Month: October 2011

Daring to Dream

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As a little girl, I wore pretty pink party dresses and I was read fairy tales of princesses being rescued by their handsome princes and how they lived happily ever after in their perfect kingdoms. I don’t think I ever challenged this concept. Couldn’t the princess
do the rescuing? How would the kingdom stay perfect if it wasn’t self-sustaining? I know I never had these discussions with my mother and I’m sure she never asked me what I would discuss with the princess when I met her. I only wish she had.

We look to our world leaders or people of great influence to solve our planet’s problems. When, there’s more of a chance that the ‘lowly man on the street’ will solve more problems albeit with a little help of ‘the princess’.

Her Royal Highness Princess Máxima of the Netherlands is a princess on a mission. She has 3 young daughters and she understands more than ever how important education is; the importance of financial literacy; how entrepreneurial children are; and how children can be coached to far greater heights when they are suitably challenged.

This week I met Princess Máxima at an event arranged by MVO Nederland (Dutch site), an organization focused on CSR activities in the Netherlands. Representatives from company foundations, NGOs, funds, business and public sector met to discuss a whole range of topics (Dutch language) including, Reducing the number of drop outs and unemployment; Improving quality of life and safety in communities; Labour market participation; Financial education, etc. All the attendees, myself included, signed a letter of intent, promising to talk less and act more. Coalitions will be formed in the coming months and some very passionate business people, with the support of Princess Máxima, will solve just some of our problems in the Netherlands.

As a child, I never dared imagine that I could ever be in the presence of a Princess. Let’s start re-writing those fairy tales. Nowadays, princesses work alongside you and I, to solve ‘their’ kingdom’s sustainability issues, feeding the poor or improving the economy through education and job creation. Let’s challenge our children to think outside of the square. They’re not made of glass and they need to realise that they can do anything that they put their minds to. They are our future leaders and it’s their ideas that will save the world. Let’s teach our children to ‘Dare to Dream’.

Business Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility

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This week, I’d like to share my 5-minute elevator pitch on how Corporate Social Responsibility can be used as a successful marketing instrument for company branding, talent development and building better client relationships. The link takes you to You Tube.

I’m repeating some of the business benefits below, which I communicated in my blog a few weeks ago, The ‘profit’ in non-profit.

WIN 1 – Training & development: By working closely with HR and Training, you can create exciting training and development programs which answer the learning needs of your young talents and senior executives, while they are giving something back to the community. So, where Community Investment & Involvement (CI&I) is often seen as a cost, you can start turning it around as a long term learning benefit for your young talents and executives, since getting involved in the community develops soft skills, among others.

WIN 2 – Improving client relationships: Invite your clients to join you in your CI&I initiatives. Your staff members not only give something valuable back to the community i.e. knowledge and expertise but, they are also given the opportunity to forge relationships with their clients in an informal setting. This blows the idea out of the water that CI&I is a waste of time and money. Since when was client face-time a waste of time and money?

WIN 3 – Creating brand ambassadors: I’m often amused to hear how many of my colleagues tell me that they get involved in the community with the idea that they have a lot to teach, however, they come away having learned so much more. These staff members are positive, motivated and excited and brilliant brand ambassadors for any company.

WIN 4 – Improving the economy by helping NGOs: Your company may be able to help charitable third parties with the knowledge and expertise of your staff members. Offering advice which these NGOs may otherwise not have been able to afford. In the case of Fair Chance Foundation, we’ve developed financial literacy programs that we implement in schools by training-the-trainer (the teacher) or by giving interview skills training and lessons in entrepreneurship, etc. to students. We’ve chosen topics that are close to our core business and therefore, easier to teach. Our view is that the more we invest in education, the more of a virtuous circle that we create. The longer children stay in school and get a better education, the less likely they are to knock on the door of social welfare (where available) or be dependent on their families. Instead, it’s our hope that these children will be educated enough to be able to find work, or to become entrepreneurs. And when more people work, the economy becomes better, which is automatically better for business.

So Community Investment and Involvement (CI&I) is beneficial for business and is positive for the brand, talent and leadership development and for improving client relationships. Don’t get involved if you want to make a fast buck. But if you’re in it for the long run, the spin-offs are extremely ‘profitable’ for your business but even more so for the NGOs that you help.

Creating the best school for the Netherlands and the world

Published on by Helen Martin1 Comment

I met Marcel Kampman recently. He was born, lives and works in a small town, 130 kms from Amsterdam, Meppel. This week I learned that Marcel is a father of two. His dream is that his children will be inspired to achieve brilliance by the teachers that teach them, the curriculum that they are taught and by the schools that they attend. A dream that I share for children around the world. But he also realises that this may be a pipe dream since it’s a scientific fact that children are far more creative at the age of 4, a whopping 98%; than at the age of 18, a depressing 2%. Sir Ken Robinson’s book, The Element: How finding your passion changes everything and TED talks reveal that schools actually stifle creativity instead of nurturing it. Seemingly, when we start school, we’re at our fullest potential but, each time we make choices, we leave ourselves fewer and fewer opportunities, which slims down our potential when we finally complete our education. “The more you choose, the more you lose.”

With this in mind, what if you could reinvent a school from scratch? What would you change? How would the technologies that reinvent education impact the construction and design of the building? How and what would you teach? Unlike many before him, Marcel Kampman has stood up to the challenge and Dreamschool Foundation and Project DreamSchool was born in the Netherlands. He’s now spreading the word at Lift and TED, gathering opinions and ideas and reinventing schools. Watch his presentation at Lift.

And, let’s face it, creating anything new in schools is a scary task. There’s that break with tradition and everything that’s governmental and bureaucratic. The project innovators of Dreamschool are ‘making it up as they go along’, since very little they think about, has been done before. They do have help from brilliant minds around the world though e.g. Sir Ken Robinson.

Am I curious as to where it will end up? Yes, sure I am! Do I believe it can work? Yes, I do. The biggest dreams start with the most ordinary people. What makes these people different, is that they dare to try. The stone age didn’t end due to a lack of stones you know. So, perhaps the age of classical education ends here! You can follow Marcel and the activities of Project Dreamschool on his website or you can follow him on twitter.