Dialogue and trust

Are you reliable negotiator? Practice dialogue with trust.





Good negotiation skills are key to success. Good conversation and dialogue are simply win-win situations. Both sides win and get.

Before negotiation you should practise little. Focus on these issues :
-set some negotiation goals and targets
-think through negotiation process and your strategies
-recognise your negotiation styles and strengths
-stay calm and strengthen your self-esteem

Build confidential atmosphere and trust

How you can motivate people in decision-making ? If you know something about opposite side, it will help you talk about right things. Do your homework before meeting. Better you know your “clients”, better results you get. Use your knowledge of people and human nature. Personal feedback is always good.

How we can increase trust in meetings? Try these. Be open-minded for new ideas – also opposite statements can be innovative. Talk straight – it is better say also the bad things than be silent. Listening is gold. Do it carefully. It will increase approval and reliability. Be flexible but still be yourself!

Learn screencasting and few word of Finnish

Make your own screencasting with Screencast-O-Matic. This is totally free online screen recorder for instant screen capture. It is very easy !




Did you understand any Finnish words ?

One Finnish model of Entrepreneurschool

How we can get more active and self-confident citizens ? We have built several years Finnish Entrepreneurship studies and model of new school. Basic elements are :-team learning-project learning-personal development plan-coaching processRead more from Slideshare presentation below.Entrepreneurschool of jyväskylä area

View more presentations from Muuramen lukio.

Do we need any more offices ? Try mobile pocket office.

World and schools have changed a lot during last year. Many schools go mobile and try to develop new ways of learning and coaching students. Also principals’ offices are moving more mobile ones.


Do we need anymore buildings or certain rooms for monitoring and leading our schools ?

My own work has changed rapidly last fall. I bought iPad and iPhone devices. These marvellous machines made my day. My office has moved everywhere. I find five different categories which has helped my work:

1) Communication is easier : emails, browsers, Facebook and internal school programs (Wilma) and school’s own homepage in the same device.

2) Online source of information : Flipboard, Zite, Diigo, Pulse, Vodio, Wikipania, Scoop it! are wonderful sources and full of new brilliant ideas.

3) Files, reports and photos : Dropbox and iCloud are with me all the time.

4) Connections : Blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn are great tools to build your PLN.

5) New thinking in learning : Sharing is caring ! More you give, more you get !

I can move and walk easily in corridors, classes and different places. I see often students and teachers. Probably I lead more efficiency than ever. Best part of all this is that our staff and students are learning all the time.

Anytime, anywhere, anyone !

How you ensure quality in your school ? With quality system.

Every organization should evaluate itself time to time. This kind of evaluation and measurable system is quite easy to build. You don’t have expensive tools or technological gadgets. Only you need your society (teachers, students, parents, local authorities), teams to implement, values and vision to give you a target and Excel –tool to collect information.

First you need persons to work. It is always about their interest and commitment to work and learn – never ignore your clients. So these people should collaborate and make goals for the season. These targets might be quite large and big ones, but still measurable. Here is a simple example :

Here in Muurame High School we have three goals:

1) Atmosphere (How people feel)
2) Responsible (Matriculation examination, how satisfied students are our courses)
3) Collaboration (Companies, society, authorities etc.)

After setting goals, it is easiest to implement teams to work. Teams are actually persons, who will do the job. Team learning is true collaboration and mostly fun.

Wheel of continuous development

In the end of the season collect information and results. Here are two of our goals (in Finnish) and data collected.

After implementing these steps, we are sure that your school or organization has changed a little. Learning in basically changing your school, colleagues and yourself !

Greatest Finnish innovating tool ever ? Thinking Sauna

What could be the most influenced place in earth to Finn? Obvious it’s Sauna.


Picture of my PTS=Personal Thinking Sauna




Earlier there was dozens of different ways to use saunas than warm up and wash yourself. Sauna was place were mamas delivered babies, sometimes we tried to cure diseases with hot steam, Finns dried their food in saunas and in the very end bodies were washed in saunas. But the greatest use has been thinking.

“Problem solving in hot sauna”

There are many stories about solving problems in sauna. During the Cold War Finland and Soviet Union had some difficult problems and diplomatic crises. Many times the answer was sauna ! Our former president Urho Kekkonen was known about that. He has done lot of politics and compromises in his private sauna. After few beer conversation and dialogue is easier.

Sitting bare naked we are equal

It is obvious, when we are sitting bare naked in sauna, we are very equal. There is no titles, status, merits, positions or fancy clothes. You have only your thoughts, ideas and dialogue. You can’t hide anywhere or stand anyone’s back. There is no time. And if you want to have conversation, you should “listen” your companion – do not give too much hot steam.

Refreshing steam stimulates your brains ?

In sauna you can focus and concentrate certain issue without interrupted. You got privacy and you sit there with your own thoughts. There is no hurry. This kind of calm down is crucial in this busy world. I do often thinking sauna sessions.

We are very lucky, that we are living in Muurame Finland, where is located the world biggest sauna factory Harvia Oy http://www.harvia.fi/ and we have also the Sauna Museum. Sauna is under my skin. I will invite you to Finnish Sauna – marvelous thinking tool !

Have you ever tried Sauna ? What did you liked ?

Learning Bus...

Have you developed total new learning environments and places?

We found and discovered quiet nice place – the Learning Bus.

Our 3rd grade students and our teachers had common bus drive to Helsinki. Students had their Studia expo, where they joined and explored postgraduate studies like academic universities and universities of applied science round the Finland.

Teachers visited the Finnish
National Board of Education http://www.oph.fi/english and one of the very famous Finnish coaching company Trainers’ House http://www.trainershouse.fi/en/Services/Philosophy.aspx .

So we both had plenty of time to spend together in bus. We should have more time together with students and of course with staff. Having common experiences, ideas, thoughts and discussions we will build our community. It is obviously that schools should go outside of the school like companies, authorities, organizations and so on.

We had three iPads 2 (3G) with us. Some of our teachers have used iPads few months but most of our group did not have any experiences about these devices. So our experienced teachers show the benefits of iPads and let others use tablets. This teacher to teacher mentoring helped everyone understand the basics of these marvellous devices. At the same time we show Facebook, Twitter, blogs and some teaching applications. Everybody was very pleased about mentoring and learned something in very short time.

Secondly we had possibility to tell learning stories during bus drive. Students and teachers could tell didactic, educational or other informative stories in their lifes, hobbies, memories, schools or homes. We must encourage students and teachers tell more stories. People connect, affect and rely more stories than texts. Digital storytelling in one new way of telling stories with photos and videos. Still oral storytelling is crucial.

This kind of Learning bus -method has got lot of good points and potentials :

-in bus we had almost eight hours to work and learn
-everybody was in same room and very near by
-discussion and dialogue was easy with your sitting companion
-telling stories is great
-sharing with students and teachers
-learning each other
-have fun and jokes
-build a learning tribe