You may have missed it, but I live in Eke. This metropolis is characterised by the presence of a Makro and nowadays you’ll even hear its name on the national traffic news because of the long traffic jams on the N60. Talk about progress. Like every municipality, Eke has a church with a decreasing number of members, a chips shop where you can also find vegetarian vegetable rolls besides the traditional minced-meat hot dog, and a few cafes. The nearby container park would complete this idyllic picture, but for the fact that it is almost exclusively accessible during office hours. Luckily we also have a lot of ‘glass-recycling containers' in our region so that the locals can discretely get rid of the numerous empty bottles on a clear Sunday morning.

It feels as if cynicism has been elevated to an art of living in Flanders. Constantly expressing criticism and raising potential problems are not unfamiliar to us. Nevertheless, this widespread attitude is not completely harmless. Individuals, society and organisations are under permanent pressure and approaching situations with a cynical attitude just doesn’t do the trick anymore. We have to focus on the positive side. This article investigates the importance of a positive focus and how to bring it about sustainably.

Today is Valentine’s Day, the commercial feast of love. Now, everyone who at this moment is in one, or several, romantic relationships, will fully agree with me that upholding it sometimes requires resilience and flexibility. Some of us succeed wonderfully, others not. In the first 50 years of marriage a little less than one in two marriages end in divorce. The divorce rate, the relationship between marriages and the resulting number of divorces, is 408 in 1,000 marriages.

The gloom that accompanies the Covid quarantine is something we try to escape within our family by finding some entertainment in shared television time. Last week, ‘Horrible Bosses’ was broadcast, a successful dark comedy about bad leadership. The film grossed 209 million, which is exceptional for a comedy and perhaps illustrates the appeal of the theme of bad leadership.

The Doolaege family have a shared passion, Heavy Metal. It is not uncommon for us to exuberantly sing along to the angry tunes of groups such as Rammstein or Judas Priest, meanwhile plaguing the eardrums of our poor neighbors. Now there are reprobrates who dismiss our favorite music genre as a niche phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The name James L. Brooks may not immediately ring a bell. However, he is one of the makers of the Simpsons and of excellent films such as "As Good As It Gets". In the latter, Jack Nicholson portrays Melvin Udall, a writer plagued by obsessions. One of his quotes from the movie is "People who talk in metaphors oughta shampoo my crotch". So, with all my metaphors in this series of articles, I know what to do.

In this streaming era, are you experiencing those endless notifications about copyrights when you start up a DVD or Blu-Ray in the presence of a gang of impatient toddlers? I do, and it is not uncommon for me to suppress the urge to crush my media player with a demolition hammer… and afterwards have a ritual burning. We owe the origin of these meaningless messages to the rise of illegal music downloads.

When I had the film ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ projected onto my youthful retina in 1982 as an eight-year-old brat, my decision was made. I was going to be the new Indiana Jones. Armed with a self-designed whip, made from a combination of a stick and three meters of electrical cord, and an old hat, I fearlessly took on the embodiment of evil in the form of my brother.

It's 1988 and Bloodsport, the action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme in his first major role, is a box office hit. Meanwhile, in a typical teenager’s room, an obese snot-nosed brat tries to recreate a scene from that film after his karate lesson. In the specific scene, JCVD takes out a villain by combining a full straddle position with a strategically (= vital parts) placed stroke. Unfortunately, our teenage boy discovers in a rather painful way that his physical abilities have limits and in the process tears muscle. Well, that obese and injured boy was me.

Judging by the Facebook messages in my network, I notice two developments to which my humble person also participates in. First of all, an exponential growth in the consumption of aperitifs during weekdays. Secondly, compulsively looking for some distraction in the form of yet another Netflix show. "The Walking Dead" is a series in which the starting point fits seamlessly with these turbulent times and with this article. For the reader who is doomed, at this stage of life, to look at the Plop gnome, I will provide a brief summary for convenience sake.

Long before social distancing started, food and wine with friends were an important part of my leisure activities. Being in each other's company, philosophizing and watching the sun go down; I thoroughly enjoyed that. I share this with Hannibal Lecter, one of the most talked-about figures in the history of the thriller.

The attentive reader of these columns now knows that I am not shy about sharing personal experiences. This week, you may add one more thing to the list of limitations, specifically my inability to connect with small children. I therefore try to avoid babies, toddlers and small children as much as possible. Show me a puppy and I let out yells that pass for sweet and endearing.

Burgundian life and the Doolaege family belong together. An abundance of cookbooks adorn the bookcases of my brother and both my uncles. They successfully translate this theory into culinary practice and are therefore welcome guests on various cooking courses. However, my dearest mum is at an elevated height in the gastronomic firmament. If Auguste Escoffier was alive, he would promptly appoint her as his successor.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I suffer from a serious form of indecision when it comes to spending gift vouchers. The absolute horror in this context takes the form of the ‘Fnac voucher’.

It will come as no surprise that a drastically reduced agenda is one of the reasons why you are delighted each week with the profound message from Arnoud and myself; two old-timers in the making with an aversion to adulthood. There is also no need to point out that this crisis has formed a financial crater around us. Fortunately, its depth is matched by our enduring optimism. Nevertheless, we too have had to suppress the urge to launch headlong into new initiatives.

A lot of Business schools, consultants and a bevy of scientists are therefore calling for us to start working on Purpose within organisations. By working towards a 'higher' purpose that transcends operational business objectives, we get better results for society, the organisation and the individual. Not surprisingly, as a founding partner of a Purpose-driven organisation, I subscribe to this. But the naive hope that getting started with Purpose automatically leads to sustainable results, that is what I am wary of. Hence, we dedicate this article to 'Purpose, the ugly, the bad and the good'.

A lot of Business schools, consultants and a bevy of scientists are therefore calling for us to start working on Purpose within organisations. By working towards a 'higher' purpose that transcends operational business objectives, we get better results for society, the organisation and the individual. Not surprisingly, as a founding partner of a Purpose-driven organisation, I subscribe to this. But the naive hope that getting started with Purpose automatically leads to sustainable results, that is what I am wary of. Hence, we dedicate this article to 'Purpose, the ugly, the bad and the good'.

A lot of Business schools, consultants and a bevy of scientists are therefore calling for us to start working on Purpose within organisations. By working towards a 'higher' purpose that transcends operational business objectives, we get better results for society, the organisation and the individual. Not surprisingly, as a founding partner of a Purpose-driven organisation, I subscribe to this. But the naive hope that getting started with Purpose automatically leads to sustainable results, that is what I am wary of. Hence, we dedicate this article to 'Purpose, the ugly, the bad and the good'.

In our series on positive focus, we look at current insights into personal and social well-being. Last time the first two elements were discussed; the importance of self-acceptance and the setting of life goals. In this article, we go deeper into the ability to shape our environment as a prerequisite for a positive focus. The pursuit of development also contributes to this, and thus personal growth is also covered.

Following “Warmste Week” and our #DuwMee campaign, we are already publishing the preface to our latest article series on resilience and agility.

In the previous article, we presented positive focus as a non-negotiable condition to collectively solve problems that we are confronted with as individuals, as organisations and as a society. We discussed the importance of seeing the different worlds we evolve in, both professionally and privately, as one. This resulted from the observation that positive focus goes hand in hand with the pursuit of well-being. In this second article, we focus on the six dimensions of personal well-being and zoom in on two of them; self-acceptance and purpose in life. At StreetwiZe • Mobile School we attach a lot of importance to evidence-based working, and we elaborate the meaning of a concept before asking ourselves how we will go about it. In management theory, there is a tendency to reinvent the wheel and abandon indicators used in other disciplines such as individual and social psychology. Starting from the irrational assumption that each era has its own unique challenges we tend to invent new models and biased labels. That is a pity as, when speaking about essential concepts such as positivity and well-being, we would do better to focus on what we already know rather than on what we assume.

Some things in life are certain. First: my body will mercilessly remind me that I can no longer spend nights drinking copious amounts of alcohol while twisting and turning myself in demanding ways that are supposed to be recognisable as dancing. In other words: I’m getting older. Second: I am not only being confronted with this new reality by the rueful looks of my kids. Today, every social media channel is harassing me constantly with notifications of birthdays and anniversaries and other such tragic events. Last week I received, on LinkedIn, the ominous message that I should celebrate my work anniversary: 10 years at StreetwiZe.

In 1984, Van Halen’s ‘Hot for Teacher’ conquered the world. The controversial song is about schoolboys who only have eyes for their attractive teacher. While parents frowned upon the sexually suggestive lyrics, hormones raced through the bodies of their adolescent sons thanks to the sexy video clip. Motley Crue had a hit with ‘Smokin’ in the Boys Room’. So, just like their predecessors from the 70s such as Alice Cooper with ‘School’s Out’, the rockers of the 80s also saw school as an obligatory queue for the holidays. What would they have thought if they had known that today we talk about lifelong learning, I wonder what illustrious lyrics that would have produced.

Younger readers of this magazine will probably shrug their shoulders at all these references to the 1980s. Especially for you, I will therefore make a jump to the year 2000. R&B suddenly became one of the most popular genres with artists such as Usher, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé and Rihanna. Through that success, R&B artists surrounded ‘teen pop’, the absolute horror of the nineties. With that genre names such as NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera dominated the remaining spots on the charts. And hard rock, for that matter, did not fare so well.

The end of the 1980s also saw the end of sloppy hard rock ballads, with ‘More than Words’ by the American Band ‘The Extreme’ as the final piece. If you listened to a Top 100 during the recent Christmas and New Year party period, the chances are that this acoustic song reached your eardrums. Whether that is good or bad news is beyond the scope of this article.

Fortunately you don’t have to share my taste in music to know the rock song ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’. In 1986 this hit catapulted Bon Jovi to international stardom for good. Not bad for a song that the band did not want to release at first, but that is another story.

When the word ‘excessive’ is mentioned, the name Axl Rose comes to mind. Not only did the singer in the band ‘Guns ‘n Roses’ make a name for himself and achieve world fame with hits such as ‘Paradise City’, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, ‘Patience’ and the ballad ‘Don’t Cry’, he is also the man who left his band in the lurch in front of a sold-out Arlington Theatre, got into a punch-up with David Bowie, challenged Kurt Cobain to a fight and gave Rolling Stone magazine the quote ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get an Uzi’. ‘What a waste of talent’ seems to have been written for Axl Rose.

Do you also sometimes feel overcome by that nostalgic musing about better times? Well, the diplomat George Ball once described nostalgia as a seductive liar. Looking back at my favourite decade, the 1980s, he certainly does have a point. Between 1 January 1980 and 31 December 1989, we witnessed, among other things, the rise of the HIV epidemic, the famine in Ethiopia and the last, but fierce, convulsions of the Cold War.

A heroic quote, courtesy of Michael Jordan. But what could you do about it if you’re one of those poor souls who seem to only live through the first part of the sentence? What if you’re in one of those periods when you only seem to be successful in failing?

These are high days for nostalgia lovers as everything seems to be coming back. Not only is the threat of a new cold war looming, a global oil crisis also seems to be repeating itself. Fortunately, there are also more fun ways to go back in time. For instance, Netflix treats us to the entertaining series Cobra Kai. Inspired by the Karate Kid films of the 1980s, it tells us about the conflict between two rival karate clubs, Cobra Kai and Miyagi dojo. The two founders, Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, share the goal of empowering young people. However, their views on the approach differ fundamentally.

Eddy Van Halen once said: ‘There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release’. It is no different in the case of the process towards well-being in cooperation at work.

Previous articles showed that a positive focus is essential in jointly tackling problems we are confronted with as individuals, organisations and society. We also saw that we best view these different worlds as one whole; one cannot exist without the other. This series of articles calls for investing in six different dimensions and thus contributing to more positive focus and well-being. In this last article, we will focus on the last two dimensions: autonomy and positive relationships.

Who still believes in St. Nicholas?" with this suggestive question my primary school teacher heralded the end of my dreams. While the majority of the class burst into jeers, I had to do my best to suppress my tears. I loved St Nicholas and the fantastic atmosphere that surrounded December 6th.

Nowadays, raising religion as a discussion topic at a party doesn’t exactly seem to be the most effective means of winning the hearts, let alone the souls, of your company. We see churches emptying all over Europe and the influence of the Catholic doctrine on its members rapidly waning. Since religion has disappeared, we as human beings are, of course, diligently looking for alternative explanations for the questions and difficulties of life such as insecurity, injustice and suffering.

In the previous article we ended with the proposition that if an organisation wants to work with agility or resilience, it must first of all work with the current and desired culture. It is important here that the focus is on challenging the prevailing assumptions so that the capacity of the system to cope with changes increases systematically. We also stated that 4 assumptions that characterise a culture are important: questions about people (1), questions about relationships (2), questions about the environment (3) and questions about the world (4). In this article we will take a closer look at assumptions about people.

"Every generation blames the one before" is the opening sentence of "The Living Years", a beautiful song by Mike & The Mechanics from 1989 that achieved number 1 in Australia, Canada and the United States. The phrase remains relevant twenty years later. Just as our children want to do things differently and, according to them, better than their parents, so do new organisations, with their working methods, believe that progress is being made through these applications. But is that really so?

“Often you get a leadership position because you can bring something to a successful conclusion yourself, because you are a good driver. But as a leader, you must dare, and be able, to hand over that wheel to ensure that others become a good driver. And that requires strong self-leadership in the first place.”