You(th)nique - a bespoke experience for youth workers

You(th)nique
A NON-FORMAL METHODS TOOLKIT
ABOUT TALENT MANAGEMENT
& INNER LEADERSHIP
DESIGNED BY
MONOMYTHS ASSOCIATION
No1/March2018

1
About You(th)nique - a
bespoke experience for
youth workers about
talent management and
inner leadership.
2
Discover talent
management
and inner
leadership and
how can impact
your non-profit.
3
Explore step-by-step
non-formal methods to
manage the talents of
your team and young
people you are working
with to guide them in
this self-awareness
journey.
01

"TALENT CAN'T BE THOUGHT,
IT CAN ONLY BE AWAKEN"
One of the most important decisions in life
concerns the choice of when to make the move
from education to the world of work.
The vast majority (89.8 %) of young people in
the EU-28 between the ages of 15 and 19
continued to participate in some form of
education and training.
There are more than 17 million young people
aged 20–34 who were neither in employment
nor in education and training. (Eurostat, July
2016).
The project proposed by Monomyths
Association and its European partners is a
solution to the NEETs situation around Europe.
Partners: JOETZ vzw ( www.joetz.be), Unique
projects (www.uniqueprojects.eu), Galeria
Alternativa, Comitato Gemellaggi
(www.colletortoineuropa.weebly.com), IDA
Croatia, Seiklejate Vennaskond
(http://www.seiklejad.org), Institute of
Animation and Social Development Poland
The concept of the topic Talent Management
came from our growing understanding of the
problem of unemployment. We think that
young people are facing different challenges
to find a job than it was yet several years ago.
You(th)nique was an opportunity to organise a
two mobilities training course for youth
workers to discover „talent management” as a
tool to increase employability among end-
beneficiaries (European youngsters).
We focus on the employability of young
persons not only by exploring their talents but
also manage the talents.
The future generations are challenged to live
and work in constantly changing world where
flexibility and creativity are essential features
of development both on professional and
personal level.
The main purpose of the project "You(th)nique"is to equip European youth
workers with modern methodology and practices about talent management and
inner leadership to increase the employability of young people.
1You(th)nique - a bespoke
experience for youth workers
02

ABOUT
ERASMUS+
PROGRAMME
Erasmus+ is the European Union
programme for education, training,
youth and sport. It runs for seven
years, from 2014 to 2020.
Erasmus+ aims to modernise
education, training and youth work
across Europe.
It is open to education, training,
youth and sport organisations across
all sectors of lifelong learning,
including school education, further
and higher education, adult education
and the youth sector.
It offers exciting opportunities for
participants to study, work,
volunteer, teach and train abroad.
The Erasmus+ programme is
managed by the European
Commission (the EU's executive
body), the Education, Audiovisual,
and Culture Executive Agency
(EACEA), a series of National
Agencies in Programme countries,
and a series of National Offices in
some Partner countries.
More info here:
https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/er
asmus-plus/
03

2 Talent management
& Inner leadership
Talent development is crucial to the success of
a team or organization. Team members who
understand their talents as well as the overall
needs of the team will ultimately add value to a
team’s success. It is important then that team
leaders provide and encourage consistent and
thoughtful talent development strategies.
The best talent management plan is closely
aligned with the NGO’s strategic plan and
overall organisations needs. Goal alignment is a
powerful management tool that not only
clarifies job roles for individual employees, but
also demonstrates ongoing value of your
employees to the organization.
When you engage employees in their work
through goal alignment, you create greater
employee ownership in your NGO's ultimate
success; they become more committed to your
organisation and achieve higher levels of job
performance.
To achieve "goal alignment" in your
organization, you must first clearly
communicate your strategic objectives across
your entire team.
By allowing all of your team members to access
and view the goals of other departments, your
organization can greatly reduce redundancy.
Goal sharing also helps departmental heads find
ways to better support each other, as well as
identify areas where they may be
unintentionally working at cross purposes.
With everyone working together toward the
same objectives, your organisation can execute
strategy faster, with more flexibility and
adaptability.
Essentially, goal alignment strengthens your
leadership and creates organizational agility by
allowing managers to:
TALENT
MANAGEMENT
FOR NONPROFITS
“Talent management is a set of integrated organisational workforce processes
designed to attract, develop, motivate and retain productive, engaged
employees. The goal of talent management is to create a high-performance,
sustainable organisation that meets its strategic and operational goals and
objectives.”
Focus employees’
efforts on your
organisation's most
important goals
Understand clearly
all responsibilities
associated with
specific goals
Strengthen
accountability by
assigning
articulated goals
visible
organisation-wide
03

TALENT
MANAGEMENT
PHASES
1.Recruiting talent
2. Developing &
retaining talent
3. Deploying talent
4. Succession planning
As an organisation, do you know what
you are recruiting for? At all levels of an
organisation, not just in relation to
senior leaders, it is essential to recruit
not just to meet today’s needs but with
your future vision and strategy in mind
Questions to consider
1. Do you have clear recruitment policies
related to your organisation vision and
strategy needs?
2. Are you supporting ‘generation Y’s’
first steps as leaders?
3. Are all aspects of your talent
recruitment processes inclusive?
.
Once you have identified the type of
talent that is most critical to leading and
implementing your organisation’s
strategy and have recruited people in
line with that, the next step is to
develop that talent.
1. Do senior managers and the board of
your organisation regularly review the
identification and development of
leadership talent?
2. Does your organisation have a formal
process for identifying high-potential
employees and volunteers?
3. Are your development efforts focused
on high-potential employees or leaders
at every level?
4. How do you actively engage with the
‘human side’of your high-potential
employees?
.
Succession planning is the identification
of those critical job roles that may arise
due to retirement, attrition, business
growth, innovation or change, and the
strategic consideration of where and
how internal candidates might fill those
roles.
1. What are you doing to ensure the
sustainability of your leadership?
2. How do you keep engaged with the
talented staff in your organisation?
3. Does your workforce planning take
account of changes in the wider
system?
The overarching principle of a
sustainable approach to talent
management is to have the right people
with the right capabilities, motivations
and commitment in the right part of the
organisation to deliver and lead the
business strategies.
High-performing organisations foster
this sustainability continuously and
purposefully, ensuring that the decisions
they make about deployment are aligned
with their organisational vision and
strategy.
1. How aligned are your non-profit,
workforce and talent management
strategies?
2. Are your talent management
processes meeting the most critical
business needs?
3. How creative are you in your
approaches to deploying talent?.
05

"I HAVE NO SPECIAL TALENT.
I AM ONLY PASSIONATELY
CURIOUS "
Albert Einstein
06

TOP 9 TALENT
MANAGEMENT
GUIDELINES
Strategically minded
organizations are able to
change ahead of the curve
when it comes to planning and
developing a workforce with
the right competencies.
They have deeper strategic
insight into their employees,
and use that insight to
proactively put the right
workforces in place to
effectively respond to urgent
community needs.
Create Highly-Skilled Internal Talent Pools
Prioritize Competencies
Identify those competencies that will make the
biggest difference to the success of your team
and concentrate your development efforts on
them.
Provide team members with a solid self
assessment so they can better understand not
only their personal work talents but also their
impact on the team. Self understanding is a
doorway to personal growth.
Help team members to
understand their talents
At one time or another, most NGOs will find
themselves faced with a situation with limited
time to assess viable candidates. So let’s take
few moments and evaluate our internal talent
pool. Is it robust enough? How much attention
has been given to developing internal talent,
starting at the senior executive level? Are there
ready candidates at every key position?
A critical element of a successful talent
management program is the generation of
"talent pools" within a organisation (either full-
time employees or volunteers) —a reliable and
consistent internal source of talent and a
valuable piece of the succession planning
process. The development of skilled talent
pools makes it easier to develop desirable skill
sets in a broader group of employees, resulting
in higher performance across all departments
and functions
07

Link daily work to shared
values and success
Nurture a climate of learning
Provide talent development
guidance
Acknowledge talent growth
Conduct regular team
assessments
Write talent-based job
descriptions
Challenge, Support, and
Measure
Let people know that their contributions are
valued. Explain also how their everyday
activities are tied to both the values and
success of your team. Talent development
increases when team members understand why
their roles are important.
The job descriptions should identify clearly the
skills and talents required for success.
Provide talented team members with new
challenges, support them as they tackle new
opportunities, and conference with them to
identify and measure their talent growth.
Team members not only want to expand their
talents, they also want to be recognized for
their growth
This means that team members must have easy
access to various types of learning
opportunities: coaching, course work, learning
events, speakers, in-house and external
developmental activities, etc. Make it clear that
developing one’s talents is a high priority.
Conduct individual talent development meetings
with your team members in which you outline a
growth plan that fits both the individual and
the needs of your team.
Use your team assessments to identify desired
talents for future success. Be certain that
your talent development initiatives are visible
and acknowledged.
08

While that is true, real leadership happens when
you first lead yourself through discipline and
focus. In fact, inner leadership is far more key
to becoming a great leader than the how-tos.
The principle of leadership is this: Before you
decide to lead others, learn to lead yourself
well.
The whole idea of leadership is that you’re up
front, where everyone can see what you’re
doing, where you’re going and then follow your
lead. Your life becomes an example for others
to follow. But for most people, it’s really easier
to stand on the sidelines and shout commands
and instructions. That way, no crediblity is
risked. This is where most leaders fail. You
simply cannot expect from people what you
don’t expect from yourself.
If people see that you do not practice what
you’ve been preaching, you lose a lot of
credibility and the trust of your team. In fact,
this is where most leaders fall short. They’re
simply unable to personally do what they want
the whole team to do.
The way we think and act can become a habit,
and acting from habit limits our response to the
issues we face in our personal and professional
lives.
Nevertheless, we retain the potentiality to think
and act in ways which better suit the real needs
of the situations we encounter. Inner
Leadership helps us to bring our hidden
qualities of leadership into reality and to apply
them in our lives.
Inner Leadership provides a practical process
for: increasing self awareness; uncovering
assumptions and beliefs which limit our
effectiveness; becoming integrated,
autonomous individuals acting from our values
and purpose; using our awareness and inner will
to realise our deepest resources and self‐
leading potentiality.
INNER
LEADERSHIP
“When talking about leadership, most will focus on the how-hos of leadership;
How to lead a team; how to influence others; how to make others follow you.
There is an external focus on leadership with the hidden assumption that
leadership is directed outwards.”
09

MILLENIALS
@ JOBS
With Baby Boomers stepping
out of the way and retiring, the
generation commonly referred
to as “Millennials” is quickly
and surely taking over the
workforce. But who are
Millennials and what does
“Millennials work ethic” mean?
What We Know About Millennials
Work Ethic
Millennials present a bit of a shock to many
employers because they are a completely
different breed of employee. While past
generations might have been more interested
in stability and benefits, these younger
generations of workers have different
professional priorities.
These different priorities often lead to younger
workers changing jobs a lot more readily. Not
surprisingly, many employers who don’t
understand the mindset of millennials can often
misinterpret their intentions and brand them as
spoiled and disloyal employees. But that is not
the case at all.
Millennials are simply a different type of
employee than baby boomers were, and getting
them on board and excited about staying with
your company is possible once you take the
time to understand them.
Millennials are often referred to as Generation
Yers. Baby Boomers are in between the ages of
50 and 70 now and are ready to leave the
workforce, while Generation Xers are in their
30s and 40s and their corporate culture
straddles the line somewhere in the between
Baby Boomers and Millennials.
If you’re an organisation that still has a hard
time understanding Millennials, here’s a quick
rundown of what you need to know about them
in order to better manage them.
10

3
HOW TO KEEP
THEM WITH
YOUR
ORGANISATION
1 THEY JOB-HOP 2 THEY ARE THE
FUTURE
4
CREATE A
FAMILIAL
ENVIRONMENT
We know that Millennials are currently the
toughest employees to retain. Statistics show
that many Millennials feel that two years with
one company is more than enough before they
start looking for other opportunities.
Not only are Millennials hard to retain, but
there’s also a very good chance that when they
leave you, they are going to be heading to a
competitor that operates within the same
vertical as your company does.
And that’s not the only way in which losing a
Millennial is pricey. It can cost you thousands of
dollars to replace one. Think about how much
time and effort it takes to be constantly
looking for new employees and bringing them
up to speed before they can actually start
contributing.
By now, you’ve probably realized that it’s in
every employer’s best interest to strive to
retain Millennials instead of being nonchalant
about letting them go and struggling to replace
them at alarmingly fast rates.
Here’s what Millennials look for when searching
for a organisation that they can see themselves
working and growing in for an extended period
of time.
Many younger workers want their bosses to be
something like “work family members” to them.
More than 70% of younger workers want a
manager who is friendly and affable.
That’s why company culture is so important to
Millennials. They want what they do to make a
difference.I f your organisation hosts
volunteering or mentorship programs, gives
back to the community and engages employees
with team-building activities, you have a better
chance of landing and keeping Gen Y employees
There’s no denying it. By 2030, Millennials are
going to make up 75% of the workforce,
according to data released by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
That’s why it’s so vital to adapt to the way they
work and learn how to manage them. It’s only a
matter of time before you won’t have a choice
but to rely on them.
Unlike past generations, Millennials have a very
firm understanding of what they want. More
than past generations, Millennials find work-life
balance very important. While older generations
were more willing to sacrifice their personal
lives for job security, Millennials are not.
Not only that, but Millennials want a job that
offers opportunities for advancement. If they
do not find that within a year, they are likely to
move on and search elsewhere.
1111

7
PROVIDE
CONSTANT
FEEDBACK
5
OFFER
ADVANCEMENT
OPPORTUNITIES
6
LET THEM
COLLABORATE
8
CREATE A
FAMILIAL
ENVIRONMENT
Millennials want to lead. They want an
opportunity to learn new things and to advance
their roles within an organization. That’s why
you need to show your younger workers that
there really are opportunities for upward
mobility within your company.
If these employees see that all of your leaders
are being brought in externally and no one is
being promoted from within the team, they will
be out the door quickly. Of course, promoting
internally is a win for you as well, because you
are not only sure of that person’s skills and
abilities already, but you are also saving money.
Bringing someone into the company costs twice
as much as promoting from within.
It’s also important to keep them motivated and
encourage them to learn new skills and take on
new projects and responsibilities regularly. Gen
Yers love professional challenges and gladly
accept them.
Millennials have a much stronger need for
feedback than older workers. A lot of this
mindset comes from growing open with social
media and the instant gratification that comes
with that.
Younger workers want you to tell them how
they are doing every chance you get. Another
reason behind this desire for constant feedback
is the fact that they believe that a steady
stream of feedback, be it negative or positive,
will help them grow and learn at a faster rate.
They seek guidance and appreciation from their
bosses just like they would from their parents.
Take the time to informally sit down with your
Millennials regularly to let them know what they
are doing well and where they still have room
for improvement.
Millennials have grown up with technology that
gives people the option to work from anywhere.
Most workers from older generations don’t feel
comfortable working from anywhere but the
office because that’s all they have ever known.
But Millennials absolutely love having the ability
to work from a variety of locations, and they
thrive when these options are afforded to
them. Organisations that have managed to
embrace this sort of culture have an easier
time retaining Millennials.
The fact that Millennials love to collaborate and
work in groups is often misinterpreted. This
does not mean that they cannot make decisions
on their own, it means that they value the input
of others.
Most Millennials believe that the best way to
make a good business decision is to
“crowdsource” and get input from a diverse
group of team members. This is the complete
opposite of Baby Boomers, who would rather
make decisions on their own instead of having
to try and reach a consensus with other people
at work.
So if you see your young workers huddling
together and socializing instead of sitting in
their cubicles and working alone, don’t try and
stop it. In fact, you should be encouraging them
to work together. Not only because they like to
work that way, but because you’ll probably see
better results from this method as well.
But even when they are working in groups, don’t
forget to treat each of them as an individual
with aspirations, skills, and opinions of their
own.
12

EXPLORE THE LIBRARY
Sea of emotions
The Rainbow
In my element
Emotions in learning
My life as a stream
Vision Board
Letter from the future
Talent Garden
Taking care
Elevator Pitch
My compass
At My Best
Value Determination Process
Hunger Games from You(th)landia
The chameleon technique
River of life
Mission (Im)possible: You(th)landia
Protocol
Johari Windows
Learning Islands
My talents 4 my community
3Non-formal methods about
talent management
13

SEA OF
EMOTIONS
Duration: 5 minutes daily
No of participants: 1-100
Materials needed: 4 flipchart papers, colors,
markers
Methods used: Self-reflection and group
dynamics evaluation
Competences developed: Graphic facilitation
Description: The participants, together with the
facilitators will create a huge poster with
different islands such as: happy, hungry, thirsty,
excited, sad, curious, optimist, , helpful, tired,
determined, islands. They will stick this big
poster on the wall of the activity room and will
remain there for the whole week.
Each participant is asked to build own ship from
paper and put ther his/her name. Then to
apoint the place on which Island (feeling) they
were on the beginning of the project with a
cross(X).
From this point they mark they travel by
dashed line around which Islands they were
sailing (feelings they had) during next days
(weeks, months).
For better orientation each participant should
have different colour or line style. And on the
end of they travel they put their boat on the
Island (feeling) where they are at the moment.
Of course during the journey they can come to
some Islands more times or sail around for
longer time, let them be creative. If we have
more time and specially in smaller groups it is
good if they have time to explain their journey
and maybe the reasons for their feelings.
14

THE RAINBOW
IN MY ELEMENT
Duration: 30-45 min
Materials needed: A3 papers, colors, pens
Method used: learning process evaluation,
Youthpass
Competences developed: Learning to learn
Description: We encourage you to use this
method to evaluate the competences they
develop day by day and to track down their
learning process while sharing it in small
groups.
In the first day, the trainers will distribute
participants in families (3 participants/per
family).
Duration: 120 min
Materials needed: A4 papers for each
participant, pen, videoprojector
Methods used: coaching
Competences developed: Sense of initiative and
entrepreneurship, Learning to learn
Description: “Finding your Element is a quest to
find yourself…it is a two-way journey: an inward
journey to explore what lies within participants
and an outward journey to explore
opportunities in the world around them” “Being
in theirr Element is where their natural
aptitudes meet their passions.”
The trainer will project on a screen the TED
Talk The element of Ken Robinson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=qKRRF8lBDuQ
For the following 10-15 min, we will discuss
about the ideas introduced by Ken Robinson,
pass them through our own filters and decide
each one individually.
Each family will have to meet and follow the
instructions: 1. Each one of the participants will
draw on an A3 paper his own rainbow.
Each colour of the rainbow will represent a
competence. On that coloured arch, the
participant will have to write what competence
developed and how. The trainer will encourage
them to start with 3 competences that are
key-competences in this training course and
during the whole week to continue to draw new
colours/new competences and to analyze how
exactly they developed those competences.
After they finish the self-reflection and
drawing moment, they will share the results in
their families (group of 4-5 participants).
Afterwards, the participants will be distributed
by the trainer in groups of 4. The trainer will
ask them to design in their LAB (Learning
achievement book) three columns: In the first
one, they will fill in all the hobbiest, passions,
things they like to do since they were children.
After 20 minutes, they will share with their
group members the results from the first
column. After the first round of sharing, they
will start to fill in the second column which is
dedicated to their talents - things the
participants are good at, their expertise.
After a second round of sharing in groups, they
will start writing in the third column dedicated
to their elements. For this one, they will be
asked to compare the results from the first and
the second column in order to see where some
matches exists, where their natural aptitudes
meet their passions. They will be asked to write
maximum 5 elements in this and to share them
in the big group of participants. The trainer will
explain how their identity and their career path
should be connected with their elements and
which are the next steps to explore more
these options. During the week and also during
the in between training courses, they will be
assisted permanently by the trainer.
1516

EMOTIONS IN
LEARNING
Duration: 80 min
Materials needed: paper, pen, posters with
quotes about happiness
Methods used: Competences developed: Lear
ning to learn
Description: As this is tool that deals with
emotions (or their expressions, what in
psychology is called “affects”), make sure the
setting is nice, there is nice music in behind and
warm welcome. If possible also arrange nice
chairs or blankets/mattresses on the floor,
maybe some positive pictures / smiley faces /
happy sentences etc. on one of the walls. This
will support the process with positive flows.
First comes the individual reflection. Each
participant get piece of paper and pen. The
person has to reflect individually and write
down (just for him/herself, the language does
not matter as nobody will read the papers) 3
strong memories that they remember from
their past (5 min.).
Next the facilitator adds 3 questions to the
reflection: remember your first kissing
(pleasure), where have you been and what you
did at 11th September 2001 (so the World
Trade Centre attack) (fear/interest), first
negative note / failure in school (angry/shy).
Add few minutes for reflection upon them (5
min.). If anybody wants to share any of the
situations there can be space for few (10 min.).
Debrief it shortly – why do we remember such
things? You might write down key words on
flipchart for later reflection.
Next comes sharing part. Split the group into
smaller subgroups of 4-5 people each (use
something more “emotional” than one-two-
three! For example, you can surprise people and
before everything starts stick to the bottom of
chairs small pictures of animals in number of
the group you need. So if you will need 4
groups of 5 people, prepare 5 little pictures of
i.e. monkey, dog, snake and donkey.
Participants need to find own group just by
reproducing the voices of the animals).
16

EMOTIONS IN
LEARNING (PART II)
Present to participants some of the selected
following statements from Robert B. Zajonc
(Polish born, American social psychologist)
essay called “Feeling and thinking; Preferences
need no inferences” (you might also remake
those statements to make them English-easy):
* Feelings are precedent to intellectual qualities
and elements of experience, and they are
nearer to its essence: they are nearer to an
inner “truth”.
* We have no difficulty in identifying emotions
expressed by members of unknown cultures
speaking unknown languages.
* We evaluate each other constantly. We
evaluate each others’behaviour, and we
evaluate the motives and the consequences of
their behaviour (and you already made up your
mind about this workshop).
* Feeling is not free of thought, nor is thought
free of feelings.
* One might be able to control the expression
of emotion, but not the experience of it itself.
* Emotions always accompany thoughts,
whereas thoughts not always accompany
emotions.
* The direct emotional impact of the
situation(…) very generally governs the
directions taken by subsequent relations with
the environment. I sets the motivational tone
and delimits the kinds of experiences one
expects and seeks.
* Cognitive consistency focuses not on
consistency of content but on consistency of
emotions.
* Because emotional judgements are
inescapable, they can not be focused as easily
as perceptual or cognitive process. They are
much more influenced by the context of the
surround.
* Emotions strongly participate in information
processing.
* Emotions can be communicated much more
efficiently and accurately than thought in spite
the fact that its vocabulary is quite limited.
Place the statements in different parts of the
walls. Ask groups to make a “tour” through the
statements and to spend some time on each,
having discussion in the subgroup if they agree
or disagree with the sentence. The more
statements you have introduced, the more time
you need for the “tour”, but it should not take
more than 45 min.
Finally the debriefing cycle. Ask the groups to
come back to plenary. Ask the how do they feel
after the “tour”, concentrate on feeling as
people tend to start discussing the statements
already. Continue the debriefing with some
reflection about the statements, do they agree
or disagree?
Link the activity with the peoples experience:
do they see in their training/seminar situations
where emotions helped in learning? What
situations? Why those emotions where helpful?
What is particular that helps to strengthen
emotions to make the learning better? (actually
you can build a full next step on this element –
ask people to come back to the subgroups and
thru sharing their work experience about
situations where emotions helped in learning
ask people to identify the ways, how the trainer
/ facilitator can enhance such situations, so the
learning is even more intensive and
multidimensional).
You can finalise the activity giving each
participants something nice. For example a
sweet, chocolates especially makes people
happy :)
17

MY LIFE
AS A STREAM
LETTER FROM
THE FUTURE
Duration: 45-55 min
No of participants: 15-40 participants
Materials needed: 18” x 24” drawing paper; oil
pastels, crayons, or markers
Methods used: storytelling
Competences developed: sense of initiative and
entrepreneurship, learning to learn
Description: This storytelling activity helps
people look at their life as a whole and to
imagine their future. It’s a good activity for
doing deep introductions near the beginning of
a program.
Ask participants to imagine their life as a
stream. Their task is to draw that stream. The
twists and turns represent major turning points
in their lives. There may be rocks and
waterfalls. The stream may get narrower and
wider.
Duration: 60 min
Materials needed: pen and paper
Methods used: creative writing
Competences developed: learning to learn,
communication in foreign languages
Description: This writing activity helps people
throw a fishing line into the future and hook a
clear image of positive possibility. It’s an
excellent activity for both youth and adults. The
trainer ask the participants to think of a time in
the future, say, at the end of the school year or
at the completion of a planned project.
•Now think of person who is very supportive
and revels in your success. It can be a family
member or a friend. The person can even be
deceased.
•The object of this activity is to write a letter
to this person from the vantage point of the
time in the future you have identified. You have
been successful beyond your wildest dreams
and you are telling this person all about it. What
happened, what does it feel like, what steps
did you take to get there, and what’s next. Just
let your mind go an d record the good news on
the paper. Once everyone has written a page or
so, call a halt to the writing. Invite people to
read all or some of their writing to a partner.
•Call for volunteers to read their piece to the
entire group. As people read their pieces you
will notice the energetic shift in the room to
one of power and possibility.
Ask participants to imagine their life as a
stream. Their task is to draw that stream. The
twists and turns represent major turning points
in their lives. There may be rocks and
waterfalls. The stream may get narrower and
wider. At the side of the stream they are to
depict the major people and events both
positive and negative that made them the
person they are today. Encourage them to use
images as well as words.
•Once they get to present time, they are to
draw the stream into the future and write
some possible directions for their life from this
moment in time.
•Then ask everyone to list on their picture: 3
strengths they bring to the world; 3 ways they’d
like to contribute to the project at hand; and
one thing they’d like to strengthen in
themselves.
•Finally, they are to come up with a short title
and include it in the picture.
•Share the pictures in groups of 2 or more,
giving each person a set time to share. Once
everyone has shared ask them to look for
common themes and common values.
18

VISION BOARD
Duration: 60 min
Materials needed: A4 papers, colourful pen, pen,
markers
Methods used: graphic facilitation
entrepreneurship, Mathematical competences
Description: A vision board is a tool used to help
clarify, concentrate and maintain focus on a
specific life goal. Literally, a vision board is any
sort of board on which the participants display
images that represent whatever they want to
be, do or have in your life.
Step 1: Go through your magazines and tear the
images from them. No gluing yet! Just let
yourself have lots of fun looking through
magazines and pulling out pictures or words or
headlines that strike your fancy. Have fun with
it. Make a big pile of images and phrases and
words.
Step 2: Go through the images and begin to lay
your favorites on the board. Eliminate any
images that no longer feel right. This step is
where your intuition comes in.
As you lay the pictures on the board, you’ll get a
sense how the board should be laid out. For
instance, you might assign a theme to each
corner of the board. Health, Job, Spirituality,
Relationships, for instance. Or it may just be
that the images want to go all over the place.
Or you might want to fold the board into a book
that tells a story.
Step 3: Glue everything onto the board. Add
writing if you want. You can paint on it, or write
words with markers.
Step 4: (optional, but powerful) Leave space in
the very center of the vision board for a
fantastic photo of yourself where you look
radiant and happy. Paste yourself in the center
of your board.
Step 5: Hang your vision board in a place where
you will see it often. Each participant will draw
a quadrant where they will add: Home,
Diet&Nutrition, Family&friends, Wealth, Work,
Sport&Recreation, Love&Relationship,
Contribution to society
The vision board will be used as future plan and
introspection method.
19

TALENT GARDEN
Duration: 180 min preparation + 120 min
presentation
Materials needed: pen, markers, flipchart
papers, A4 papers, colorful crayons, scissors,
stickers
Methods used: experiential learning/learning by
doing
Competences developed: sense of initiate and
entrepreneurship, learning to learn
Description: The participants will learn how to
structure a coaching session for end-
beneficiary (young people). In the first phase,
the trainers will present to the participants how
to design an workshop for a group of young
people, how to facilitate and share their know-
how in the talent management and inner
leadership through non-formal method.
Therefore, in 4 groups, the participants will
work to design a new method or to prepare a
new method related to the topic of the project.
In the second phase, during 2h they will become
trainers/coaches/mentors as they are in their
daily worklife and each group will have a group
of 10-15 people to share their non-formal
method.
They have total freedom to build their session
and the trainers just observe them in this
phase. In the third phase, there will be a
debriefing session, a dialogue between the
trainers and participants regarding the method
itself, the methodology/activity they've
implemented, how they felt, what can be
improved, what were the reactions of the end-
beneficiaries (young people).
20

TAKING CARE
Duration: 120 min
No of participants: 10-40 participants
Materials needed: blindfolds
Methods used: trust building activity
Competences developed: social and civic
competences
Description: First phase: The participants will
get more and more notion of real taking care
and empathy (opposite of patronizing!).
Trainers give some theory about taking care.
What is needed by taking care and how can you
make moves to stop controlling.
Discussion in the group. Afterwards we put this
theory into practise by some physical exercises
in which participants are exploring taking care:
listening and what's needed (make a chain
reaction with clapping at the same moment),
what's needed and trust (small circle, in the
middle of circle someone let her-/himself
falling).
Second phase: Participants will become more
aware of the so-called obvious things in life and
how to sublime them in a creative way. We
continue the exercises by allowing the
participants walking for 30 minutes through a
part of the venue (outside) and let them
observe what they see, that can be every next
meter of the place.
Afterwards in pairs: one person is blindfolded
and the other leads him/her around let them
experience the same place but then without
looking. What does this person 'sees' with eyes
closed. The guide can stimulate the blindfold by
activate the senses (smelling, feeling, hearing,
tasting). After these physical exercises we have
a debriefing about how they experienced these
exercises it how to make the link with taking
care, trust and confidence, vulnerability.
21

ELEVATOR PITCH
MY COMPASS
Duration: 90 min
Materials needed: paper and pen
Methods used: presentation, public speaking
Competences developed: Communication in
mother tongue, communication in foreign
languages
Description: The participants will learn how to
point out in a short presentation their Unique
Value Preposition. An elevator pitch is a brief,
persuasive speech that you use to spark
interest in what your organization does. You
can also use them to create interest in a
project, idea, or product – or in yourself. A good
elevator pitch should last no longer than a short
elevator ride of 20 to 30 seconds, hence the
name. They should be interesting, memorable,
and succinct. They also need to explain what
makes you – or your organization, product, or
idea – unique.
Duration: 30 min
Methods used: self-reflection and group
discussion
Competences developed: Learning to learn,
sense of initiative and entrepreneurship
Description: Form groups of 4 participants.
Handle to each group a sheet with the following
questions and allow them to discuss and
answer to the questions in their small group.
1. What strengths do you bring to your
organization (skills, experience, personality
traits)? SWOT Analysis
How do these strengths help the organization
or its beneficiaries?
2. What words would you like people to use
when they describe you? How would you
describe yourself? List 4-5 words on your piece
of paper.
3. Now narrow this list down to just one word –
if you had to pick only one word to describe you
professionally, what would it be? To create
work sheets with these questions and each one
will work on their worksheet.
At the end, each one of them will tell to the
whole group the answer to the 3rd question.
5-10 minutes debriefing on the learning process
with the big group of participants.
When to use an Elevator Pitch?
- you can use one to introduce your
organization
- You could use them in your organization to
sell a new idea to the president of the
organization or to tell people about the change
initiative that you're leading.
- You can even craft one to tell people what
you do for a living.
Each participant will have to imagine that
he/she is in an elevator with a person that they
appreciate or that they want to establish
connection/create a partnership for their work.
Individually, each one will write his own speech
during 20 minutes. After, they will have to
present it in groups of 5 people. They will be
asked to offer and give feed-back in order to
improve their speech. Based on the feed-back,
they will have to rewrite it/adjust it. Based on
this description, the participants will create
their own elevator pitch. After they finish
writing it, they will presented in mixed groups
of 5 people. They will have to ask and give
feed-back to other group members in order to
improve it.
22

AT MY BEST
Duration: 30 min
Methods used: icebreaker
Competences developed: communication in
foreign language
Description: This activity can be used as an
icebreaker, or it can be used anywhere in the
curriculum to facilitate discussion about talent
and strengths. The purpose of this activity is to
get students to think about what they do well
and how people use their strengths in order to
be successful.
Duration: 30 min
Methods used: icebreaker
Competences developed: communication in
foreign language
Description: This activity can be used as an
icebreaker, or it can be used anywhere in the
curriculum to facilitate discussion about talent
and strengths. The purpose of this activity is to
get students to think about what they do well
and how people use their strengths in order to
be successful.
Complete the following statements, then in
groups, share your responses with your
classmates.
A time when I was at my best was . . .
The best thing about me is . . .
What I enjoy doing the most is . . .
The best time in my life was . . .
My most fulfilling experience was . . .
I earn my best grades when I . . .
The best job or project I ever had was . . .
The things I like best about myself are . . .
VALUE DETERMINATION
PROCESS
Duration: 90 min
Materials needed: a sheet with questions, pen
and paper for each participant
Methods used: speed-date
entrepreneurship, learning to learn,
Description: Start the activity with a discussion
based on the following questions: How would
you define ‘talent’?
How do you define ‘talent management’?
What does talent management involve doing ?
Afterwards, make 2 rows with chairs and each
participant should have a conversation partner
in front of him/her. After each question from
the set bellow, the row from the right side will
move one chair on left and have new
conversation partner.
The questions are listed bellow. Ask the
participants at each question to have 3
different options as answers. At the end they
will review their answers and identify the most
used 3 of them:
1. How do you fill your space?; 2. How do you
spend your time?; 3. How do you spend your
money?; 4. Where are you the most organized?
5. Where are you the most focused &
disciplined?; 6. What dominates your thoughts?
7. What do you vizualize the most? ; 8. What do
you most often talk to you the most? ; 9. What
do you most often talk to others about?
10. What inspires you?; 11. What are the most
consistent long-term goals that you set?
12. What do you love to learn and read about
the most?
At the end, ask the participants to share in the
big groups which are the their 3 most
important values and if they manage their
professional and personal individual life
according to them in order to achieve their
potential.
23

HUNGER GAMES FROM
YOUTH(TH)LANDIA
Duration: 30 min daily
Materials needed: depends on participants
Methods used: strategic thinking,
brainstorming
Competences developed: learning to learn
Description: Establish from beginning who are
the members of the capitol. Usually those are
the trainers and facilitators. The big group of
participants represents a District. To bring
victory to their District, they have to work as a
team and do their best to promote the training
course/Youth Exchange. Every single day, you
will explore social media usage, identify
meaningful stories and characters to stay in the
game. Only the ones who are brave, creative
and strong will reach the final day and win the
challenge.
Every day, the District is in charge to cover the
activities, workshops by taking incredible
photos, recording short videos, taking
interviews with inspiring people or to write
articles to outline the best moments of the day
or the lessons learned. They can use any means
of communication, either online or offline to
promote your stories.
They can use their sending organisation social
media blogs, or even their own social media
channels. At the end of each day (00:00), the
Capitol will receive on the email address or
internal facebook groups all your videos,
photos, stories already published.
The points are given based on the quality of the
materials, creativity, number of people reached
by their stories and videos/picture, diversity of
tools and languages used, but most important,
for the punctuality of delivering the materials
and respecting the deadlines.
Your district must manage to gather at least 50
points per day, otherwise one of your member
will be eliminated. Here's some advice. Stay
alive!
Establish with the participants the hashtag of
the project. Each day, they have 30 minutes to
work on their task. They can not repeat the
same strategy each day. For example if they
promote one day photos and testimonials, they
have to try new things the next day
15 relevant photos with quality texts/ day
published on Social Media Channels - 5 points
Quality Video - 20 points/per video
Quote of the day published (visual material) -
10 points
1 Testimonial written/video related to the
training from participants - 15 points
Interview with youngsters about how they use
social media for their profession - 30 points
Offline promotion - 40 points
Creative promotion (other then mentioned
above) - 30 points
24

THE CHAMELEON
TECHNIQUE
Duration: 45-60 min
Materials needed: sheets of paper, 1 flipchart;
stickers; pens and markers;
Methods used: Swot analysis
Competences developed: Communication in
foreign languages, Learning to learn, Social and
civic competences
Description: The trainer/facilitator distribute to
each participant a sheet of paper they have to
fill in based on their strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats. It is important to
remind to participants that the S and W are
internal factors, while O and T are external
factors. Ask them to think at their profession
and their place in their team at the moment and
to create their SWOT analysis according to this.
Each sheet of paper will have two soldiers who will
attack the “capitol” so in front of the upper
soldier the participant will write the weaknesses
and on the second soldier the threats. Around the
capitol, the participant will mention his/her
opportunities and inside the capitol he/she will
write the strengths.
The participants will be distributed in groups of 4-
5 pax, depends of the total number of
participants.
After each participant create his own strategy, will
share it with their small group members and at
the end each one of them will answer to the
question: “How to adapt to that working
environment to win the battle with weaknesses
and threats, using their strengths and
opportunities?”
At the end of the activity will follow a short
debriefing session (5 min) where the trainer will
ask how was the process of analyzing yourself and
your environment, what strategy you found to
defend the capitol, which in their case is
themselves and their organization.
25

THE RIVER OF LIFE
Duration: 90 min
No of participants: 3 per group
Materials needed: pen, crayons, A4/A3 papers
Methods used: self-reflection, mind-mapping
Description: Form groups of 3, maximum 4
participants. Ask the participants to think about
their own life as a river and ask them the
following question: “What different streams and
other rivers helped you get here—working on
this issue and involved in this movement? Think
about the fast-moving times in your life and the
challenges or rocks that you move
Duration: 90 min
Materials needed: 1 flipchart paper, pens, A4
papers, crayons, colours, scissors
Methods used: team-building
Competences developed: civic and social
compentences
Description: Handle to the whole participants
the following sheet of paper with the rules of
the mission. They have 60 min to complete the
mission and 30 min to present the results.
Dear participants,
You are agents working at our Agency
headquarters. Your next top secret mission is to
face all your fears, „can’t do it” attitude and
accommplish the impossible with your team. For
the following 60 minutes, you must complete all
the tasks mentioned below as a team. From this
second, you’re on your own. Agents, see you in
one hour at the headquarter!
1. Create an artistic WELCOME sign for this
meeting room.
2. Make a big agenda of our TC on the wall.
3. All together paint/draw a picture illustration
how do you wish this training to be.
4. Nominate on a flipchart paper the names of
the people responsible for energizing the groups
during the days of the training course.
5. The entire group learns to sing one song
together. The song shouldn’t be in English. Sing it
in front of the trainers.
6. Take at least 3 funny, crazy photo with all
participants; Show them to the trainers and
upload them on the Facebook group.
7. List 20 benefits of being involved in Youth
activities on a flipchart paper.
8. Create an adjustable weather forecast for the
next days.
9. Create a dance choreography that includes
moves from every national traditional dance
represented in the group.
10. Explain the Erasmus+ Key Action 1 for young
people and youth workers in 30 words.
11. What is the total age of the group?
12. Make a list with city hot spots to be visited
by evening and during the free time, after
activities.
13. Create a list with the guidelines of the
project that each secret agent should follow
during these days.
Draw these as a river. Use the metaphor to its
fullest—maybe there are offshoots, rapids,
waterfalls, or still times in ponds, etc.”
Give people at least 30 minutes to draw. Ask
them to think at 3 main important milestones
who shaped them to be who they are today.
After people draw, give them 60 minutes to
share, either in their small groups.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE:
YOU(TH)LANDIA PROTOCOL
26

JOHARI WINDOWS
LEARNING ISLANDS
Duration: 90 min
Materials needed: The sheet with the quadrants,
pens
Methods used: self-reflection, peer-to-peer
Social and civic competences
Description: The trainer will start the session
with an invitation for all participants to reflect
on themselves and ask them the following
questions:
Why is important to be aware of your talents
and how it influence us?
What is talent management and how can we use
the concept at at individual, professional and
organizational level?
After a small discussion on these questions, the
trainer goes further and share with them the
Johari Windows concept - an evaluation tool to
be used to discover yourself and reflect upon
your talents and passions, skills & competences.
The most important fact is that Johari Windows
offers you a mirror view of yourself – how I
perceive myself and how the others see myself.
If you want to take your passion to the next
level and turn it on a profession, you can repeat
this method with your colleagues or boss.
Duration: 15 min daily
No of participants: groups of 4
Materials needed: a sheet with islands for each
group, a sheet of 4 flipchart papers connected,
markers
Methods used: evaluation, self-reflection
Competences developed: Learning to learn
Description:
On a large wall space a large piece of paper and
draw an island and legend.
Legend is:
- Towns/cities = skills and competences related
to talent management
- Buildings = tools and methods
- Paths/roads/rail = new project, workshop ideas
- Ocean = challenges
- Ships = solutions for challenges
- Arrows leaving the map =
websites/links/resources: tools, ideas, projects
The trainer introduce the map in the first day to
the participants and they will add and develop
the map during the training course. The map will
be available during the whole day and they will
have every morning 15 minutes to design and
update the map.
The participants will form groups of 2 and each
one of them will create a quadrant with the 4
parts: Open Self, blind self, hidden self, unknown
self (What you don’t know about yourself?)
The participants will fill in the open self and the
hidden self and they have to share with the
other discussion partner things about
themselves such as passions, what are the
topics that they are mostly interested in and
they invest the most time, the most energy, the
most money etc.
The listener at the end of the talk he fill in for
the other the blind self section. 30 minutes in
total (first individually open self + hidden self),
they cover half of the page and exchange it with
the other participant and start talking about
their passions and talents since they were a
child until now, and then they switch places.
At the end, there’s the invitation to fill in the
unknown self for the rest of the training course.
Debriefing at the end (25 min) and 3-4
conclusions at the end.
27

MY TALENTS
4 MY COMMUNITY
Duration: 90 min
Materials needed: flipchart papers, markers
Methods used: brainstorming
Competences developed: Social and civic
competences, sense of initiative and
entrepreneurship
Description: The participants will be distributed
in groups of 5 and they have to write down in
groups 3 biggest talents they have. They have to
join forces and see how they can match their
talents to create a space, a product, an activity,
a service or any initiative that can develop, help
their community.
They have 1h for building up the idea and to find
a way to present it.
Structure:
The idea
The beneficiaries
Talents involved
Resources needed to implement it
How would they call their project?
The impact of their idea
After 60 min, each group will present their ideas
(5-10 min/per group) and 5 minutes for
debriefing.
28

MONOMYTHS
ASSOCIATION
Monomyths Association is a not-for-profit
organisation created by story tailors from
Bucharest, Romania. It’s a Story land for
personal growth, creative self-expression where
we use our talents – branding scissors,
reputation patterns and communication colors –
for the good of the society and for the not-for-
profit organisations all over the world.
The mission of our activities is to qualify the
youth workers and communication specialists
from NGOs, both vocationally and personally,
both individual and in groups, by developing their
know-how and methodology. Our efforts
focuses on people and ideas, on creativity and
change, motivation and potential, on values and
visions.
Emilia is an experienced learning designer and story tailor with vast
experience in delivery of training for children, young people and professionals.
Highly involved in designing learning experiences (training, creative
workshops) for youngsters from 3 Asia, Africa and Europe on topics such as:
soft and professional skills, social media, PR, creativity, journalism, ideation,
CSR, personal branding, internal communication, talent management, based on
non-formal education methods (interactive sessions, roleplays, simulations,
gamification). In the last 7 years, she created interactive learning experiences
for almost 600 people (more than 3.500h of training).
The central aspect of our training courses and
workshops is that knowledge is organized and
viewed as resources for our clients briefs.
Therefore, we’ve created general and
customized communication workshops and
campaigns for them during the training courses.
The participants should be able to design
novelty and new communication strategies: may
it be through the start of a new campaign or
within existing projects of the NGOs.
The participants shall, during the course of the
trainings, develop a pro-active attitude towards
the concept of branding, as an active and
personal process of connecting with the
community, donors, active citizens, public
institutions.
www.monomyths.ro
monomythsassociation@gmail.com
The booklet has been created by Emilia Radu
Co-founder of Monomyths Association
29

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