Creativist
My Story
Just over twenty years ago, I set out to be a war photographer. My journey did take me to war zones, but ultimately it has been a creative journey of humanity and maturity, of discovery and humility, of curiosity and failure. This journey has given me leadership expertise in navigating changeable environments, now I am here to offer coaching, leadership development and strategy consultancy services to help leaders thrive in today's unpredictable world.
A decisive ‘fork in the road’ moment in 2008 made me sling my camera over my shoulder and stop only baring witness to crisis, photojournalism was no-longer my purpose in life. In searching for a new purpose, I started leading multi-million-dollar emergency responses to humanitarian crisis across the world. Whilst these responses were successful (for the most part) they exposed a salvationist naivety, I was leading effective responses, but they were not working, they were keeping people alive, but they were not solving the problems. I found an industry ‘stuck’; recognizing the need to change but caught between the morality to save lives, enabled through the principled rules based frame works curated to prevent atrocity, and an increasingly incompatible geo-political plurality which has lost its moral compass. The humanitarian sector needed a dramatic re-think.
This awareness, backed up and evidenced in a literature corpus, lit a fire of tempered radicalness inside me which brought my purpose clearly into light from the shadows of my mind: Helping people become, and stay, relevant in service of others.
The challenges the aid sector faces are the same challenges that every sector faces; The world is in a precarious and interdependent transitory era. The relative stability of the post cold war liberal peace agenda, global power hegemony is in flux. The world is changing and leaders and organizations need to adapt to a turbulent transitionary reality from modernity into a post-modern era. This can be characterized by a complex web of ecosystems demanding the embrace of interdependence, the courage to intentionally avoid the comfort of patterned behavior and, ultimately, take some leaps of faith. This is true across the political, corporate, social and public sectors.
I’ve taken that leap of faith. I spent five years challenging established hierarchical ways of working by practicing ecosystemic leadership and listening deeply, beyond just the words, to people whilst profoundly reflecting on my own behaviors and personal contributions. In doing so, I have proved that it is possible to sustain efficiency whilst also being dynamic, decentralized and discovering new solutions to complex problems. I learnt that if you’re creative and curious, anything is possible!
This journey of exploration was enabled by coaching, both the receipt of and the practice of. It is evident to me that coaching has acted like the key to unlocking a better me, a more reflective, mature and emotionally secure person who can, hopefully, be of better value to the world and I have endeavored to create the same space for my coaching clients to do so as well.
I identify my coaching philosophy as one of a creativist. I believe solutions, and the ability to navigate turbulence, can be found in the newness of creation. The newness of an ‘ah ha’ moment, of an idea, of a synaptic connection, of learning.
Creativity is the core value for my coaching, leadership and team development, this is then complemented by courage and inclusivity. Together they lead to the establishment of something that didn’t previously exist with the intention of betterment, relevance and progress. To create new energy, newly generated ideas, new horizons, and new gazes.
If anyone out there is finding the current turbulence of our times difficult, on a personal or organizational level, I want to offer myself as a sounding board and a enabler or facilitator to unlocking your creativity to enable you to find solutions to your problems.
