Mutual Development Groups

** CONNECT ** COMMUNICATE ** CO-ORDINATE **
** CO-OPERATE ** CO-CREATE **

The idea of people coming together to learn and grow by sharing ideas and experiences is not new.
In 1727, Benjamin Franklin [1706 – 1790], one of the founding fathers of America and discoverer of electricity, formed a club to promote personal development and mutual improvement. He called this club Junto, a word of Spanish origin meaning “a group of people joined for a common purpose”.

 In his iconic personal development and self-help book, “Think and Grow Rich”, first published in 1937, Napoleon Hill suggests the creation of similar “Master Mind” groups. He defined this as “Co-ordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose”. Both Henry Ford, and Andrew Carnegie, attributed much of their success to applying this principle. Ford wrote :

Coming together is a beginning
Keeping together is progress
Working together is success

I first came across the idea back in the 1980’s when my son Michael and I were volunteers at the Dinting Railway Centre, near Manchester. Every Thursday evening we would meet for an hour or two in the mess room of the old engine shed, over a large pot of tea, to share experience and knowledge, to review the progress of the previous week, and to plan and prioritise the work needed in the weeks ahead. In doing this we were following in the traditions of the enginemen of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway who had met in the very same mess room to learn from, and share with each other over a hundred years before. Back then there was of course no HR or training departments, and definitely no webinars !!  Experienced enginemen who had learnt their trade by working through the ranks from cleaner to fireman to engine driver over a number of years were responsible for briefing their colleagues on the vagaries of the various engine classes, and the challenges posed along the routes.

Our Wikaniko Warriors team has attracted a wide variety of people with differing skill sets, and experiences. Each one has their own “why” – their own individual aims, dreams and aspirations. But at the heart of Wikaniko, is the vision that Karen and Trevor had when they founded the business, and which led to our decision to join.

“A lot of people going a little greener would add up to a massive impact on the future of the planet”

Our fortnightly Skype group calls, every other Thursday, repeated the following Tuesday, aim to follow the traditions begun by Franklin and Hill, and bring the team together to share ideas and information, and to encourage one another.  Many years ago I was taught that there are three elements to our business, and that these elements each form a single spoke in a wheel – “The Wheel of Success”. These are :-

Retailing – building a customer base and moving product to the end user.

Sponsoring – bringing new distributors into the team and helping them get their businesses off to a flying start

Training – working with the team to share practical skills and encourage personal development.

Just like the spokes of any wheel, if too much emphasis is placed on one spoke, that spoke will buckle and the wheel will not run true.

Every two weeks the group will be coming together via a group Skype call to focus on one of these three key elements of our business.

I’ve chosen Skype because it is free to download, and relatively easy to use. Skype calls have a restriction on the number of people who can be involved, but as we want to keep these calls informal this shouldn’t cause too many problems. The ultimate intention is to encourage our team leaders to host and facilitate additional calls as and when required.

Details of calls will be E Mailed ahead of time to all members of the group, and also made available on our team blog.

If you, or one of your team members,  would like to join us on one of these calls , simply drop me a mail at wikanikowarriors@wikaniko.co.uk or give me a call on 01407 769799.