Our fifteenth episode of the Creative Flow: Thinkers and Change Agents Podcast Series features Branko Broekman, a landscape architect and environmental engineer from The Netherlands. He has worked with organizations to amplify the creative mindset in his own consulting and facilitation business for over 15 years.
Branko experienced the power of creative thinking when working as a project leader on the restoration of natural areas at the Ministry of Transportation and Water Management in the Netherlands. A consultant achieved such great results applying Creative Problem Solving that their leadership invested 500,000 Euro in the project. He became fascinated by the process, attending the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI), and coming to earn his MS in Creativity and Change Leadership from the Center for Applied Imagination, SUNY Buffalo State.  He believes the same experience should be available in Europe and has worked with the Center to offer the MS Program he studied in Buffalo with an in-person option in Europe. They have already completed the first two cohorts and hope to have the third in 2022.
Branko is a certified Foursight Advanced trainer and works as a certified Master Coach in intercultural Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). He shares many examples of his work in creative leadership projects at municipalities and ministries in the Netherlands. One success story led to one organization creating hubs of part-time facilitators who were empowered to spend 10% of the time working as a process facilitator of creative change throughout the organization
Branko discusses the differences in culture between the Netherlands and other countries and how this impacts the creative mindset. He has been instrumental in training creative leadership and helping others evolve from “efficiency” to “effectiveness “in an organization. He describes his Creative Flow as working with his hands, sculpting, and creating in 3D, which emulates his process for idea development.
Branko shares his deep understanding of deeper and deeper levels of applied Creativity. Don't miss his introduction to the concept of “Nearling” as part of a different dictionary of innovation.