by Gioel Gioacchino
Since we started planning Recrear.beta, I used to think a million times about what the days would look like. Now that Recrear.beta is running by, quick and intense, I am notiving all the imperfections that Recrear.beta’s prototype in my head had. Comparing the two versions- the real and the prototype- I am learning a LOT. In fact, the most valuable learning experience for me has not been digesting and assimilating lectures, workshops and conferences (even though they have been extremely interesting and enriching). Instead, my number one professor is a potent and mysterious entity called ‘group dynamic’.
Recrear.beta made me realize that I had not worked with a group that required real coordination and cooperation in a long time. In my day to day life I coordinated my to-do-list and was usually the protagonist of my plans. Living with a group of this size is a fascinating process. We see each other sleepy at breakfast and then sit together in intense workshops through the day. We work like colleagues, and then have lunch and laugh like friends. We get lost under the rain in Berlin, go out for drinks, talk about our lives, share deeper reflections about ourselves and the world, and then get back to planning Recrear moments later.
In this constant wave of energy and ideas, making sure that everybody’s needs are taken care of becomes challenging. Nevertheless, it is exactly this attention to what our needs are, and which situation and dynamics empower us, which produces the most interesting results. Last week I blogged about the different personalities here at Recrear.beta. During this second week every person in the group has become to my eyes more complex; with their complexity in view its becoming clearer how each of us is able to contribute to Recrear in the best way.
To make the point of the situation. In the first portion of the program we acquired a lot of information and we reflected deeply about where Recrear should be and what needs to happen in order to be there. While each of us was discovering Recrear in a more intimate way, we had not found a formal framework to share and communicate these perceptions in order to develop them further.
Aware of these problems, we pushed ourselves to make serious progress in the development of Recrear, though we were engaged in organizing two conferences hosted at the BMW Foundation, and were also participating in workshops on fundraising and branding. In the past few days we had a couple of long discussions that at times became very frustrating. Nevertheless, these conversations brought us closer together. These conversations pushed us to think about the ‘hows’ more deeply and to start thinking about our answers more specifically. Personally, the process was very intriguing for me: all the thoughts and reflections I had been debating in my head for months found not only one voice, but many, and finally went off into unique directions at times truly unexpected.
On Friday August 13th sitting on the grass of Mauerpark, we all could finally officially declare to be on the same page…
Magically, with an exercise of paper and markers, we were able to divide in clear, concrete working groups. With this more efficient structure, we are on a roll!
So this is my very short version of how the Recrear.beta team is taking few people’s dreams and making them its own. Dealing with group dynamic requires patience, determination and coordination – and Recrear.beta has been making all of these investments.
