Enjoying the wonderful DRUMMING dance performance by Rosas, at the temporary open air Velodroom in Leuven. Sitting on these wooden benches so close to the stage, my friend and I felt the energy of the dancers as they twirled by, their deep breaths aligned with their movements and their bare feet quickly running off to the other side of the canvas. We sat there in awe and watched how 12 young dancers moved around at different speeds, not once crashing into each other by accident. The dancers had created this coded language and they executed the mathematical patterns like if it were analogue algorithms, demonstrating their flexibility, resilience and consilience when near-bumps occured.
And that was exactly how Katja Schipperheijn’s daughter described it in her guest blog article, comparing dancing to coding as she was making choices for her future education. Katja spoke proudly about her daughter at the BDO x Tomorrow Lab Vision 2030 conference in Brussels, about preparing children for the future of work by not just giving room to the development of their skills but to the development of their competences and mindset as well. During her closing keynote at the event, she also zoomed in on learning strategies and the urgency for organisations to transform to a LearnScape environment .. before it is too late.
During the NeuroLeadership Institute webinar later this week, Marcia Smythe spoke about how our mindset drives our beliefs and therefor our behaviour. Experimentation, valuation of the progress made and learning from others are three key habits that should be embedded in an organisational culture for people to adopt a growth mindset.
A few years ago, my dear friend Ismet Mamnoon introduced me to scientific research on the mental dimensions that positively affect creativity in organisations. An organisational culture where a growth mindset eventually leads to innovation, has 9 motivating dimensions which I have been translating to physical spaces in my workplace design projects ever since. I am now looking forward to taking this experience to a next level in new projects, exploring-by-design how the physical environment can positively and directly affect the development of our competences and our mindset.
On my journey this week, I have been accompanied by Nathalie Arteel. Not only in realtime, as well as by guidance through her book. She repeats it time and time again: set out a vivid vision, mission and ambition when you start your entreprise or lead a company. Share it with the people around you and that you work with, every day. Build an appreciative culture from a growth mindset : physically, mentally, spiritually ánd financially. Through meaningful moments, she and her husband have created deep connections with their clients, with their people ánd their business partners. Not only have they benefited from this growth mindset in all aspects of their professional and personal life, they are also making impact on the lives of so many people who feel appreciated and are motivated to continue their own meaningful work.
After this week, my mission could not be any clearer: to create transformative environments to learn, to care and to love for people who are working and living from a growth mindset and who want to make impact with what they do.
This week was one of connecting the dots. Thank you to all the wonderful people that I have had the chance to deeply connect with this week. And a shout out to those close to me who patiently listen to all my bold and wild visions on the future of work and life.