Boris Alberda

Eyes that shine. 'Switched on’ people. This is what I love about creative leadership. As Innovation manager at Oxfam Novib, I have the privilege of working with many people who contribute actively to a better world. This only seems to work-out when their hearts and minds are in it. And when they remind me of my 2-year-old daughter. Everything she undertakes is 100% committed. She ventures into the unknown with an admirable lack of fear, and with a steep learning curve. This is something we unlearn - for good reasons - when we grow older. An inspiring part of my job is to remind ourselves of these child-like practices and create a shared and intentional path of learning.

We learn about the content – what intervention works in what context? And we (re)learn practices – mindsets and behavior -  that bring about innovation. Practices like courage, making ideas real, influencing and scaling. In my experience, successful innovation depends much more on these practices than on the first (big) idea, methods, tools or even competencies.

I worked for over 50 clients of IBM, ?WhatIf! and my own innovation consulting company. During these assignments, I noticed that when an organization wants to adapt their practices, a training won’t do the trick. We need systematic and structural coaching for people to be able to adapt their creative leadership practice. For this, I use a mixture of insights of practical experience, Mindfulness, Yoga, NLP, Cabalism (manifestation).

Let’s support each other in this journey of learning and get better at the practices of creative leadership. There is a world that needs changing! We need many more eyes that shine.