Team Collaboration: my second free path!

Team Collaboration was a year ago, it was in fact the 17 June 2017, listed between my Preferred Paths. A link, and then here it is what I wrote then.

But when the time arrived to choose a path, a new one, I took finally another. And now, I can hardly believe it, after weeks of waiting, the supplyorders@toastmasters.org wrote me yesterday: "Sorry for the delay, we send you the Team Collaboration, your second free path!" I went fast to my Base Camp and the new path was there!

Team Collaboration is now between my paths! 

It could not have arrived in better time. In a few days, 

I will become a Team leader president of my Witty storytellers online club, and I will be able to use it to learn more about leading even better my team. And not only doing it, but with the help of the new path projects, also reflect upon it, discuss and get feedback. 

I did finish my other three paths, that were in the picture above, and have begun Dynamic Leadership and Motivational Strategies, buying one then later the other, both of them on their way now. 

The Pathways Guide Tasks, I finished by now, but I leave it there between the others, as my last tasks, the Virtual Support Sessions as they are called, helping through online video zoom are not all done.

I could open the path and here are the 5 Levels awaiting me. What can I know about them at this stage? Well I tried. Found out, I can at least see which are the Required Specific Projects at each level.

At Level 2 is the Active Listening, that I already had in two other paths.

Role of Table Topic master listening and giving back the essence of what heard to those who answered my questions.

Level 3 will be the Project Successful Collaboration, I am looking forward it. "Building an environment of trust and encouraging creatively" 

That is what my team in the club will need and I to improve upon what I already know. A skill is learned when used. Then reflected upon. Then used again and so on. And of course, with feedback from the team. 

I will have to see how the project Motivate others L4, is different from the project with similar name or almost, in my Motivation Strategy path.

It never hurts, I learned to repeat a Project, even if it is the same. But in my experience, similar projects in different paths were diverse, and reinforced differently the same skills and made me understand better. Like the one about Change, not same within different paths, but not diverging either.

Level 5 required, Lead in any situation, seems the same but even those six month of leading, each ask us to do something similar but not same depending of the Path.

I will try to read all I can before I get there to be ready for the six month or begin it as soon as I can. In June, even if I finish it only in December or in a year from now.

And then, once I got an overview of my five Levels, I activated the Icebreaker. 

Launched, here what I got, again. It must be my 7th time I did it, and probably my badge of Level 1 has 7 on it.

I have already begin to think what I will tell this time, perhaps even tomorrow. But I started first to look at the pages with a beginner's eye.

I have a lot more while around then here, as now I know to open up the page whole screen or almost. Not only I get the arrows to navigate to the next and previous page, but also to move to another section. Aha! It is called section at the bottom. Alas, nothing points to it, so some do not observe even that it is there. And very useful. Jumping to some specific pages, does not serve at the very beginning, but later, when we come back, want to print, or verify if we answered the self-assessment questions.

I did know how to play and pause, I did know I can navigate to a certain part of the video.

I did not realize, till this morning, that I can expand the video, fill my screen with it and toggling, later, minimize the video to continue navigating.

And with all those navigations there are also those where we find small dots, and go next or back. Or more and more.

Indeed, many ways to navigate in the project. Plus, in some places, same image but different text, explains other sides of the subject.

At the very beginning, I opened also the Project, and indeed at the end there is this:

It does clearly say, to complete the second portion of our self-assessment, only AFTER we have completed ALL the components of an assignment. But it does not say, true also that by doing it, we signal the Base Camp "I did complete the project."

This is only one of the many pages of the Icebreaker. So much to learn! So much to practice. Never enough. Never to many times.

That is my experience at least. 

Each time, I observe or learn something in plus. And enjoy the way, new ways I do it.

Of course, also looking to the audience, longer, one paragraph perhaps for each different then we change, when in a room, is important. 

This morning, I learned a new way to do it. Not reading from a sheet or a book, notebook or paper near me, that would have put my eyes at left or right. I made a screen dump of an intro I was given for introducing our workshop leader.  Opened it in a picture, made it bigger so the letters occupied almost all my screen. 

When my time to read came, I just put aside the screen when I looked at the others in zoom, and looking straight to the video camera, could read my text with inflections. No one observed that I did not see them, and of course the text was not too long to need me to observe the audience at the same time. After the meeting, I was told, "you told it as if it were from you and not a given text you read!". We do learn all the time.