Innovators of the world – Antwerp edition

Bestuurder – An Van den Eynde

In 2013, Komma Board started out as a consulting company in ICT & Finance. Our business model is atypical, as we act as a subcontractor to main ICT or Finance contractors for multinational or international Fortune 500 companies.

Acting as an independent partner, this specific market position allows Komma Board to get deeply involved with its employees. Our collaboration with our customers (the contractor) is based on mutual co-dependence and involves a long-term partnership. On the other hand, our customers take on the commercial responsibility, whereas Komma Board becomes their recruitment and HR department, while economically operating as two separate legal entities.

This market position separates the contractual obligations between project consultant and project client. As Komma Board represents the employee, the contractor represents the end-customer. This end customer is the organization where the project consultant fulfills his ICT or finance consulting assignment for a designated period of time.

This model allows Komma Board to act as an intermediary between employee and (end) customer. The innovative human approach of Komma Board differs from its competitors, as the Komma Board employee is responsible for their own career path.

The Komma Board consultants decide for themselves if they want to work on a particular project, or not. They also decide for themselves the period they want to be engaged in said particular project.

Sitting in the driver seat of their own career, they need to develop a high level of self-empowerment. The power of the guidance of Komma Board is the final competitive advantage.

Emotional Intelligence as a key business driver

Being the driver of your own career, implies finding a balance between freedom and responsibility. Finding the balance to match your own skills and natural talents within a complex, fast-changing and high-demanding economic environment, requires a high degree of personal growth and personal development. It means growing your own trust and connections in yourself and in others, and to accept vulnerability into a business setting. It means breaking down sets of belief systems installed by the industrial revolution and releasing judgment towards the self and towards others.

As a consultant, Komma Board helps and guides its employees throughout their career, not only by teaching them technical skills, but mainly by developing (inter)-personal skills. Facing fears, thinking creatively, empowering of the self and being able to build trust amongst each other.

Building dreams, not careers

Being the most talented workers, we are trained to be the most engaged employees for our organizations and their leaders. We are used to living up to the expectations and recognition of others, and as such are productive and efficient contributors to a profit-oriented system. Living up to the standards that are set out in our western way of thinking and educational programs.

A changing business life is the only constant nowadays. Learning to include all of our senses (mind, heart and soul) into our work lives and living up to our true nature makes us feel more fulfilled and less subject to burn-outs or boreouts. We live in times where the mental shift restructures our belief in systems, religions, institutions as governments, large corporate entities, nations and politicians.

However, people need a sense of belonging to a group. As it gives meaning to their own life to be involved and “heard” in something bigger than one’s own.

At Komma Board, we develop our people to live up to their own dreams, which are allowed to be created and are supported by the organization. The path to self-actualization is therefore no longer subject to what someone is expecting people to become as a result of what society prescribes to what it means to be “successful”.

Genuine success, is being able to create the career-life, together with co-workers who believe in each other and who feel each other’s vibe and lifting this to a higher state of conscious work. This is where EQ comes in: in order to get into the natural state of where you want to be in your work-life, people need to go within and develop inner belief and strength.

This is the reason why we install programs in our company in order to help our employees to:
1. Believe in ones-self and in and your own capabilities as humans, and
2. Believe in the power of a group (colleagues) to help one another in fulfilling each other’s dreams.

We do this by combining individual coaching, innovation bootcamps and personal development programs. We believe in creativity and the power of the mind. Persistence and positive mind-sets, also when it comes to how you deal with set-backs and overcome difficulties.

Our innovation lies in the empowerment not only of the individual but the organization as a whole by giving the individual the power to belong to a system where people can find meaning, significance and purpose. Making profit is no longer a goal, it becomes a result.

That’s why we teach our employees to be aligned with their heart, mind and soul. We teach about positive mindsets, dreaming big and visualizing ambitions. Developing emotional intelligence (heart), and as being equally valuable as developing only rational intelligence (mind).

And we learn to act upon it. Our future is now, as we need to start being its own creator.
Together.