and Spain. We are working for constructing a strong international
network because there’s clearly a need of collaboration with more than one of the
Tiimiakatemias in this process. So far we have been only working with the
international Tiimiakatemia network, Senac SP and Santander Brazil. Soon it’s time
to open up for other partners, networks and collaborators, and search for political
support and relational support for reaching the goal which is to launch a Finnish
Tiimiakatemia and it’s degree programs in Brazil.
• This motorola reflects mostly our 3 months piloting period in Senac Sao Paulo in
Aug-Nov 2011. We were there then as a team: teampreneurs Ana Aguirre &
Valtteri Melkko, team coach Henna Kääriäinen.
4
14. joulukuuta 11

5. Where we are working?
São Paulo
Rio de Janeiro
14. joulukuuta 11

6. What went well?
• We had fun! – incredible 3 months!
• We have made TA irresistible to Senac in a sense that it would
be very hard to stop this change process anymore, so many
parts of the organization are involved
• We implemented basic TA tools: Training Sessions,
Birthgivings, Houston Calls, Forest & Back, and a little bit of
Young Leaders program
• All the pilots we run during the 3 months (with students,
professors and HR) went really well – we got results that show
the effect of TA methods
• Tiimimestari coaching for team coaches will start in Brazil in
February 2012 - we could create and maintain the interest
towards that
14. joulukuuta 11

7. What went well?
• This was a new kind of experiment – usually TA agents and
pilots take place AFTER already starting Tiimimestari program
– we went BEFORE that was running, but didn’t screw up the
pilots even though we didn’t have the full organizational
support
• We made many company visits to form partnerships to BTA
• The long-term intention is there – we have already done a lot
of well planned action during a longer period in Brazil
14. joulukuuta 11

8. First Beach & Back teaming-up day with our TA working team.
14. joulukuuta 11

9. What went poorly?
• There’s a continuous battle for the continuity of the process
inside Senac – but we battled well!
• The basic trust to the process and us is shattering often
• Henna: too much of sharing informal, incomplete information,
before it was officially decided together - here in TA we do
this, but in a bigger organization, in Brazil, it’s not good –
cultural differences?
• We didn’t do good transition with Ana or Valtteri, who did not
know too much about the current project beforehand
(periytys)
14. joulukuuta 11

10. What went poorly?
• Sometimes we didn’t respect Senac’s or its employee’s
opinions enough – on the other hand, maybe often they didn’t
respect ours / TA’s either
• We didn’t keep the Project Manager Patricia always enough
close when doing dialogue e.g. by Skype to Finland – we felt it
was somehow easier to have dialogue with Cecilia, the project
worker – who has lived in Europe for 1 year, and has more
cultural understanding – this is why Patricia wasn’t aware of
some important points about the process we had shared with
Cecilia - > more distrust was caused
• We made many company visits but unfortunately 3 months
was not enough to put in action many things with the
partners, now they are hot and without help!
14. joulukuuta 11

11. Santander Brazil -
one of the
companies who
wants TA but we
haven’t worked with
them since 2009.
Now it’s time again!
11
14. joulukuuta 11

12. What did we learn?
• It’s important to have people who have personal experience
of TA tools & process working on place where TA is taken. We
think it’s very important to have experienced TA coaches/
agents present in these processes! (like in Mondragon TA) –
They have a value that people from outside of TA cannot have
because when you have done it by yourself, you believe in it,
and you can sell it!
• Leadership is about making decisions and taking the
responsibility that follows.
• Patricia: “We dreamed this together, we are doing it together”
- this is how Senac’s project manager feels about the partners
& us, a very warm-hearted way to feel in business, it seems.
14. joulukuuta 11

13. What did we learn?
• In Brazil, everything moves on with personal relations and
trust.
• In Senac everything moves on also with politics – we used a
lot of time preparing presentations for important decision-
makers – during the time waiting for decisions, the future
didn’t exist...
• Portuguese language – a lot! - language skills doesn’t stop
you from going, but you need to be willing to learn.
• Execlusive rights for starting TA is apparently needed for
Senac in SP because of the competition in that area – how can
TA give exclusive rights because it’s TA’s value that
teampreneurs can sell anything to anyone?
• In Brazil we work with really big things & organizations – in
Finland we work with really small entrepreneurs - how can the
TA international network climb into the next level (with case
Brazil)?
14. joulukuuta 11

14. Our trio in Rio.
Random people on the
streets stopped us and
asked: What is that TA?
14
14. joulukuuta 11

15. What will we do differently next
time / What will we put in action?
• Let’s create a plan where we have more time for dialogue with the TA
core team – now we just had the training session once a week, but
not even one day for working together at the same place – we need
more dialogue!
• We need to work on the vision of Brazil TA. ”Tiimiakatemia's vision is
to be the European Leading boundary braking centre of excellence in
Team Entrepreneurship in 2013. Tiimiakatemia Adult Education's
vision is that by 2015 there are 147 Tiimiakatemias and 1000
trained Team Coaches who are coaching 1 million Team
Entrepreneurs.” How does TA Brazil is linked with these visions?
• We’d like to make more close relations with different companies in
Brazil around BTA - there is a need for offering more teams to work
in there!
• In Santander, we’ll implement the same things as in Senac –
Santander is the second main partner – a team company is needed in
there!
14. joulukuuta 11

16. What will we do differently next
time / What will we put in action?
• More dialogue with a Tiimimestari graduate Anita Seidler
about TA Brazil in Rio (Team Mastery in Rio)
• Back in Brazil in February 2012 with Tiimimestari!
• TA in Portugal is bubbling under…  Next steps in Portugal in
February 2012 in a creative industries forum - lets work on it!
14. joulukuuta 11

17. Co-creating with the HUB network in Sao Paulo & Rio.
17
14. joulukuuta 11

18. Notes from the conversation with TA
teampreneurs and coaches from our birthgiving
at Tiimiakatemia at 12.12.2011
• Ulla & Mimmu: Brazilian & Spanish cultures have tendency to create a lot of
dialogue but maybe not about the meaningful points, besides, it takes
250-800 hours to learn to dialogue with effect. In the other hand people
don’t have time to talk enough in normal working enviroment. TA helps in
this and the best help is to speak English because that cuts the pointless
talking and people really focus on what they say :)
• Ulla & Mimmu: process learning is another thing than case studies
• Ulla: When we talk about process learning the results can not be estimated
according to one training session or one event - it’s a process and the results
can be seen only in the end - we must make this clear to all of our clients
who want to estimate the process already before it’s over
• Aleksi & Juho, the teampreneurs: There’s too little dialogue between the TA’s
in other countries, for example TA Euskadi and MTA in Basque Country have
more dialogue between TA Jyväskylä than between themselves, even though
they are just 1 hour away from each other. In Finland Tiimiakatemia and
ProAkatemia don’t have enough conversation between each other.
18
14. joulukuuta 11

19. Notes from the conversation with TA
teampreneurs and coaches from our birthgiving
• Juho Deb, a teampreneur asked: Can we give the exclusive rights to TA
for Senac in SP? Because we cannot hold the teampreneurs from selling
the coaching processes anywhere, and since they are from Tiimiakatemia
they will easily sell Tiimiakatemia for others too. The aim with exclusive
rights is good: to guard the quality. Can we make exclusive agreement
that does not take into account the teampreneurs sales, but only
concerns starting TA and states that no other educational organization in
Sao Paulo can start a TA within the next x-years? Exclusivity can be just
temporary and then the market needs to keep free for new initiatives.
Here we clearly have a cultural difference: In Brazil the competition is
high and universities do everything to guard their brands. In Finland
teampreneurs are the main power of TA and they are allowed and
recommended to use the Tiimiakatemia brand in all their actions
everywhere. It’s not limited who they meet and sell to, even if they would
sell trash. The question is, what do we believe in in Brazil? Freedom or
control. TA in Jyväskylä believes in freedom more than to control.
• Aleksi & Emma, teampreneurs: TA needs control with quality for not
having poor TA’s - for example if someone in China buys a paper
machine they also buy the speacialist guys who know how to install and
operate it because the expertice is needed. That’s the same with TA. We
don’t want to have TA’s that are not operated with a right kind of
knowledge. That’s why it’s important to have staff from TA working in all
19
the new locations on implementing the methods.
14. joulukuuta 11

20. Thanks to all who contributed!
valtteri_melkko@yahoo.com
henna@banana.fi
http://teamacademybrazil.wordpress.com/
20
14. joulukuuta 11