Have you noticed it has all been about the money? About making more money, about keeping it and making your own personal pile of mmmmoney bigger? Of course you have.

Sometimes you could also divide people into 2 groups: the ones that work for money and the others who make it. The people making money are (sometimes) called entrepreneurs. At least I realized I had that distinction in my head. When people told me I had entrepreneurial spirit and could be a great business woman I just had to laugh. For me the concept of wanting to help the environment, the surrounding community and at the same time make a living out of it was a just fairy-tale.

With the visit of Edwin de Bree and Fokker Wijnstra it all made much more sense. Their way of seeing organizations and cash flow is just so much simpler. Well, at least for me. How? By making the distinction in your head that the money is a mean and not a goal in itself. Hmmm, how to explain …
Ok, please imagine you wake up, remember you are about to go to work and a smile appears on your face. Incredible feeling isn’t it! Then you make yourself your favourite coffee and while you drink it you enjoy the moment in its fullest. After a nutritious breakfast you take your bike to your job. You still have a genuine smile on your face. How is that possible?

• Your coffee is fairtrade and your decision to contribute to this movement provides even bigger satisfaction since you know you didn’t deprive anyone of anything with indulging your morning habit.

• Your breakfast is from the local market where carrots taste of carrots and bread doesn’t remind you of a chewing gum. You even know your veggies didn’t come half ripe from the other part of the world. An additional benefit: your kids actually know how potatoe looks like in reality.

• When you are in a hurry, you choose to share a (electric?) car with more people to get to your meeting on time.

• And what is more important: you work in a network organization where you can express your needs as a creative human being, where transparency is a value and where trust is the basic glue of your working surrounding.

Everything from above is indeed possible.
The trickiest in my opinion is the last one since we are so used to work in a hierarchical organization where we do what others tell us to do (even if we keep telling ourselves it is not like that). The most difficult is the change of the mind set with which we approach our work and co-workers. Are you afraid of mistakes? Are you trying to appear busy when it comes to taking responsibilities and rather hide behind a pile of paper work? Maybe you feel your co-workers are doing that? What is your motivation to work in that company? Do you believe it is impossible to make a change as a individual?
Those and many more questions arose in the workshop with Edvin de Bree. There were some answers too. If you are interested in more, you’ll just have to ask :)