“Nothing meaningful is created without collaboration, and no collaboration happens without conversations.“
I’d like to ask you a question: “How are you experiencing collaboration these days?” You may answer with a metaphor if you like. Why am I asking this? Because I long for and contribute to a world where people flourish and bring their best ideas to life together. I’m convinced that more is possible than what we’re already achieving in our organisations today.
I design and facilitate your conversations. Because conversations matter, and are the beginning of changing the world. Through facilitated conversation and experiential learning, I help you to cultivate trust, explore ideas and turn collaboration into purposeful action.
FACILITATION: invite everyone to contribute
Coming together can profoundly shape what happens next. Curious to experience a meeting, team-building day, event or multi-day gathering that invites everyone to contribute to what truly matters?
I believe that the group as a whole is more creative than the individuals on their own. I bring an attitude of invitation, creating space for people to identify and engage in what matters most to them. Together, we think along, learn from each other, and figure out the next steps.
Depending on your needs, our work together may lead to:
- Creating clarity and alignment: uncover how you want to work together.
- Exploring innovation and improvement: tap into the organisation’s creative potential or strengthen day-to-day collaboration.
- Building trust: deepen bonds with colleagues or connect with new collaborators.
- Addressing challenges or opportunities: resolve conflict or make progress on a burning topic.
- Shaping a participatory work culture: invite people to express ideas and take ownership.
TRAINING: learn and grow together
Your team can grow while addressing the challenges you face. I invite you to explore practical approaches for more conscious and effective collaboration, applied to real-life situations.
Together with you, I create a training, development programme or workshop that is interactive, experiential, hands-on and tailored to your needs. We practice, reflect and integrate what works.
Themes may be:
- Shaping participatory meetings: explore ways to run meetings and make decisions that draw on the group’s collective intelligence.
- Building shared language for collaboration: learn concepts and approaches for shared understanding of the work you’re doing.
- Cultivating trust and mutual support: proactively build connection and trust to do your best work together.
- Developing inner skills: explore practical tools that enhance emotional awareness and constructive communication, helping you collaborate more effectively.
I had the honour of working for organisations like:
Curious what others say?
“You greatly contributed to the success of this meeting – we got lots of thanks and positive feedback. I believe we achieved our main goals, which were to get people motivated, inspired and wanting to commit, as well as create ideas that may translate into concrete actions during the project.”
– Blandine Smilansky, Partnerships Coordinator, House of European History
“During the Enspiral Winter Gathering 2022, it became clear that An is not only a connoisseur of the hosting toolkit, but also a master of subtlety. With her invitations, presence and body language, she made calm moments calmer, deep conversations deeper and nurtured spaces where participants could easily open up about difficult topics.”
– Joriam Philipe, community builder
“An coordinates and facilitates with a good dose of humour, warmth and craftsmanship. Her strength lies in building relationships, and she knows how to leverage them to streamline the process well. Her flexibility and professionalism make her a pleasant facilitator. Thanks, An!”
– Mees Schouwenaar, project leader School Leaders for the Future (Schoolleiders voor de Toekomst)
Unique about me? Cross-pollination.
Once I was an engineer who focused on material outcomes. Nowadays I’m still engineering, but my attention shifted towards how people create outcomes together.
Work with me if you’re interested in the:
- gentle guidance of a facilitator,
- wide-angle view of a systems thinker,
- crystal clarity of a scientist,
- team spirit of a community member,
- structured approach of an engineer,
- openness to vulnerability of an authentic human being,
- all of that enlivened with a bit of humour.
From studying bio-engineering, to obtaining a PhD at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and working in an engineering company: care for life and the earth has always been central to my choices. Also nowadays I only work with organisations committed to positively impacting society.
My approach & my resources
I carefully design each intervention in co-creation with participants, tailoring them to your unique needs. Human systems, such as organisations, are complex by nature, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach. I mostly work with group sizes between 10 and 150.
Diverse methodologies and internationally proven practices guide my work, including:
- the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter (also known as the Art of Participatory Leadership),
- Sociocracy 3.0: a social technology for growing resilient organisations,
- Liberating Structures: powerful practices to include and unleash everyone,
- Nonviolent Communication,
- Theory U,
- Internal Family Systems,
- the Inner Development Goals.
As a member of Enspiral and an ‘explorer’ at Greaterthan, I am part of collectives working at the frontiers of collaboration and organisation building. I’m also a Regional Contact for the Art of Hosting in Belgium, helping to connect the local community with the global network. I’m connected to several communities of practice, and I enjoy constant learning. In my blog, I write about topics such as decentralised organising, participatory leadership, conscious collaboration, inner development and global burn-out. Some articles are in English, most blog posts are in Dutch / de meeste artikels zijn in het Nederlands.
And what about you?
Designing and inviting conversations is both a craft and an art. I keep them light and human, meeting people where they are.
What kind of conversation would make your collaboration more joyful and productive? I’m curious to hear.
Let’s explore how we can work together. Book a free 30-minute intro call, or find my contact details here. Happy to meet soon!
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“So, what I see in life-affirming leaders is that they are willing to say to people “I do not know the answer, but together we will figure it out.” . . . So these kinds of leaders . . . help gather us together so that together we can discover the answers.”
– Margaret Wheatley (author and management consultant)