Newsletter November 2024
Greetings to our TetraMap community and welcome to the latest newsletter.
Everybody loves a good leader, but what is the key to great leadership? This month we take a first look at our new TetraMap of Leadership and what that can mean to you and your clients. Do you want to deepen your understanding of leadership and gain new skills? Or cultivate your own self-leadership capabilities and guide others?
Speaking of leadership, we look at our own coming changes in the new year, designed to strengthen and protect the TetraMap brand. Louise Duncan and Madelize Bekker explain how TetraMap International is moving forward in the new year.
Trust the Process delves into the TetraMap toolbox taking a look at follow up activities. Create energy in the room and build rapport with the chair game.
Climate change is now affecting every country on every continent. We take a moment to celebrate and reflect on the how TetraMap has been a committed for the last 25 years to become a leader in practicing and promoting sustainability.
It’s been a big month for growth in the TetraMap community with two new groups of certified facilitators from Singapore and New Zealand and another two groups to come from the UK and New Zealand! Welcome to all the Certified TetraMap Facilitators who have joined us this year and don’t forget to join our LinkedIn group to share all the up to date news. You can also find TetraMap facilitators near you on our website and our newsletter page has the latest community news with loads of useful information and tips and practical help from the experts to help with your facilitation.
TetraMap continues to grow with exciting new roles for Directors.
This month we fully lean into our theme of leadership with news of role changes within TetraMap. As the company continues to grow and develop, TetraMap International Managing Director, Louise Duncan, will take up the role of Global Brand Ambassador.
As part of her role, Louise will focus on building a global community of brand ambassadors to encourage everyone to come together to curate ideas, knowledge and build connections.
Louise explained: “I have always been passionate about the TetraMap brand and one of my first lessons in brand management was ‘if you don’t have a brand, you don’t have anything’.
“It’s been truly inspiring to watch TetraMap grow and we now reach into forty-five countries across the globe. Our success speaks for itself but we also know the more we grow, the more important it is than ever to stay true to our brand values and ensure they are protected.
“We all know the great work we do in our community and how much it touches lives. As Global Brand Ambassador I plan to shine a light and share our stories.”
Stepping into the role of Managing Director from January 2025 is Madelize Bekker, who has had a deep connection to the TetraMap community since 2007. Madelize is a Master TetraMap Facilitator, has previously served on the TetraMap board and was recently instrumental in the Vietnam launch of TetraMap. She has job shared with Louise for the past year in preparation for the change in responsibilities and is a seasoned entrepreneur and visionary education strategist.
With more than 25 years of experience teaching and leading international education initiatives, Madelize balances operational leadership with a deep commitment to community values. Her strategic insights and entrepreneurial mindset, combined with her focus on digital learning, positions her well to help shape the future of TetraMap.
Madelize said: “I’m thrilled to be taking on this new responsibility and to build on the strong foundations Louise has laid. My focus will be on moving TetraMap forward by strengthening our image, systems, culture, and outputs.
“I’m committed to supporting our global community in bringing our principles to life in meaningful and impactful ways. I envision a future where wisdom and innovation work hand in hand to create environments that promote growth, resilience, and shared success.”
We will hear more from Madelize in January as she shares her new vision for a new year.
Trust the process – incorporating activities
You’ve completed your first/fifteenth/fiftieth ‘Why Are You Like That?’ workshop. Once again, you’ve had a great reaction, but how do you extend learning and application beyond the Element Presentations?
In this month’s Trust the Process we take a deeper look into why we use activities. We guide you through the Chair Activity and TetraMap of Projects to illustrate how an activity can pull everyone together.
Louise Duncan, Director TetraMap International, explains: “The Chair Activity is a simple task that requires coordination and practice and helps us understand the Elements of a project. It moves people beyond learning about individual preferences to learning deeper into how those preferences play out in another context – in this case working on projects as a team. From ME to WE.”
The game includes mandatory reflection time which Louise believes is a big lesson in itself. Taking time out to stop and get input from everyone on what’s working – or not working – can accelerate progress. Most groups fail at first and get better once they’ve talked it through and worked out a process.
“The Chair Activity helps groups move to progress with the realisation that they must work together to make it work. We hope this will help them reframe failure as an opportunity to succeed in future projects.
“Some people might argue that games are a bit silly. However, games are often a reflection of behaviour. You’ll see all sorts of behaviours play out – someone taking charge, no-one listening, someone not speaking up with an idea, and of course you’ll hear lots of laughter. These are things to look out for and bring to the group’s attention.
“It’s only silly if you don’t make connections to the real world. You’ll see many light bulb moments occurring. Inviting people to share those is your facilitation expertise!”
One of the easiest ways to plan and prepare for your training and coaching session is to revisit our resources and support materials. Fully utilise your Why Are You Like That? (WAYLT) workbook or consider using a more specific one from the TetraMap range of workbooks, designed to suit your personal and workplace development.
The Chair Activity – step by step
First, make a list of some of the projects you are involved in right now! The process will make more sense when you apply it yourself.
Next, take a look at your WAYLT workbook, and on pages 14 &15 you’ll see a double page spread focusing on Projects. Why? Because everyone is involved in various different projects, and therefore can understand and apply the relevance in their context.
Form teams and have them take their chairs, workbook and pen and sit in a circle.
Also refer to your WAYLT leader guide for steps.
- Allow around 30-50 minutes for this activity
- Introduce the TetraMap of Projects: Goals, Quality, Agreement, Ideas
- Ask participants to read the snippets of conversation in The Project Hiccup. This helps reinforce how people are different, word choices, needs, pace and tone
- Ask participants if they’d like to participate in a PROJECT? (Everyone says yes!)
- Play the Chair Activity, using the instructions in your Leader Guide and PowerPoint slides. The project task is to run around a circle of chairs as fast as possible for 30 seconds
- This activity requires space, co-ordination and a level of physical ability. For anyone not able to run round a circle of chairs they can become a coach/observer
- Allow time for practice and reflection so they can improve
- Spend most time on the debrief, using the questions on page 15, and the reflection slides in your WAYLT PowerPoint.
Leading the way in sustainability
It’s not always easy being a sustainable business – prioritising long-term growth over short-term financial gains – and as we approach 25 years of TetraMap we celebrate our continued commitment to sustainability. We might be blowing our own trumpet – but never has it been more important to consider nature, the planet and our own impact on climate change.
A recent article in IMD Magazine highlights how corporate messages about the climate crisis can evoke feelings of helplessness. It suggests life-affirming, empowering narratives can be more effective drivers of sustainability. Welcome to our TetraMap community!
Louise Duncan, Director TetraMap International, reflects: “For almost 25 years TetraMap has embedded our value of sustainability into all our business practices. Thankfully sustainability is now mainstream and now our focus has shifted towards taking climate action.
“We have our inspirational leaders and TetraMap founders Jon and Yoshimi Brett to thank for staying steadfast in their vision to embed sustainability deep into TetraMap’s values. It wasn’t always an easy option 25 years ago. Even something as simple as committing to using recycled paper was a hurdle when it came to appearance and the printing of booklets and marketing materials.
“There has been a general shift in attitude to make sustainability and regenerative action more mainstream topics, and TetraMap’s messages of people and planet are striking a chord with both companies and individuals – young people don’t want to work for companies that don’t care about the environment. Nature is more and more on the agenda and TetraMap plays a part as it triggers positive emotions and paves the way for inclusive discussions on any topic in any organisation.”
Leading by example, TetraMap publications are printed on 100% recycled paper and a digital suite is on offer as an alternative to paper-based products. This saves time for those attending an in-person workshop by completing TetraMap’s instrument in advance, and has a wide appeal for geographically dispersed teams.
There is also a digital version of the TetraMap Book: Develop people and business the way nature intended.
Louise added: “It’s one step at a time – helping to transform the attitudes, behaviour, and performance of the individuals and teams we work with every day. That starts by understanding the people we work with. Many TetraMap facilitators are drawn to us because of their ethos to embrace nature and reduce waste in they do and you can all help by talking the TetraMap of sustainability in all your workshops. Thank you for choosing TetraMap!”
Responsibility is one of TetraMap’s values, which means big picture responsibility – Planet, Profit, People, Legacy. This means being alert to the impacts of our behaviours, actions, and thoughts, working always toward sustainable solutions.
“We can all learn to do more with less. We must reduce waste; both human and environmental.”
– Jon Brett“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.”
– Buckminster Fuller in the 1970’s.
Top up your skills with our new TetraMap of Leadership®
In April 2025, we’ll be launching a new learning programme for certified facilitators around The TetraMap® of Leadership. The programme comes with a set of facilitation materials that promises to elevate the facilitation of TetraMap in a leadership context.
The TetraMap of Leadership, which features in the current Why Are You Like That? participant workbook, was originally developed by our Founders, Yoshimi and Jon. It identifies four leadership perspectives: Courage, Wisdom, Compassion and Inspiration.
The new learning programme from TetraMap extends the TetraMap of Leadership out into a leader guide which helps facilitators to explore each of these four perspectives in detail with their participants.
The programme is inspired by TetraMap’s vision and purpose in the world – to reduce conflict and leverage diversity. It offers practical techniques to integrate Courage, Wisdom, Compassion and Inspiration into anyone’s leadership and ways to strengthen connections with others and the wider world.
Emma Mauger, Master Facilitator and Community Leader, has been closely involved in building the new programme: “This learning journey offers an important bridge from the TetraMap of Behaviour into leadership development and therefore aims to enrich the leadership work of our certified community. The learning materials will feel quite familiar – they integrate the ethos and values of TetraMap, including nature’s principles, into the field of leadership.”
If you’re interested in being an early adopter of the TetraMap of Leadership, contact Ruth to find out more about the learning opportunities we are planning for 2025. Any certified facilitator will be able to book a place on the TetraMap of Leadership course which comes with a leader guide and participant learning materials. Full course dates will be published among the community in January.
Did you know you can choose a specific workbook title to extend learning into teamwork, planning or sales and service? Take a look at the full range of TetraMap workbooks on our website.