Tag Archives: Leadership

The power of teamwork – Creating the building blocks for effective conflict resolution

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Torun-four-workshop-presenters.
Four of the team members conducting a workshop at the Toastmasters district conference in Torun, Poland, in May. Photo credit Wiktor Guryn.
Our team for this past year.
Our team for the year 2023-2024.
At the annual District Conference in Toruń in May 2025.
At the annual District Conference in Łódź in May 2024.
Four of our team members at the District 108 annual conference in Łódź in May 2024.
Some of the District 108 Core Team members and Area Directors in the year 2024-2025.
Some of the District 108 Core Team members and Area Directors in the year 2023-2024.

Getting big things done takes a village. At Toastmasters International, my public speaking organization, the year ends at the end of June. So, I thought it’s time to say thank you to a couple of good folks.

Today I have served two years as the Conflict Resolution Adviser and had the privilege to lead the Conflict Resolution Team for our Toastmasters International, District 108, comprising seven countries: Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Russia and Kazakhstan.

It’s been quit an incredible journey and it wouldn’t have happened without the following people.

Olga Turek-Woźniak was the first Conflict Resolution Manager at our District a few years back. She got things started, encouraged me to take this role and gave me good advice in the beginning.

Kamil Chmiel, as the District Director, asked me two years ago to accept the role of the Conflict Resolution Adviser in our organization. First I hesitated but I’m glad I said yes.

Łukasz Chomicz, as the District Director for the past one year, asked me to serve another year.

Kamil and Łukasz have been great partners in making things happen.

The fantastic fantastic Irina Četovičienė, Jurgita Keblyte, Justyna Lipska, Ernestas Ryselis, Magdalena Suraj and Daniel Zakharov served on my team in the 2023-2024 term.

The equally fantastic Roberto Bolomey, Irina Četovičienė, Paweł Lachowicz, Michał Moroz, Ignas Prakapas, Vadim Vasilyev and Karolina Wróbel served on my team for the 2024-2025 term.

With these teams, we have coached our Toastmasters members through tough spots, helped them manage and resolve conflicts, organized trainings and workshops and created a Conflict Resolution Guidebook for all our members to use.

Within these teams we have also supported, coached and educated one another.

One of my most memorable moments of these two years was when my team members said how much they had benefited themselves from learning more about conflict resolution.

We have not only helped other people but as a by-product, we have grown as human beings ourselves.

In addition to the team itself, my Polish brother, former Region 10 Advisor Piotr Chimko was always there, ready to converse about things big and small.

Working with Margherita Brodbeck Roth was one of my most rewarding and educational experiences in the past two years. Thank you.

Last but not least, there’s the Core Team of District 108, including our Area Directors: it’s been a tremendous honor and pleasure to work with each one of you. Oftentimes it’s also been a lot of fun. It would be too many names and too many fond memories to list here. You know who you are.

If I forget to mention someone, it’s because of my occasionally bad memory.

As to my biggest achievement in these two years, I think it is that I had the wisdom and luck to be able to recruit such talented and motivated members to my team. Together we have created a strong foundation for the future.

The future looks very good also because Michał Moroz will lead our conflict resolution function for the next year.

A new Toastmasters year begins tomorrow, so what next? Time will tell. For now, I’ll just cherish all the learning and all the friendships.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who’s been part of this journey. As Ignas Prakapas said at our last team meeting, this is not a goodbye but a see you later!

How do you turn a journalist into a public speaker performing to sold-out audiences in one month?

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This Saturday morning was pretty special at my local Toastmasters club, where we help people improve their public speaking and leadership skills.

My club held a meeting at Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest newspaper.

Jaakko Lyytinen and Riikka Haikarainen in action.

Jaakko Lyytinen and Riikka Haikarainen in action on December 1, 2018.

The highlight of the day was a talk by two award-winning and super-innovative journalists, Jaakko Lyytinen and Riikka Haikarainen, who created the Musta laatikko (Black Box) public speaking performance at the Finnish National Theater.

Musta laatikko is a performance where about ten Helsingin Sanomat journalists each give a 10-15 minute talk about one of their news stories before a live audience. You can think about it as something similar to TED talks, yet something quite different and unique.

Musta laatikko has been running for almost three years at the Finnish National Theater and it’s already been seen by a whopping 18,000 people. About 100 Helsingin Sanomat journalists have spoken there and this year the performance was awarded as the Best Journalistic Act of the Year in Finland.

Here are some takeaways from the yesterday’s talk by Jaakko and Riikka:

  1. Content is king. Focus on the delivery of your speech only when your content is in shipshape.
  2. The best speeches have been given by those humble enough to take the coaching that was offered. Those who thought they already knew all the tricks of the trade tended to perform worse.
  3. The best speakers still continue to spend more time training than the rest of the pack.
  4. For the Musta laatikko speakers, one of the best experiences has been the peer support and development of their speeches in a safe and encouraging environment (anyone recognize the Toastmasters ethos here 🙂 )
  5. The journalists have very much enjoyed the chance to face and overcome their fear of public speaking. For a writing journalist, public speaking doesn’t necessarily come naturally.

A bonus tip: if you have an exceptionally innovative idea, the first thing to do is NOT to tell your boss. They’ll most likely kill it. Instead, first develop your idea further with a couple of trusted colleagues. Then present an irresistible case to management and they’ll buy the idea.