I just finished teaching Knowledge Team Leadership to a very appreciative audience from Stockholm and Gothenburg. Here’s a picture of the class doing a final flip chart review—an exercise where student becomes teacher and reviews all of the material from the course with a partner in about 10 minutes. In this case it was very exciting to watch because I taught in English and they of course reviewed in Swedish.

They speak very good English and were very kind to me to allow me to teach in English. One of the students promises to teach me “Swenglish” and I can’t wait to learn.

The feedback was that I speak International English. I asked what that means and was told that it means I am understandable. I slow down; I know when I am using idioms and metaphors that might not translate—so I check; and I notice when they look at me with confused expressions, so I stop and look for someone to help me find where I lost them.

It was a very nice dance of language.

A  group from Provins Fem, the Swedish experts on collaboration who sponsored the training, translated my Team Orientation Process℠ into Swedish (Svenska) from English (Engelska). They did this as a service for a client of theirs who also attended the training, so the client could take this flow chart into their office tomorrow. Now that’s knowledge transfer!

A side story was that Anders Risling, managing partner at Provins Fem, was scheduled to attend Knowledge Team Leadership in the USA September 14, 2001, three days after 9/11. He has waited six years.

The single most appreciated teaching point was that the Task Is The Reason for The Team. That’s a re-frame for this audience. If you aren’t sure why this is important, maybe you should come to Knowledge Team Leadership.

More later…