Wellbeing in Mondragon Team Academy and LEINN

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Wellbeing in Mondragon Team Academy and LEINN

MTA-LEINN

Wellbeing in Mondragon Team Academy and LEINN

Incorporating Wellbeing into the Mondragon Team Academy Falkon Model (pedagogical framework) has been a team and community process that started 4 years ago

2022·03·29

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During the last few years at Mondragon Team Academy we have been working on our new pedagogical framework Falkon Model. This search has led us to discover new ways of doing, thinking and learning. Among them, Wellbeing.

Sayuri Alvarado Tanamachi -Team Coach and entrepreneur at Mondragon Team Academy and Co-Founder of Impact Hub Donostia- has been present throughout the process of integrating Wellbeing and Personal Cultivation into the model; and in this context we have conducted the following interview with her; so that we can better understand how we integrated it and what we have learned along the way.

Who are you? What has been the process of incorporating Well Being into the Falkon Model?

I am Sayuri Alvarado Tanamachi, Team Coach at the Mondragon Team Academy laboratory in Bidasoa, member of the Falkon team (in charge of developing and adapting the model) and co-founder of Impact Hub Donostia. From a more personal perspective: I am Mexican and more than 15 years ago I extended my map to Euskadi, and one of the milestones that changed my life was to incorporate the practice of meditation and spiritual inquiry.

Incorporating Wellbeing in the MTA Falkon model was a team and community process that began 4 years ago, from the identification of social problems that surrounded us, as well as the questioning of the place from where we undertake in the contemporary context. These first questions and investigations were followed by listening and diagnostic sessions in our community. And the inspiration of the Ashoka Fellowship program where well-being was at the center of social entrepreneurship.

To have a broader context connected to this first stage, I recommend you to have a look at this article: https://ssir.org/centered_self_the_connection_between_inner_wellbeing_and_social_change

After that, came the first drafts of the Falkon design where from the beginning we saw fundamental the incorporation in the base of two processes oriented to make explicit the wellbeing in our community: on the one hand Personal Cultivation and Well-being in the individual rocket, and on the other hand Empathy and Diversity in the team rocket. Both, although presented in the Falkon MTA as two distinct processes, are closely related to each other. The first focuses on the development of interpersonal capabilities (the relationship with yourself) and the other on intrapersonal capabilities (the relationship with other people). They are not understood separately...although this, in fact, happens with all the Falkon MTA processes.

Thus, during 2019, several pilots were launched in laboratories, and we joined a network of entrepreneurial higher education institutions that incorporate well-being to social innovation work in their curricula. Both elements allowed us to have external perspectives and test hypotheses with LEINNers and Team Coaches from our community.

As of today what we have is a first version implemented, with both processes incorporated in 1st and 2nd, learning outcomes and indicators designed and a first online course to support them. But this should only be the beginning, and it would not be understood without building a community of leaders in each Lab who are able to catalyze Wellbeing in their environment.

Why is Wellbeing included in Falkon, and how important is it in the world of entrepreneurship?

Learning to Be Human, and creating a positive impact together: this is our mantra at MTA when we talk about Personal Cultivation & Wellbeing and Empathy & Diversity.

But it's as easy to read as it is to put into practice. Not because it is a task reserved only for super heroines or super heroes, but because it implies that we want to enter into the adventure of answering the most difficult question in the history of humanity: Who am I? Who are we?

These two processes of the Falkon MTA are key to the challenges ahead of us as humanity. We cannot create meaningful projects without understanding who we are, without building strong and honest relationships with each other, and connecting our true purposes. It is about empowering ourselves in community, while learning to take responsibility for our wellbeing, building healthy relationships with each other and developing our strength and wisdom to create the projects that should be a reality to make this world a better place.

What is the MTA Wellbeing model?

For the creation of the model, we analyzed the different perspectives about what Well-being is, for example, the base of Maslow's pyramid, the proposal of Stanford Prevention Research Center (SPRC) in the 10 domains of Well-being, or some studies of the African and Eastern perspective of well-being.  However, we have to say that we are aware that it is a biased vision, since most of it speaks of a Western perspective. So it will be very enriching to incorporate the Well-being models of the Team Companies of all the Labs.  And above all, views from other cultures.

With all this, and also incorporating our Trinity model of team entrepreneurship, feedback from leinners and co-design with team companies and LEINN graduates, today the MTA Well-being model is as follows:

This is a BETA version, which will not be completed until we have all the views of our community.  In it, the Empathy and Diversity aspects are included, since they are related. One (Personal Cultivation) talks about our relationship with ourselves, the other (Empathy and Diversity) about our relationship with others.

How can we acquire tools and develop ourselves in wellbeing?

The proposal we make has to do with implementing a "formula" to catalyze Well-being in our laboratories that seeks to involve all the roles of our community, supporting theory and practices/actions. It is a proposal inspired by the Enzo Zen circle, combined with a western view of percentages and roles.  As of today it can be summarized in this graphic:

We have yet to test its practice in the labs, and by July of this year, we will have more information about its effectiveness or successes and improvements.

On the other hand, we have opened several conversations about how to digitize the experience through an app or similar and its implementation in the future, but today they are incipient and would not be the definitive solution if there is no culture and awareness in our labs.