Entreprenuer Portal
Welcome Entrepreneurs
We nurture leaders through culturally relevant mentoring and training and help them build their social capital through our network.
important Information
Program Overview
What to Expect
We will provide 12 weeks of intensive support to your social enterprise around community wealth building, leadership development, relationship building, business coaching, technical support, and mentoring.
ONBOARDING
Each entrepreneur will be guided through two-weeks of onboarding which will allow time for them to get their social enterprise ideas on paper, talk with Alkhemy team members, and prepare for the incubator curriculum.
PROGRAMMING
Following onboarding, entrepreneurs begin 9-week programming which includes weekly 3-hour workshops, a weekly 1-hour mentorship group meeting, and technical assistance support.
PITCH PREP
Incubator participants will receive support throughout the programming process to develop their social enterprise pitches and pitch decks.
PITCH + CELEBRATION
Alkhemy will host two pitch days to allow for all of our Incubator participants to share their ideas with a guest panel and larger community.
PROGRAM WRAP UP
Following the Pitch Day presentations, each member of the cohort will have wrap up and next steps conversations with their Alkhemy support teams and technical assistance providers.
Program Requirements
- Ability to attend events in a virtual/online format
- Weekly group coaching and mentoring sessions
- Nine weeks of workshops and relationship-building with members of the Alkhemy team and your cohort
- This program will require approximately 6-8 hours of your time each week
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Schedule Overview: Fall 2021
Weeks 1-2: August 13 - August 27
Week 3-5: Community Wealth Building 101
- Session 1: Defining Community Wealth Building (CWB)
- Sat August 28 (10am-12:30pm) and Weds September 1 (6-8:30pm)
- Mariah and Diop
- Session 2: CWB in Action:
- Sat September 4 (10am-12:30pm) and Weds September 8 (6-8:30pm)
- Jeru and Im
- Session 3: Your CWB Goals
- September 11 (10am-12:30pm) and September 15 (6-8:30pm)
- Mimi and Rasul
Weeks 6-8: Bootstrap Bootcamp
- Session 4: Art of the Start panel
- September 18 (10am-12:30pm) and September 22 (6-8:30pm)
- Auboni, Mrs Fair and Im
- Session 5: People centered assets
- September 25 (10am-12:30pm) and September 29 (6-8:30pm)
- Diop and Jenny
- Session 6: Archetypes
- October 2 (10am-12:30pm) and October 6 (6-8:30pm)
- Stephanie and Rasul
Weeks 9-11: Power in the People
- Session 7: Genuine Relationships Begins with you
- October 9 (10am-12:30pm) and October 13 (6-8:30pm)
- Mimi and Rasul
- Session 8: People first development
- October 16 (10am-12:30pm) and October 20 (6-8:30pm)
- Mariah and Alvin
- Session 9: Relational culture
- October 23 (10am-12:30pm) and October 27 (6-8:30pm)
- Im and Aghilah
Pitch Week + Celebration: November 1
Friday August 13th, 6PM - WELCOME EVENT
JOIN ON ZOOM.KHEPRW.ORG
August 14th- Virtual Meeting
- Biz Model Canvas: Due Wednesday, August 18
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Link to create your canvas: https://coopjumpstart.com/coop_bmc/1622909954208x958608673424308500
- Impact Survey
August 21st: Virtual Meeting
- Entrepreneurial Development Plan
Session 1: Defining Community Wealth
- Sat August 28 (10am-12:30pm) and Weds September 1 (6-8:30pm)
- Presenters/facilitators: Diop and Mariah
- Total time: 2 hrs 30 mins
- Opening Song/Video/Poem (5 mins)
- Opening Activity (5 mins):
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- Reflection (write down answers for later reflection):
- What makes a community empowered connected adaptable transparent?
- What helps people in a community share their skills with each other?
- What do you see in your community that makes it feel more whole? When have you experienced this? What nurtures this?
- Reflection (write down answers for later reflection):
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- Part Two: Name 2-3 opportunities to create more of this
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- Group Introductions (45 mins):
- Name, organization, one goal for your business, one fun fact about yourself
- Questions for discussion (15 mins):
- What do people already know about Community Wealth Building?
- What is it? Have you seen this concept actualized in your community? Are you currently modeling this concept? Who do you know in your community that is modeling this concept? Identify examples and models.
- Define (20 mins):
- Diop and Mariah elaborate on our CWB definition, 4 types of capital, why we emphasize social capital, examples, tell stories, answer questions, group discussion
- Entrepreneurial Story Highlight (10 min): - 1 volunteer
- Program preview (15 mins):
- Mariah preview the Alkhemy experience, scope of curriculum etc. Diop and Mariah answer any questions on the programHW - upload to the google drive folder under your name, if you want it reviewed, share the doc to curriculum@kheprw.org, come to the next session prepared to share your hw and get feedback!
- Preview Next Week/Closing (10 min):
- Talk about next week session, share the HW (encourage participants to send questions prior to next session - to curriculum@kheprw.org)
- Discuss Opening Activity: (split into 2 rooms) (15 mins):
- Thoughts/reflections/lingering questions. What are a few of the elements you named in the opening activity, times you’ve experienced it, opportunities to build this? What kind of role do you see yourself playing in this? How are you defining “community?”
- Check out:
- one word that is presently on your mind
- Group Introductions (45 mins):
- Homework:
- Write down your definition of community wealth building. Use the 4 Types of Capital chart to assess your business - what resources and people do you have access to and what category of capital does it fall in? What are your top three most valuable assets in each category? Come to the next session ready to share.
- Terms:
- Community
- Wealth
- Building
- Community wealth building
- Capital - social, intellectual, cultural, financial
- Tools:
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- 4 Types of Capital assessments
- what do you have access to and what category of capital does it fall in? Prioritize top 3 in each category
- Relationships:
- Introductions, discussion space, assessment of capital including relationships
- Go Deeper Resources:
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- Videos:
- Thunder Valley CDC
- Noni Sessions recording
- Talking on the East Bay Permanent Real Estate CooperativE
- Grace Lee Boggs
- 1 hr documentary - Grace Lee Boggs: American Revolutionary
- Short video on PBS
- Books
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- The Making of a Democratic Economy by Marjorie Kelly, Ted Howard
- The Next American Revolution by Grace Lee Boggs
- Articles
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Session 2 - Community Wealth Building in Action
- Sat September 4 (10am-12:30pm) and Weds September 8 (6-8:30pm)
- Presenters/facilitators: Jeru facilitate, Im speak
- Total time: 2 hrs 25 mins
- Opening Song/Video/Poem(5 mins): SOL DEVELOPMENT - I'M ALIVE
- Check-in: Breakout groups in teams of 10 (20 mins)
- Number, color, an album/song that’s moved/deeply impacted you.
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- Opening Activity (30 mins):
- In each group, volunteers present about their business, how they categorized their assets in the forms of capital, what they feel they need. Workshop in the space with the team to identify further assets they can share with each other.
- Each team build out these assets in a spreadsheet that is accessible to the group
- In each group, volunteers present about their business, how they categorized their assets in the forms of capital, what they feel they need. Workshop in the space with the team to identify further assets they can share with each other.
- Opening Activity Recap/Reflection (back to main room, groups report out) (20 mins)
- Entrepreneurial Story Highlight (10 mins)
- Discussion and stories w Im:
- Opening Activity (30 mins):
- Entrepreneurial CWB stories (manifesting the vision) (30 mins):
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- Questions for Im:
- Your entrepreneurial journey and how it relates to CWB. Personal development and growth?
- What are some of your favorite examples of the community wealth that was built through these experiences?
- What are key skills and tools you’ve used to build community wealth? Where do you learn these skills and tools?
- Who poured into you and who do you look up to?
- What do you recommend to others that want to build community wealth?
- Questions and discussion
- Questions for Im:
- Closing Activity/Check-out (15 min):
- Name an entrepreneur, author, or an idea/concept you can commit to studying + learning more about.
- Preview Next Week/Closing (10 mins):
- Share about next week’s session and the HW, answer any questions.
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- HW:.
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- Get a coffee/virtual drink this week to learn someone’s story that you want to connect with. Could be another cohort member/coach/etc or anybody else
- Make a list of the tools, skills, other resources you learned of or identified you need to incorporate, prioritize the list, and schedule a time this week to do more research on the #1 item
- Social capital tree activity. Draw a tree. Make the leaves on the left side the people and organizations you are in relationship with that support your community wealth building organization. Make the leaves on the right side people and organizations you should connect with that can inform, support, and build your work. Come ready to share next week
- Provide example social capital tree
- HW: Get together for relationship building session
- Goals for week 2:
- Deeper dive into what and how - personal entrepreneurial journeys, tools, processes
- Terms: building on the same ones.
- Entrepreneurial journey and CWB
- Building on understanding of the 4 types of capital and personal exampleS
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- Toolkit:
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- Digging into business assessment of resources in different categories of capital
- Spreadsheet of resources shared in break outs
- Tips from Im
- Introduce social capital tree
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- Relationships:
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- Continue to build relationships within the cohort
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Go Deeper Resources:
- Videos:
- Recording of Jessica Gordon Nembhard speaking at KI New Normal Summit w free curriculum + other resources
- Fannie Lou Hamer short documentary
- Grace Lee Boggs: Short video on Democracy Now
- Still Shinin documentary
- Articles
- Books
- Relationship Economy by John R. DiJulius III
- Collective Courage by Jessica Gordon Nembhard
Session 3 - Your CWB goals
- September 11 (10am-12:30pm) and September 15 (6-8:30pm)
- Presenters/facilitators: Rasul, Mimi
- Opening Song/Video/Poem: (10 mins)
- Time: 2 hrs 20 mins
- Check-in:
- break out into groups - number, color, “joy looks like ________.” (10 mins)
- Activity: (1 hr 5 mins):
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- Define SMART Goals (Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Timebound.) and give/solicit examples of what a SMART goal for building your social capital might look like (10 mins)
- Ex: Use networking/social media tools to research what’s going on in my industry locally and build social capital with 4 people working in this area this month through weekly coffee dates. Specific - focus on industry and goal of relationship building using particular tools/prcoess Measurable - 1 person/week for 4 weeks = 4 people this month. Did I hit my weekly mark? Attainable - some research + one date/week is doable Relevant - in alignment with goal of building social capital in my industry Timebound - once/week for one month.
- Break out into 2 groups: Share about your social capital tree (might need to give people 5-10 mins to make one up right quick if they didn’t do their HW). One volunteer at a time - Discuss why you identified the existing and potential relationships as important, group share ideas for other relationships and connections that may be beneficial. Share any introductions folks could make that might help. (30 mins)
- Make a spreadsheet of relationships and introductions shared for each group
- SMART Goals for social capital (30 mins)
- Individual reflection and exercise: For the relationships you already have, reflect on how they were formed and strengthened. Make a SMART goal to build the social capital identified on the right side of your tree, or if needed to strengthen the social capital on the left side. (10 mins)
- In groups: Share SMART goals for building these relationships and strategies for achieving them. Group discuss and give feedback (10 mins)
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- Group share outs Groups report back to main room and share takeaways (10 mins)
- Entrepreneurial Story Highlight (10 mins)
- Activity 2:
- Show video The Kheprw Story and discuss as relates to CWB (20 mins)
- Check-out:
- One takeaway, highlight, and/or exciting challenge from Community Wealth 101. (10 mins)
- What’s next!?
- Share HW, Preview Bootsrap Bootcamp
- Homework:
- Share the goal you made with somebody who can hold you accountable to it, begin to implement your SMART goal and put the activities in your calendar
- Get a coffee/virtual drink this week with somebody from the right side of your social capital tree, new relationships you wish to build.
- Terms:
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- SMART Goals
- Building on social capital
- Toolkit:
- Social capital tree
- Spreadsheet of social capital connections shared in break outs
- Development of SMART goals for building social capital, build out next steps
- Relationships:
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- Continue to build relationships within the cohort
- Sharing relationship connections w each other
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- HW of implementing SMART goals for building social capital
- Go Deeper Resources
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- Videos:
- Books
- Articles
Session 4: The Art of the Start Panel
- September 18 (10am-12:30pm) and September 22 (6-8:30pm)
- Facilitators: Auboni, Mrs Fair, Im
- Time: 2.5 hrs
- Opening Song/Video/Poem/Breath exercise: (10 mins)
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- Check-in (15 min):
- In groups - Name, number color, song you listened to recently, how your business will build community wealth in one sentence (connects to what they learned last session), one goal for this workshop.
- Opening Activity (5 min) : Take a piece of paper out and write down all the things that you have accessed for little or no money that have been critical to building your enterprise.
- Check-in (15 min):
- Introduce Panelists: Im Mrs. Fair + Auboni
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- Panel Discussion: (30 mins)
- Why did you become an entrepreneur?
- What is the art of the start? What is bootstrap entrepreneurship?
- Specific examples of how you bootstrapped an enterprise?
- What beliefs were key in allowing you to build in this way?
- What was your greatest learning (maybe it was hard when you were in it, but once you got past it) in terms of starting where you’re at?
- How do you stay adaptable?
- What practices, mindsets, tools, habits, resources would you recommend to entrepreneurs today?
- Q & A (15 mins)
- Panel Discussion: (30 mins)
- Introduce FORD: Family Occupation Recreation Dreams (10 mins)
- Group activity: (40 mins)
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- One volunteer at a time: Review your SMART goals for social capital from last session and share about the experience of the coffee you got with someone to build social capital since last week. What did you learn about their story? Did you learn anything in the FORD framework? If you had to guess what their FORD looks like? What areas of synergy and connection did you find? Do you intend to keep building a relationship with them? Why and how? Group discuss and give feedback. (30 mins)
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- Groups share out in main room (10 mins)
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- Entrepreneurial Story Highlight (10 mins)
- Check-Out:
- in groups - Your biggest takeaway from today’s panel. (10 mins)
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- Preview Next Week/Closing/Asks (5 mins)
- HW:
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- Take your list of the low/no cost assets that support your enterprise, and identify your top 3. How are you stewarding those assets and relationships? Look at your goals for your business and think about how you can move one of them forward through an Art of the Start approach - what do you already have access to that empowers you to progress? Write it down and tell somebody.
- Take the Grit quiz
Definitions
FORD: Family Occupation Recreation Dreams
Art of the Start
Bootstrap Entrepreneurship
Tools
FORD
Bootstrap entrepreneurship tips, tools, and resources
Social capital SMART goals feedback
Relationships
Breakouts and small group discussions
Entrepreneurial story volunteer
Out of class social capital session
Go Deeper Resources
- Podcast
- Videos:
- Nipsey Hussle documentary on building The Marathon Clothing store
- Articles
- Books
- Contagious by Noah Berger
- Videos
Nipsey Hussle documentary about building his clothing store
Session 5: People Centered Habits: The Marathon of Entrepreneurship and CWB
Grit, 7 habits (quadrant 2), and SERA
- September 25 (10am-12:30pm) and September 29 (6-8:30pm)
- Speakers, facilitators: Jenny and Diop
- Opening Song/Video/Poem/Breath exercise:
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- Entrepreneurship and community wealth building are long roads, so we will talk some about mindset and tools that can help entrepreneurs manage effectively Nipsey video on breaking mental barriers (10 mins)
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- Check ins:
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- in groups, color number, if you were an animal (15 mins)
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- Grit and growth mindset:
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- watch grit video, speak on the importance of grit and discuss initial thoughts as a whole group (15 mins), break out into groups to discuss your grit quiz results HW (20 mins) then groups come back and share out (10 mins). (45 mins total)
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- Tool: Quadrant 2
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- Read this quadrant 2 summary article from 7 habits of highly effective people out loud (volunteer readers) and the shopping center example under Shifting from Quadrant 1 to Quadrant 2 in this article and discuss as a whole group (15 mins) See hw for deeper dive!
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- Tool: SERA
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- Strategize Execute Review Adjust
- When working a plan - do a prep before and a debrief after meetings and events, and identify any adjustments needed. Examples
- Alkhemy: Before every Alkhemy session we go over the plan as a team (strategize), then we run the session (execute), then the team reviews the session and identifies takeaways, lessons learned, anything to do differently going forward (review) and takes steps to make important improvements (adjust). At the end of the whole program we will have a large group debrief to ask these same questions in a big picture way and begin to shape our next steps, including feedback from you all.
- Personal time management: People who have a lot to do (entrepreneurs) need to adapt and prioritize on a daily basis! One SERA practice for daily management - every day start your day by identifying the 3 key things you need to do (strategize), run your day accordingly (execute) and at the end of the day review how it went, anything that got in the way, did your decision making make sense, would you do it differently, do you need to shift (review), and make any needed changes to how and what you’re working. It can take a long time to make this a habit, but the more you practice, the more you will increase you effectiveness. Highly recommend leaning on others to help with this process like get a friend or a partner to join you in this practice daily or weekly.
- Break outs - groups break out and discuss either quadrant II reflections, or SERA process
- What are the quadrant I emergencies that tend to take a lot of your time and energy? Are there systemic ways (quadrant II) that you can address them?
- What practices do you already use that align with the SERA concept? Think of examples of how you have planned, reviewed, executed and adjusted a strategy in the past? How will you normalize this practice in your enterprise?
- Share-outs: Groups come back together and share takeaways (10 mins)
- Check-out: One strength you contribute (10 mins)
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- Preview Next Week/Closing
- HW:
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- Take your Foursight assessment for next week!!
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- Session Goals:
- Terms:
- Grit
- Quadrant 2
- SERA
- Toolkit:
- Grit Quiz
- Quadrant 2 framework
- SERA examples and reflections
- Relationships:
- Full group and break out group discussion spaces
- Go Deeper Resources
- Quadrant 2 deeper dive: Read this short article on quadrant 2 and identify things you should be saying no to in order to increase your effectiveness by focusing more on quadrant 2. For further learning and self study, try writing down all your activities in a day or a week and put them into the 4 quadrants. Where are you spending most of your time? What quadrant 2 activities could improve your effectiveness and how can you prioritize them?
- Grit deeper dive: Review your grit assessment with somebody you trust, ask them to help you reflect. Is it on point? Watch this video on grit and growth mindset and by Angela Duckworth and identify one opportunity to practice grit.
- Books
- Grit by Angela Duckworth
- Good to Great and Built to Last by Jim Collins
- Podcast
- Videos
Session 6: Archetypes and Strength in Difference
- October 2 (10am-12:30pm) and October 6 (6-8:30pm)
- Speakers/facilitators: Stephanie and Rasul
- Opening Song/Video/Poem (10 mins)
- Check-in:
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- color number, one place you would teleport to right now and why (15 mins)
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- Reflection:
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- General reflections from last week. Did you have conversations about any of the ideas with others in your life? Did you do any more research or begin to implement any of the concepts? (5 mins)
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- Synergize:
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- Valuing the difference section of 7 habits (15 mins)
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- Archetypes and skills needed for entrepreneurship
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- Introduce the idea of archetypes and balance. Everyone has unique styles, preferences, strengths and challenges. Embracing and accessing a diversity of these brings balance to the team and helps you build effectively. More on this next week. For now, let’s dig into a particular way to see archetypes!
- Stephanie Fernhaber walk through the FourSight Thinking Profiles for innovation (1 hr)
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- October 9 (10am-12:30pm) and October 13 (6-8:30pm)
- Presenters/facilitators: Rasul and Mimi
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- Check ins
- one thing you’re good at, one thing you love, pass it to someone who raises their hand in agreement
- Check ins
- Self mastery and understanding self as critical to relationship building
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- Strengths and challenges, personal journey, passions, purpose, lessons, triggers
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- Practice telling your story exercise in pairs, group share outs
- Self assessments and exercises
- Deep listening exercise in duos
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- 5 levels of leadership - leading through relationships, service, and people development. Self assessment
- 7 habits - how effectively do you practice healthy independence and interdependence? Are you nurturing healthy relationships and moving forward your life’s vision with agency?
- (break out into groups to take an assessment and share w group. All come back together and do larger group share out)
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- HW:
- Review your self assessment. Share the tool with a team member and have them answer the questions for themself, and also about you. Reflect together on your perspectives, what you are learning, areas of strengths and areas for growth.
- Resources: provide the self assessments
- Go Deeper Resources
- Videos:
- Books
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
- Her Bak: The Living Face of Ancient Egypt by Isha Schwaller de Lubicz
- Articles
Session 8: Building Genuine Relationships - learning others
People over Profit (People First Development)
Facilitators: Mariah and Alvin
- Habit 6: Seek first to understand then to be understood
- Deep listening exercise in pairs, share outs
- Systems and processes to build it in
- Check ins w creative questions
- Sharing meals and drinks, music, books and art, family stories
- The FORD model - family, occupation, recreation, dreams
- Tell your story - who are you and how did you get to where you are now? Why did they make the decisions that shaped their path like what to study, where to work and live etc.
- Group projects, helping each other, making space to contribute
- Storytelling w Im and Michael Huber from the Indy Chamber - how did you build a genuine relationship?
Go Deeper Resources
- Books
- 5 Levels of Leadership by John Maxwell
- Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Peter Senge and others
- Leadership and the New Science by Margaret Wheatley
- Podcast
- Videos
Session 9: Building your relational culture
- October 23 (10am-12:30pm) and October 27 (6-8:30pm)
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- Facilitators: Aghilah and Im
- What makes the culture of a space feel healthy? How do you know when a culture prioritizes relationships and people?
- Conflict
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- Conflict style assessment - how do you approach conflict? Reflect
- Processes for honoring and embracing conflict. How to get real, respectfully, progressively
- Conflict transformation
- when a conflict helped you grow, when a conflict helped strengthen a relationship. When a conflict damaged a relationship, and could it have been navigated more fruitfully? What got in the way? How can disagreements be depersonalized? (the 4 agreements)
- Building in spaces to regularly get honest and reflective about conflicts - when and where will you ritualize this practice?
- Conflict transformation
- Building and assessing partnerships and opportunities
- How do they feel?
- Can it benefit your community work? (A bull’s ass)
- What is the risk or cost? How can it be monitored and managed?
- Go Deeper Resources
- Videos
- Articles
- Books
- The 4 Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
- Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
- The Power Manual by Cyndi Suarez