Charles van der Haegen

I am a grandfather of an immensely inspiring family built thanks to the most beautiful, generous and energetic wife on earth. I was in charge of satisfying my family's mundane needs (what does "mundane needs" mean, for me, for you?... we can exchange about that). So I was for 30 years a business entrepreneur, roller coasting between success and failure. A bit less than 10 years ago I got an opportunity to stop and reflect. I dug into the theories behind what I had been doing. I discovered how wrong I had most of the time been, 30 years long. Today I am still amidst this transdisciplinary quest, bouncing back and forth from action to theory.

With partners I founded Comind, in 2005. We try to help organizations and institutions (and the people in them), throughout Europe, to adapt to an incredibly fast changing world.  Last year I added to this a commitment to a mixed research/engineering/social innovation venture: Cities as Forces for Good.  I do believe businesses can bring about the paradigm changes our World needs. 

My choosen path is one of  "Always Learning, Never Getting it Right". I do believe in the power of conversation and dialogue. to, I actively try to discover contradictions with current "orthodoxies". I try hard to listen, accept and understand diverse and plural perspectives and rationalities, to accept the possibility of contradictory certainties. I believe in people's inborn capacity to be immensely systems intelligent. I am convinced that learning starts with trust and connectivity. And that learning then goes on with the gaining of insights and understanding, leading to new knowledge that is integrated in new practices, further  developed in new action in a endless, positive spiral of learning. Learning takes place only in social action. Creativity and innovation emerges more powerfully when groups comprise a greater variety and when they  compound their interconnectedness in ever changing and richer networks.