ABOUT CLAUDIA SCHALKX
My career didn't quite go according to plan.
When I graduated, I promised myself I'd never work in Public Relations. Definitely not in the oil industry.
My first job was in PR. In the oil industry.
It wasn't the last time my working life went somewhere I hadn't expected.
Since then, I've worked in corporate communications, branding, international marketing and development cooperation, before founding Bridge2More in 2011. Today, I work through Bridge2More with owners of established service businesses facing decisions about what, if anything, needs to change.
The jobs weren't particularly connected on paper. But looking back, some ways of approaching them were.
I tend to start with what someone is trying to achieve, rather than what I think they should do. I want to understand what's already there, what might be getting in the way and what else needs to be true for an idea to work.
I didn't learn that from a business framework.
I learned it from situations where the obvious answer often wasn't enough.
Sometimes you need water
before you build the school
One place where this became particularly clear was NABUUR, a Dutch development organisation I joined in 2004.
NABUUR worked differently from many development initiatives. Local communities brought their own problems and ideas. The job wasn't to arrive and tell them what they needed. It was to connect them with knowledge, contacts and resources elsewhere and help make their ideas workable.
My role included helping communities turn broad requests into something online volunteers could actually help with.
Different places. Different ideas.
But a question I still ask today was sitting underneath all of them:
What else needs to be true for this to work?
Before that, after that and quite a lot in between
NABUUR is one example. It isn't the explanation for my career.
Before it, I'd already worked in Venezuela, Curaçao, the United States and Italy. My career started in international PR with PDVSA in Venezuela and later included advising senior executives on global communications at Dix & Eaton in the United States.
After NABUUR, I joined BiD Network, where I led communications across the organisation's programmes and international partners, including a substantial overhaul of its communications and branding.
Somewhere along the way, I also became fluent in four languages, lived in several countries and learned that what makes perfect sense in one context can make considerably less sense in another.
All of that has made me wary of ready-made answers.
Not because standard approaches never work.
Because whether they make sense depends on what you're actually dealing with.
Apparently, some things have been consistent
It took other people pointing them out for me to notice some of the patterns.
Claudia has a zooming in-zooming out skill.
Designer, BiD Network
She helped me narrow down the issues at hand to a workable level.
A Local Representative from NABUUR
Her advice goes right to what is most important for you and your business.
Client
She’s got this laser focus. She can see things that you can’t see because you’re too close to it.
Jen Liddy
I ask a lot of questions, have little enthusiasm for jargon and am quite capable of telling you that the thing you were preparing to change is perfectly fine.
The coffee, chocolate and cats have also proved remarkably persistent.
And that brings us to Bridge2More
Today, this way of working sits at the heart of Bridge2More.
I also write about the kinds of situations I encounter through this work, and what can become visible when you look at them a little more closely.
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