A conversation about connecting companies, building communities, and discovering that the most radical business philosophy might be thousands of years old.

Nick Van Lagendonck doesn't have a typical job description.

He built a business network that connects companies so they can collaborate and learn from each other. But what he really does goes deeper than networking. He helps leaders deal with problems by using a philosophy.

"I do what a priest does in a church, but without the religious aspect," Nick says. "Instead of going to church on Sunday, I bring companies together from Monday to Friday. I try to preach a certain business philosophy that makes work more productive, more effective, more fun, and more human."

That philosophy didn't just come from a business school.

It came from corporate frustration, a life-changing journey in India, personal loss, and years of studying ancient texts that most people never connect to business.

Today, Nick drives Doing Good Works, a learning community that blends business practices, psychology, theology, history, and entertainment in over 40 companies including HP, Technopolis, Equans, SD Worx, Kubik Consulting, Port of Antwerp Bruges, Miele, among others.

His weeks don't follow a fixed pattern.

Some days he works from home, building the community behind his network. Other weeks, he's fully inside one company, immersed in learning their activities, and helping leadership teams improve how they work together.

He is also a guest lecturer at Antwerp University, Catholic University of Leuven and taught organization design and modularity to MBA students at Antwerp Management School.

But every day starts the same way.

Nick wakes up between 5:30-6:00am. His phone stays untouched for the first 90 minutes. That rule is non-negotiable.

He does running, HIIT, or yoga with his wife. Then a shower. Empty the dishwasher. Coffee.

They sit together and have a little coffee moment where they talk about the day ahead.

Connection first.

Then off to work.

Nick spent the first six years of his career inside corporate organizations.

He discovered something he was naturally good at: connecting people. Getting to know colleagues across departments. Understanding how teams interacted. Bringing them together around a common goal.

But he also noticed something that disappointed him deeply.

"When you come out of college, you're excited to start working," he says. "But I saw so many people who came to work not because they wanted to, but because they had to. I saw teams inside the same company competing with each other. We were treated like numbers. Performance reviews done by managers who barely understood what we actually did. It felt very functional. Very cold."

That disappointment planted a seed.

After corporate life, Nick started building businesses with a very deliberate philosophy around culture and leadership. He began speaking about these ideas at events. Invitations followed. Even from abroad.

Then one invitation changed everything.

Nick traveled to India to spend time with Nand Kishore Chaudhary, the founder of Jaipur Rugs.

Jaipur Rugs employs around 30,000 people and was named Company of the Year in 2015. But its success isn't what surprised Nick most.

It's how the company was built.

Jaipur Rugs connects some of the richest customers in the world with some of the poorest artisans, cutting out middlemen so profits flow directly to the people who make the product. Those profits fund villages, schools, and hospitals.

Nick spent a full week walking through the company.

And then Chaudhary said something that stuck with him:

"Ambition kills vision."

Chaudhary explained the difference.

Vision comes from within. You don't control it. You receive it. You see images of what could exist in the world.

Ambition hijacks that vision.

It says: this is what success looks like. This must happen. And if it doesn't, you've failed.

Chaudhary journals every day to separate vision from ambition.

"If you give yourself fully to your vision," he told Nick, "you will achieve something much bigger than what you initially imagined."

Nick calls that week in India life-changing.

Nick and his wife went through something deeply personal.

They tried to have children. They did everything that science allows.

It didn't work.

"It was one of the saddest experiences of our lives," Nick says. "And at the same time, one of the most enriching."

He learned that life isn't defined by what happens to you.

It's defined by how you deal with it.

"The thing I'm most proud of isn't my work," he says. "It's how my wife and I are building our lives together, and how we dealt with that situation together."

One moment from that period stands out.

They were sitting in a church. Nick asked if she knew the Holy Father prayer. She did, and she recited it.

For the first time, he actually listened to the words.

He noticed something strange.

The messages felt familiar.

Nick had been interested in personal development and spirituality since he was sixteen.

At the time, he considered himself an atheist with a strong spiritual curiosity. He read about meditation, yoga, Eastern philosophies. But Christianity never crossed his mind.

Now, it did.

A question appeared: What's actually in the Bible?

The book had been sitting at the bottom of his wife's old suitcase, so he took it.

For years, Nick studied theology and the Bible from an anthropological and psychological perspective. Not religiously.

What he discovered was humbling.

"For years, I thought my ideas about leadership and collaboration were innovative," he says. "And then I realized they're not innovative at all."

That realization led to his book, Doing Good Works: The Bible for Ordinary People Building Extraordinary Companies.

A bridge between ancient wisdom and modern organizations.

"As humans, we've been on a journey for thousands of years," Nick says. "Toward more connection. More empathy. More purpose."

On November 26, 2024, Nick published his 432-page manifesto.

But the launch wasn't held in a conference room or bookstore.

It was held in a transformed church in Mechelen, with 200 business leaders, entrepreneurs, politicians, workers, retirees, and young people gathered together.

It wasn't just a book launch. It was a celebration. A shared reflection on the power of doing good in the business world.

As one attendee said afterward: "Nick started a movement that can't be stopped."

When companies approach Nick, they often come with familiar problems.

Low employee satisfaction. Slow projects. Customers leaving. Tension inside leadership teams.

Nick doesn't start with tools.

He starts with one question:

"What do you believe about your people?"

If a leader believes people come to work only because they have to, because they need to be controlled and motivated, Nick knows immediately.

They won't work together.

"If you don't trust people," he says, "everything that follows will be built on control."

The Doing Good Works Network is grounded in seven ancient core virtues: faith, hope, love, wisdom, justice, service, humility, prudence, courage, and forgiveness.

From these virtues, members explore what they mean in everyday reality: how teams are structured, how decisions are made, and how power is shared.

Just as importantly, they learn how to actively counter their opposites: cynicism, fatalism, apathy, cowardice, ignorance, and greed.

The antidote is simple: doing good for others.

The companies in Nick's network aren't just talking about alternative business models.

They're implementing them.

Some have adopted steward ownership, a model where employees hold voting rights over the company's direction, while shareholders retain a right to profit but have no managerial power. The focus shifts from maximizing returns to the continued existence of the company as a community.

Others have eliminated traditional performance reviews, replacing them with peer reviews where teammates write down each colleague's strengths and areas for growth.

It's like a playground with a fence. The boundaries are clear. Within them, there's freedom to play.

One misconception keeps coming back.

"Doing Good Works is not about being soft."

Being good means having difficult conversations. Giving honest feedback. Sacrificing your own comfort for someone else's growth.

That's hard.

"What we often call "hard leadership" is actually the easy route. Set targets. Follow up progress. Protect yourself. Doing Good Works leadership asks harder questions: How do I plant trees in which shades I will never sit? How do I make the people around me better so we can create more together than I ever could alone?" Nick says.

That requires humility and courage.

Nick avoids endless debates.

"We have too many discussions in our companies on how to do things based on assumptions," he says.

His solution is simple.

Experiment.

Try one approach for three months. Measure. Learn.

If it doesn't work, switch.

Let reality decide.

For young entrepreneurs, Nick keeps it simple.

"Start. See your first ten to fifteen years as a laboratory. Test ideas. Stop quickly if they don't work. Don't attach your identity too tightly to one outcome. And be careful when choosing partners."

Nick learned this the hard way. Some became incredible mentors and partners. Others disappointed him deeply.

Nick has worked with founders of companies employing thousands of people.

And with people struggling to pay rent.

Success, he says, can be fun.

But that's not the point.

At the end of life, one question remains:

"Did I do everything within my power to be as good a person as I could be?"

Not richer.

Not bigger.

Better.

What started as random gatherings in 2022 has grown into a growing network putting the philosophy of Doing Good Works into practice.

The world is changing fast. And with it, the logic of doing business.

The question "What's the return?" is being replaced by: "Is what we do good for the world AND financially profitable?"

That's strategy.

And it's backed by research, international awards, and a growing community of companies proving it works.

Question: If you would start a new company in another industry, what would it be?

Nick’s answer: “A friend of mine and I  love croque monsieur and we’re brainstorming on all kinds of company formats around that.  So probably it will be a restaurant that makes the classic croque monsieur like it should be.”

You can find him on LinkedIn.

🐑

Which famous leader removed strict internal competition to improve collaboration?

A) Jeff Bezos (Amazon)

B) Reed Hastings (Netflix)

C) Ray Dalio (Bridgewater)

D) Larry Page (Google)

_{You can find the answer at the end}