Tosca’s guest appearance on Maurice Bloem’s podcast Walk Talk Listen

What happens when a thoughtful podcast host interviews you with questions that go all the way back to your ‘origin story’ of why you do the work that you do? That ask about your spiritual bearings? A song or piece of music that says something about you?

This is what happened to me when I was interviewed by Maurice Bloem, Chief Sustainability and Impact Officer at Church World Service (CWS), a US-founded faith based NGO. Maurice podcasts in his personal capacity, as part of his mission embodied in the 100 Mile Initiative: an an annual sponsored walk in many communities to fundraise for the eradication of hunger (this is also known as Cropwalk). I have participated in this, as part of my church community, along with my kids when they were younger.

Maurice is an alumni of the Transnational NGO Leadership Institute at Syracuse University, which I used to direct in my former identity as ‘accidental pracademic’. Maurice and I have stayed in touch, and I cherish our conversations about NGOs, leadership questions, climate change and sustainability challenges thrown at the sector – and of course our shared Dutch background (we are both from the Netherlands and have both lived in the USA now for a very long time).

Maurice’s interview questions were original, they made for an authentic and stimulating conversation and they made me think harder. The latter is always needed!

We also discussed my co-authored book, and what I am currently most enthused about: my newfound capability of team coaching now that I am a graduate of the Team Coaching Intensive program at Corentus, the renowned global team coaching company. – and now that they have made me one of their Core Practitioners (for part of my practice; I also offer team coaching in my Five Oaks Consulting capacity. Ask me (Tosca@5oaksconsulting.org) if you think your senior team and you as team leader could use an upgrade. And I offered some observations on trends I see in some NGO senior team underperformance issues.

Are you curious yet? Jump in here!