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StreetwiZe
Arnoud Raskin werkt met Mobile School al 15 jaar met straatkinderen in sloppenwijken over de hele wereld.
Deze ervaring opende zijn ogen voor het enorme potentieel van deze kinderen en liet hem inzien dat de skills die zij iedere dag gebruiken om te overleven een waardevolle inspiratiebron kunnen zijn voor managers die hun onderneming in een concurrentiële omgeving staande moeten houden.
Vanuit deze gedachte ontstond 'StreetwiZe': een bruikbaar model dat de inzichten en vaardigheden van de straat transfereert naar de ondernemingen van morgen.
Leiders van de toekomst gaan uit van ieders individuele kracht, zij inspireren en ontwikkelen zo het talent van hun mensen.
Deze ervaring opende zijn ogen voor het enorme potentieel van deze kinderen en liet hem inzien dat de skills die zij iedere dag gebruiken om te overleven een waardevolle inspiratiebron kunnen zijn voor managers die hun onderneming in een concurrentiële omgeving staande moeten houden.
Vanuit deze gedachte ontstond 'StreetwiZe': een bruikbaar model dat de inzichten en vaardigheden van de straat transfereert naar de ondernemingen van morgen.
Leiders van de toekomst gaan uit van ieders individuele kracht, zij inspireren en ontwikkelen zo het talent van hun mensen.
- GenresNonfictionBusiness
256 pages, Integral Binding
First published April 22, 2014
2 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 9, 2018
Heel inspirerend en positief verhaal, zet aan tot nadenken en stimuleert om zelf bewuster te gaan ondernemen. Aan de andere kant bevat het boek wel heel veel herhaling, en vervalt het af en toe in karikaturale clichés of een opgeheven vingertje.
In elk geval een aanrader voor elke manager die op zoek is naar een inspirerend verhaal.
In elk geval een aanrader voor elke manager die op zoek is naar een inspirerend verhaal.
August 17, 2014
Mijn idee ... leerde me een belangrijke les over innovatie: wanneer je wil innoveren, mag je niet vertrekken vanuit de naieve hoop op applaus voor je nieuwe idee. Als je idee onmiddelijk op applaus onthaald wordt, zit je waarschijnlijk nog in the box. Als je echt outside the box gaat, mag je weerstand verwachten en moet je bereid zijn voor je idee te strijden, met bloed, zweet en tranen. Wie een rode loper verwacht, is naief en zal ontgoocheld worden. Waar het om gaat als je wil veranderen, is proberen te begrijpen waarom er tegenstand is.
December 22, 2014
An amazing book. Powerfull, human message. It felt like "7 Habits" (Covey) from the street. Contains life lessons. Really gets in through its social impact. Honestly, I needed this message.
September 8, 2015
Very inspiring
January 12, 2016
What can today's managers learn from street-kids?
In this book, Arnoud Raskin tells the powerful story of the organization Mobile School ( www.mobileschool.org/en ) and the company StreetwiZe ( www.streetwize.be ). Together, Mobile School and StreetwiZe form a hybrid organization, where the profits that are generated by StreetwiZe are used to advance the social goals of Mobile School.
This book is also the inspirational story of Arnoud Raskin himself. For many years, Raskin has worked with street-kids all over the world. One of his first experiences, when he had just arrived in Colombia, showed him one of the best ways to help these street-kids: By boosting their self esteem. At the time, Raskin didn't speak any Spanish, and asked a street-kid to help him out. Raskin started drawing things, and asked the kid, who was now his teacher, to give him the corresponding word in Spanish. Thus a drawing of a house became casa, a bird became pájaro. Raskin noticed that his young teacher was completely concentrated for an hour and a half, very different from the concentration span these street-kids usually had when they participated in learning activities: Typically, after about 5 minutes, they tended to lose interest. This first observation was followed some days later by another, when Raskin asked another kid to be his teacher. At some moment, his previous teacher showed up, and the 2 street-kids started a quarrel, with the first teacher claiming he was the teacher. Raskin realized ''that by placing the kid in the position of teacher and thus reverse the power relations, the kid became aware of his possibilities and all of a sudden managed to persevere much longer. By chance I had placed the kid in a position of power and that resulted in a clear positive impact on his self esteem and on his actions and capabilities'' (pag 45).
Raskin's own observations where confirmed and complemented with what he read about empowerment in the works of Paulo Freire. The books opens with a quote from Freire:
''Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people – they manipulate them.
They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress''.
Building on this observation that improving their self esteem is one of the best ways to help the street-kids, Raskin designed the Mobile School, a learning tool on wheels with blackboards and educational games. Raskin realised that to increase the street-kids' self esteem, to really empower them, he had to meet them in their environment. So he started to take his Mobile School into the streets to help the kids in the settings they were most familiar with.
Raskin also realised that his Mobile Schools could help with offering street-kids better chances to leave their life on the street behind. It turns out that typically only 10 percent of the street-kids who are taken in to a shelter (run by NGOs or government) manage to stay off the streets. The vast majority falls back and returns to the street. How is it possible that so many prefer the street to the (relative) comfort of those well-meaning shelters? It turns out that the few who do make it, are intrinsically motivated to change their life. Their high self esteem allows them to see the opportunity and make a positive choice to go for it.
What are the characteristics of the winners of the street, and of those who manage to leave the life on the street behind? Raskin, with the help of others, found that those winners tended to have 4 competencies:
- Positive Focus
- Resilience and Agility
- Proactive Creativity
- Cooperative Competition
Raskin realised that these competencies are also valuable for today's managers in the competitive business world:
- Positive focus: The street-kids who are winners have a positive view on life. A positive attitude allows them to recognise opportunities and is indispensable for survival. And those winners of the street take responsibility. They don't blame others or external circumstances for the situation they are in.
- Resilience and Agility (Veerkracht en Wendbaarheid): Winners of the street know how to deal with setbacks and how to overcome obstacles. They have the flexibility to adapt to new circumstances and to go for new opportunities.
- Proactive Creativity: Winners of the street have the right attitude take risks and to go for their idea and make the best of it.
- Cooperative Competition. They know when to compete and when to cooperate.
These 4 street skills became the basis for Raskin's company StreetwiZe. Using the 4 street skills, StreetwiZe helps today's managers to implement change projects in their organizations, to offer personal development (from senior executives to young potentials), to shift the company culture to make the employers more positive, resilient and agile, and to offer the company, its employees, customers and other stakeholders meaning and purpose.
Together, StreetwiZe and Mobile Schools form a hybrid organization, focused on offering value to both StreetwiZe's corporate clients and to Mobile School's clients, i.e. the street-kids and the local partners who use the Mobile Schools. All the profits of StreetwiZe are used to finance the social impact projects of Mobile School. In the hybrid organization, pursuing financial profit and pursuing social impact support each other.
I found this book to be very inspirational. It contains Arnoud Raskin's powerful life story, which is inseparable from Mobile School's and StreetwiZe's. But beyond that, the book is even much more than a autobiography or a business case on how to build a hybrid organization.
For me, one of the most important take-aways of this book are its lessons on how motivation works. Raskin's ideas are similar to those expressed by Daniel Pink in his book Drive. Pink mentions that there are 3 types of intrinsic motivation that get us going: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. On many pages, Raskin stresses the importance of purpose (zingeving). He cites Paulo Freire: ''When you offer people purpose and recognition, they will start to develop themselves'' (pag 45). He also observes: ''In order to attract new talented employees, and to keep the actual employees motivated, you need to offer authentic purpose. If you don't offer a higher purpose, then your employees will look for that somewhere else. When it comes to customers, it is also crucial to offer a convincing answer to purpose question'' (pag 31).
Throughout the book, there are also many useful observations on innovation and thinking out of the box: ''If you want to innovate, you can not start with the naïve hope that you will get immediate applause for your new idea. If you do happen to get immediate applause, that probably means you are still inside the box. If you are really going outside the box, you'll have to be prepared to face resistance and you'll have to be willing to fight for your idea. Who expects a red carpet for his new idea, is naïve and is likely to be disappointed'' (pag 53).
Too bad this book, for the moment, is only available in Dutch. It deserves a far wider audience than the Dutch language can provide.
In this book, Arnoud Raskin tells the powerful story of the organization Mobile School ( www.mobileschool.org/en ) and the company StreetwiZe ( www.streetwize.be ). Together, Mobile School and StreetwiZe form a hybrid organization, where the profits that are generated by StreetwiZe are used to advance the social goals of Mobile School.
This book is also the inspirational story of Arnoud Raskin himself. For many years, Raskin has worked with street-kids all over the world. One of his first experiences, when he had just arrived in Colombia, showed him one of the best ways to help these street-kids: By boosting their self esteem. At the time, Raskin didn't speak any Spanish, and asked a street-kid to help him out. Raskin started drawing things, and asked the kid, who was now his teacher, to give him the corresponding word in Spanish. Thus a drawing of a house became casa, a bird became pájaro. Raskin noticed that his young teacher was completely concentrated for an hour and a half, very different from the concentration span these street-kids usually had when they participated in learning activities: Typically, after about 5 minutes, they tended to lose interest. This first observation was followed some days later by another, when Raskin asked another kid to be his teacher. At some moment, his previous teacher showed up, and the 2 street-kids started a quarrel, with the first teacher claiming he was the teacher. Raskin realized ''that by placing the kid in the position of teacher and thus reverse the power relations, the kid became aware of his possibilities and all of a sudden managed to persevere much longer. By chance I had placed the kid in a position of power and that resulted in a clear positive impact on his self esteem and on his actions and capabilities'' (pag 45).
Raskin's own observations where confirmed and complemented with what he read about empowerment in the works of Paulo Freire. The books opens with a quote from Freire:
''Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people – they manipulate them.
They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress''.
Building on this observation that improving their self esteem is one of the best ways to help the street-kids, Raskin designed the Mobile School, a learning tool on wheels with blackboards and educational games. Raskin realised that to increase the street-kids' self esteem, to really empower them, he had to meet them in their environment. So he started to take his Mobile School into the streets to help the kids in the settings they were most familiar with.
Raskin also realised that his Mobile Schools could help with offering street-kids better chances to leave their life on the street behind. It turns out that typically only 10 percent of the street-kids who are taken in to a shelter (run by NGOs or government) manage to stay off the streets. The vast majority falls back and returns to the street. How is it possible that so many prefer the street to the (relative) comfort of those well-meaning shelters? It turns out that the few who do make it, are intrinsically motivated to change their life. Their high self esteem allows them to see the opportunity and make a positive choice to go for it.
What are the characteristics of the winners of the street, and of those who manage to leave the life on the street behind? Raskin, with the help of others, found that those winners tended to have 4 competencies:
- Positive Focus
- Resilience and Agility
- Proactive Creativity
- Cooperative Competition
Raskin realised that these competencies are also valuable for today's managers in the competitive business world:
- Positive focus: The street-kids who are winners have a positive view on life. A positive attitude allows them to recognise opportunities and is indispensable for survival. And those winners of the street take responsibility. They don't blame others or external circumstances for the situation they are in.
- Resilience and Agility (Veerkracht en Wendbaarheid): Winners of the street know how to deal with setbacks and how to overcome obstacles. They have the flexibility to adapt to new circumstances and to go for new opportunities.
- Proactive Creativity: Winners of the street have the right attitude take risks and to go for their idea and make the best of it.
- Cooperative Competition. They know when to compete and when to cooperate.
These 4 street skills became the basis for Raskin's company StreetwiZe. Using the 4 street skills, StreetwiZe helps today's managers to implement change projects in their organizations, to offer personal development (from senior executives to young potentials), to shift the company culture to make the employers more positive, resilient and agile, and to offer the company, its employees, customers and other stakeholders meaning and purpose.
Together, StreetwiZe and Mobile Schools form a hybrid organization, focused on offering value to both StreetwiZe's corporate clients and to Mobile School's clients, i.e. the street-kids and the local partners who use the Mobile Schools. All the profits of StreetwiZe are used to finance the social impact projects of Mobile School. In the hybrid organization, pursuing financial profit and pursuing social impact support each other.
I found this book to be very inspirational. It contains Arnoud Raskin's powerful life story, which is inseparable from Mobile School's and StreetwiZe's. But beyond that, the book is even much more than a autobiography or a business case on how to build a hybrid organization.
For me, one of the most important take-aways of this book are its lessons on how motivation works. Raskin's ideas are similar to those expressed by Daniel Pink in his book Drive. Pink mentions that there are 3 types of intrinsic motivation that get us going: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. On many pages, Raskin stresses the importance of purpose (zingeving). He cites Paulo Freire: ''When you offer people purpose and recognition, they will start to develop themselves'' (pag 45). He also observes: ''In order to attract new talented employees, and to keep the actual employees motivated, you need to offer authentic purpose. If you don't offer a higher purpose, then your employees will look for that somewhere else. When it comes to customers, it is also crucial to offer a convincing answer to purpose question'' (pag 31).
Throughout the book, there are also many useful observations on innovation and thinking out of the box: ''If you want to innovate, you can not start with the naïve hope that you will get immediate applause for your new idea. If you do happen to get immediate applause, that probably means you are still inside the box. If you are really going outside the box, you'll have to be prepared to face resistance and you'll have to be willing to fight for your idea. Who expects a red carpet for his new idea, is naïve and is likely to be disappointed'' (pag 53).
Too bad this book, for the moment, is only available in Dutch. It deserves a far wider audience than the Dutch language can provide.
June 15, 2019
Dit boek werkt inspirerend. Ik houd van de stijl, het pragmatische. Het feit dat er vaak herhaling is zie ik niet als een nadeel. Het legt een extra klemtoon.
Het is voor mij ook duidelijk dat het verhaal van Streetwize en Mobile Schools voornamelijk een resultaat is van een ongelooflijke reis doorspekt met passie, tragedie, verdriet, doorzettingsvermogen en blijdschap. Dat valt niet te kopiëren. Laat het vooral een inspiratie zijn op je eigen reis en de mogelijkheden die je zelf creëert.
Het is voor mij ook duidelijk dat het verhaal van Streetwize en Mobile Schools voornamelijk een resultaat is van een ongelooflijke reis doorspekt met passie, tragedie, verdriet, doorzettingsvermogen en blijdschap. Dat valt niet te kopiëren. Laat het vooral een inspiratie zijn op je eigen reis en de mogelijkheden die je zelf creëert.
August 23, 2018
Over zingeving en talent, over hybride ondernemingen. Inspirerend en zet aan tot ondernemen!
February 19, 2019
Inspirerend!
September 2, 2021
Verhaal van een bewonderenswaardige ondernemer/onderneming. Ik hoop dat er zo vele volgen.
November 29, 2016
Wat een authentiek, consequent en inspirerend verhaal!
January 4, 2015
Fantastisch om lezen
March 3, 2016
Excellent book, very authentic and innovative content. A must read for anyone interested in CSR, social enterprises and hybrid models.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews