Ineke regularly writes about Jump Movement and related topics.

You can read about what interests her in her blog. This time:

18 January, 2016

JUMP MOVEMENT WORKS LIKE A MAGNET

This week, we celebrate Jump Movement’s 5th anniversary. An incredible milestone! On 21^st January, 2011, I launched the first Jump Movement website. I called it Jump-online. I had so many plans: Jump-online, Jump in Business, Jump Foundation. I had it all thought out and all I needed was to test it on the world...

The method is simple; in a group of up to 6 people, you go through 7 steps. It’s fairly structured; each participant gets an equal turn and no unsolicited advice is given. The process is led by a timer.

It was exactly that simplicity that made me have doubts. On the one hand: this is great, who needs another complex theory with another over-developed method, justified by even more research?  All we need is a simple method. Less is more. The reason I was having doubts was because I came from a consultancy background, where less was… well, less.  More meant: more income, more prestige, more expertise, more impact and more results. Or did it...?

I decided to test the method for six months. I chose an ‘easy’ test group: women. Easy to find and open to an experiment, I figured, which turned out to be the case. In four months’ time a 1000 women signed up to experience the method. It turned out to be a hit!

‘Have you done a Jump yet?’ ‘What’s that, a Jump?’ ‘Where can I do a Jump?’ ‘Will you be coming to Amsterdam to do a Jump?’ That was pretty much the summary of the responses. I Jumped from North to South, from East to West. Thousands of people, later on including men (obviously), have taken part in a Jump conversation. We have already passed the 50,000 mark. And counting.

Jump Movement has started doing a lot of Jumps in organizations, where it works as a magnet as well. We hardly plan any large-scale change projects; instead, we implement Jump Movement in organizations by using trained Jump Starters as a magnet. The most important rule for a Jump Starter is: ‘Whenever you feel the urge to do something, DON’T!’ 

We teach them that a magnet’s attraction is far more interesting than that of a bulldozer. We all know the bulldozer. Yet another change program is being pushed into the organization... leaving employees to come up with yet another excuse for not participating. Which leads to yet another bitter pill to swallow after ‘it didn’t deliver what it promised.’

That is not what Jump Movement is about. We don’t make any promises. We don’t guarantee anything. We don’t promise that Jump will solve any problems. We don’t promise that Jump Movement is a magic pill for all ailments.  All we promise is a connection. And depth. Truly connecting people.

Just look at yourself: what does it mean to your life, to experience true connections? It might mean being more vulnerable, showing more of yourself, being honest and dropping your mask, finding more courage and, in turn, leading to improved collaboration. You may start seeing your colleagues and manager as ‘a person’ for the first time. You may not have been ‘in the loop’, but, upon re-connecting, you suddenly find new doors opening.

That might be the case. What we see is increased courage for the tens of thousands of participants and numerous companies who had the guts to DON’T. Their Jump Movement magnet is switched ON and you will hear them say: ‘Have you never done a Jump before? You should, it’s great fun!’

To which the response invariably is: ‘Where do I sign up?’

We are aiming for 100,000 participants in 2016! Are you in? Join the Movement!