23/09/2024
Last Saturday, I finished my first 1/4 triathlon 🏊🏼♀️ 🚴🏼 🏃🏽♀️ at the Utrechtse Heuvelrug, one of the greenest places in the Netherlands. What I loved about the race was that it offered:
🌿 Immersion in biodiverse nature, with unexpected trails along and beyond the blue-lagoon waterside, hilly bike paths through the forest, and swimming with ducks, some weeds, and fish circling around me. I could truly enjoy it even while "racing."
🥇 A non-competitive spirit—your time is recorded with the aim to improve yourself, using yourself as the benchmark. Everyone who finishes gets a (wooden-carved) medal, and there’s no ceremony. When I accidentally biked an extra loop, another athlete-participant sprinted to alert me and help me get back on course, sacrificing some of his race time to support me.
🔄 The race was held for the second time and organized by volunteers who fostered a co-creative and humble atmosphere of togetherness. They actively sought feedback and were proud to be part of an event that is supported by the local residents.
There are many parallels to draw between this experience and the human-centered leadership we provide at HOST2Transform® Global, as well as my personal leadership style preference. This is why I choose these "small" (yet still challenging) events over the bigger ones that focus on speed and championship (which is my personal preference, not a judgement):
1. The rapidly changing (VUCA) environment and unexpected situations that challenge your resilience and agility—my work at HOST2Transform® Global is different every day. I work with highly diverse people—leaders, teams, client-organizations, and peer consultants—with different personalities and strengths that complement one another to scale our people-business-societal impact.
2. Feeling part of a community that gives a sense of belonging—connected with yourself, others, and your environment. It's a cooperative environment where people support each other rather than "beating" each other. From ego to eco, I believe we need more of that, including a rethinking of what we mean by "healthy competition" and its impact on people and nature.
3. Championing "pro-sumerism," meaning that everyone is both a consumer and a producer. You are co-responsible for the culture you're part of and manifesting, as "everyone is part of the art". This requires a fair share of self-reflection and courage. An opportunity for you to foster an human-centered work environment that is adaptive and drives continuous improvement (through trial and error), where people feel safe, engaged, and responsible to speak up, support each other, and contribute to the collective.
It gives me peace of mind to experience how everything is systemically intertwined, to work with 'universal truths.' To drive human-centered leadership by connecting with myself, others, and my environment.
