The things we got wrong, right,and would do again.
This chapter exists to be honest, and for everybody to learn from our mistakes & successes.
post motorola model
Failure as design input
old, honest, no spin. Ten lessons from running a cross-border youth entrepreneurship climate-action programme. What we learned, what surprised us, what we would do differently.
No Spin
We name what didn't work.
Honesty
Failure is fuel for the next iteration.
Open Source
Every lesson is yours to use.
10 lessons - scroll or select to begin
lesson
01
Main failure
We thought we failed. We were wrong.
Bad results based on our initially expected outcomes, but great results on KPIs we are not tracking: social value, community-building, transformed people.
What we set out to measure
- Companies created
- Ventures ready to market
- Traditional startup metrics
- Scalable business models
We measured the wrong things.
What actually mattered
- Transformed people
- Communities that outlive the programme
- Mindset shifts: student → innovator
- Lifelong friendships across borders
This is what actually matters.
The evidence: real messages from the WhatsApp group
"Our community will not end tonight, it will be a strong network throughout our life.
So thank you, merci, gracias, efcharisto, Kiitos."
Quentin
via WHATSAPP
- 24
"We managed to create a new family in a week! Imagine what we can do in 3 months!!! 💪...
I wish you all good luck for the team work and can't wait to see what ideas you come up with!!! 💪"
Adri
via WHATSAPP
- 25
"Paqarinkama, is a word in Quechua
(ancient language of Peru) that
means: 'Until life finds us again'
It was a beautiful experience, I hope
to see you one day
"
Daniela
via WHATSAPP
- 20
"Thank you for this experience and
for all the beautiful moments we
shared....
It's very sad to think that this is goodbye — but let's think of it as a 'we'll see each other again someday'."
Nicole
via WHATSAPP
- 20
the real outcome
The community activates the participants
peace islands
They are no longer alone to ACT and find solutions for matters important to them.
Not a methodology to create enterprises, but one that activates the potential within each person, connects them to others, and builds common solutions. Peace is not something you wait for. It is something you practice. Every time someone chooses to act, as a Peacebuilder, an Islandmaker, a Hopekeeper, a new island is born.
lesson
02
Active Hope over climate anxiety
The shift, stage by stage
Climate anxiety
becomes
Awareness
More awareness
becomes
Hope
More suffering
becomes
Action
Paralysis
becomes
Active Hope
In front of climate anxiety, more awareness often means more suffering. TEAMIT+ bets on a different response: active hope as the bridge to action.
marina garcés - "colapso y promesa"
lesson
03
What LEARNING BY DOING taught us
Behind-the-scenes of orchestrating TEAMIT+.
walk the talk
The consortium team did not have an absolute truth. They were learners too, building a programme through learning by doing applies to operators, facilitators and coaches as much as to participants.
What we improved
Coaching process evolution
Supporting coaches with training so they can support participants better (Edition 1 vs Edition 2)
Learning by Doing
Actively transform the recruitment strategy to reach the goals. What is possible in some countries is not in others.
Coordinating within the team
Rotating leadership. When someone fell sick, the programme did not stumble, responsibility was genuinely shared.
The productive zone of disequilibrium
Harvard Adaptive Leadership principles in action, tension as the engine of change, not the enemy. More details in lesson 4
lesson
04
Teamwork & Culture Shock was the curriculum
True for participants and consortium colleagues alike. 4 countries, 4 cultures, 1 mission.
France
spain
greece
finland
Meal times
Negotiating dinner at 7pm vs 10pm. A small friction with a large lesson about assumptions.
Punctuality
What on time means differs. The programme learned to name it instead of assume it
Language
"There are French people who speak good English Greek participant, sincerely surprised.
Common ground through non native English
No one owned the language. That made everyone equal.
Tension is not the enemy, conflict and disequilibrium are essential tools for driving organizational change.
harvard adaptive leadership
The productive zone of disequilibrium
HEIFETZ - ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP - HARCARD KENNEDY SCHOOL
too little
Comfort breeds avoidance. The group dodges the real work and no change happens
too little
Comfort breeds avoidance. The group dodges the real work and no change happens
too much
The system panics, shuts down, or reverts to old habits to escape the heat.
The leader is the thermostat. Raising heat when the group avoids the work, lowering it when conflict becomes destructive. In TEAMIT we learnt to accept and navigate that tension — creating a safe space for communication and growth.
Not every partnership works out. The team faced the difficult reality of going through a formal exclusion process with a partner who was not delivering. There is no clean playbook for this in European consortium projects. Doing it while maintaining the programme's integrity was one of the harder lessons and necessary.
lesson
05
Reaching diversity of participants
What a challenge!
Key insights
- Education profile:
VET went 8% → 20%. Despite many corrective actions, HE remains over-indexed — reflects the participant pipeline attracted to this kind of programme. - Gender: On target 53/47 vs the 50/50 goal, within normal variance.
- Migrants: 3× improvement edition-over-edition, but still less than half the 20% target.
Not every partnership works out. The team faced the difficult reality of going through a formal exclusion process with a partner who was not delivering. There is no clean playbook for this in European consortium projects. Doing it while maintaining the programme's integrity was one of the harder lessons and necessary.
lesson
06
Cooperating across borders
TEAMIT+ fosters a deeply cooperative spirit. But the legal reality of cross-border entrepreneurship in Europe is more complex than that spirit suggests.
across entire eu
24 only
SCEs (European Cooperative Societies) exist across the entire EU, eight years after adoption
Warning
The European Cooperative Society (SCE) exists as a legal form ut barely eight years after its adoption, only 24 SCEs existed across the entire EU. It is complex, nationally-anchored, and rarely used in practice.
our advice
Explore alternative legal structures before attempting a multinational cooperative.
Academic outputs
Participatory Action-Based Research, the intelligence created in the system goes beyond any individual project.
0
Academic papers in progress Open Science Europe + Higher Education (Springer)
0
Doctorate in progress 'The fight on climate emergency from team entrepreneurship'
FCM
Fuzzy cognitive mapping analytical tool used to map system dynamics
lesson
07
Building future support
Three forward-looking recommendations for the next edition.
recommendation 1
TEAMIT+ Plus
A dedicated follow-up programme focused on M3 projects & students. The current programme builds teampreneurs but lacks opportunities to continue supporting them.
recommendation 2
TEAMIT+ Plus
Build the participant network actively from day one. Not a passive list, a living ecosystem that generates opportunities, connections and new collaborations between editions.
recommendation 3
TEAMIT+ Plus
The current architecture (M1 one day, M2 24 hours, M3 three months) worked but is it the only valid path? Could there be two parallel tracks?
The number 1 takeaway for participants are friens they can reach all over Europe, to get support in future entrepreneurial or professional paths.
lesson
10
together we are stronger
What it really means to create european, networks
At TEAMIT+, our aim is to build a distributed network: Academia / Private sector / Students. The importance of a common agenda with different ways of tackling it.
Academia
Private Sector
Students
WHY is shared, but WHAT and HOW is unique
We are CONNECTED. Let's integrate future partners that align with the vision and bring their own intelligence.
Our common WHY diverse people who join TEAMIT+ will have an environmental and social awakening with skills to co create a greener economy in Europe.
What we built on
TEAMIT+ was built on proven prior experience: ID Initiative's work on M1, ESTIA's 24H of Innovation model for M2, and D4E + Mondragon Team Academy's methodology at the core of M3. The Finnish Team Academy model (JAMK), with 28 years of track record of teampreneurship, was the pedagogical spine. This foundation mattered enormously.
lesson
09
When we eat together 🍴 We stick together
Remove the shared meals and you remove the synergies. The food strategy is not logistics, it is pedagogy.
Programme the unscheduled time
If you take out free & food time, real synergies cannot happen. You need a curricula, but without free time there is no real connection, no real collaboration, no real trust.
reference - simon sinek/trevor noah - on social bonding & trust
Replication Note
Protect the social infrastructure. Budget for shared meals. Programme the unscheduled time.
- Shared meals every day
- Unstructured evenings
- Walking + travel time built in