In recent years, within the European institutions, we’ve been exploring how to facilitate group work while walking in nature. The goals are the same as when we meet indoors – reflecting on complex problems, brainstorming, long-term planning, or shaping new policies.
But the experience is very different. Indoors, we’re in familiar surroundings: walls, chairs, tables, screens, lights, heating, doors, windows. It’s comfortable, predictable, it helps a group feel safe enough to engage.
Outside, everything changes. There are no straight lines, no thermostats, no chairs or flipcharts. The ground is uneven, the air alive with scents and sounds. Nature surrounds us with movement, silence, beauty and unpredictability. It awakens something deep within us. We feel small and vast at the same time. We reconnect with ourselves, and with the living world around us.
Recently, I joined a 3-day retreat for colleagues who facilitate walking sessions in nature. Ten of us were gently guided by Nikita Stampa Sophie Louveaux and Celia Pessaud in the forests around Orval Abbey in the Belgian Ardennes. We each explored a very personal question: “What is my true life purpose – one that serves myself, others, the institutions I work in, and the citizens of Europe?” At first, I thought this task was too big. I had tried before, alone, without much success. But after two days of silent walks, deep conversations, doubt and wonder, I woke on the third day with clarity I had never felt before. The evening before, I had sat alone and drawn my personal “coat of arms”. As my hand moved, something within me surfaced. It all came together – insights, emotions, questions, and answers – right there on the page. Nature, and skilled facilitation, had done their work. I doubt I could have reached this point in a meeting room.
I’m proud that the European institutions are embracing this ancient yet innovative practice, supporting staff, managers, and policymakers to reflect, connect, and grow.
To serve the society of tomorrow, we must first remember who we truly are, humans, among others, in and of nature.
—
Some photos from the 3 days of the retreat, where I tried to capture the atmosphere of reflection, the energies, and the poetry, without showing faces.
Click on the photos to enlarge them from my Flickr gallery
I led a workshop on Rock Balancing, the first time I’ve ever shared my practice at the European Commission. To be honest, I was a bit nervous (not exactly ideal when trying to stack stones!). For most participants, this was a brand-new experience. They explored the practice, experimented with balancing the stones they had brought, and embraced both the inevitable collapses and the magic of finally achieving balance. The atmosphere was light-hearted and full of curiosity. I’m grateful to everyone for enthusiastically embracing both the practice itself and my guidance.
The practice of rock balancing involves creating a contemplative arrangement of stones in a delicate state of equilibrium. It’s a form of moving meditation. It helps you connect with Nature and with yourself. Through the practice, you develop self-control, self-confidence, patience, calmness, and concentration. It is an ephemeral art where collapses are very frequent. These teach you: To appreciate the present moment and the simple joy of balancing stones; To let go of rivalry, perfectionism, haste, rush, and attachment to possessions. The behaviours required are patience, problem-solving, adaptation, slow breathing, steady hands, and an open, empty mind.
Physics tells us that equilibrium is possible when the object is supported under its centre of gravity. This means the vertical line of the force of gravity passes through the centre of gravity and the contact point on the ground.
It means that for each stone, you have to find its three tiny indentations which act as a natural tripod so that the stone remains balanced.
What if people were stones? What would be the outer hands and force that would allow us to be in balance? In balance as individuals alone and with others. Are our indentations our imperfections, our irregularities, or our strengths? Or all? Just like with stones, shouldn’t we take the time to look for these indentations to better understand what keeps us balanced? I have been practicing rock balancing since childhood, often in the great outdoors.
It is one of my favorite meditation methods, as I am alone in Nature, in intimate contact with the elements, the wind, and myself. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I intensified my practice and decided to take photos that you can watch in my album Rock balancing
What talents and skills already exist within me, or lie dormant, just waiting to be nurtured and developed? What inner strengths do I already have? What other skills could I cultivate to continue evolving and, in turn, become an agent of change, within my team, my organisation, or even society? How can my personal growth meaningfully contribute to my work environment and the world at large in these times of great transformation, uncertainty, and conflicting viewpoints?
Last week, I joined a group of colleagues from the European Commission for a reflective walk in the forest, immersing ourselves in these questions. Our focus? A deep dive into the five dimensions of the Inner Development Goals (IDGs), a powerful framework for personal and collective growth.
Surrounded by nature, still caught between winter’s lingering quiet and the bold arrival of spring, our conversations took on a different depth. Thinking and connecting in the great outdoors is profoundly different from doing so within four walls, no straight lines, no artificial constraints, just the wind, the sun, the scent of trees, and the grounding feel of stones beneath our feet.
This experience left me wondering: Have you explored the IDGs for your own inner growth and the growth of your team? How do you integrate inner development into your professional life?
In the photo are my visual notes taken live during the walk in the forest.
This is a follow-up post to the one with my takeaways from the 2024 International Sketchnote Camp (ISC24TX). Here I share my thoughts on how we could evolve as a community of sketchnoters. I am very interested in your opinion, please share it.
The challenges to develop our global community of sketchnoters are numerous. It grew organically, without a clear common purpose, structure or resources. Shared values are implicitly but not explicitly recognised by members such as sharing is caring, experimentation, everyone is a learner, no perfection (ideas, not art), and some others. Evolving as a community can be a delicate process, but not impossible. Here is an approach in a few points, based on my experience with communities of practice, that I propose.
Shared vision and values
We should establish what are our community’s vision, purpose and values. What is the energy that draws sketchnoters in? What draws them in and keeps them coming back? It will be our collective identity, our sense of belonging, our common purpose, and our core values. We could start thinking about this during discussions at our annual ISC meeting and/or throughout the year at online meetings. We could use surveys or online collaborative platforms to engage members who cannot attend those meetings. We should then document the shared vision and values so that new members can understand and align with them.
As a starting point I thought of this quote heard during an ISC “Changing the world one sketchnote at a time”.
A central online platform
We should have a dedicated online platform for our community that serves as a common space for our members to connect, share, and learn from each other. The platform should be accessible and user-friendly. It should accommodate the diverse needs of our community like having sub-spaces by continent or by country, by visual thinking practices, etc. Members should be encouraged to use this platform as their primary means of communication and sharing.
Leadership and governance
Identify and empower a group of volunteers who are passionate about sketchnoting and want to contribute to the growth of the community by joining its core team. Not to lead the community but rather to serve it, by listening to its needs, building bridges, and proposing activities. As is the case in other communities, there could be a roles rotation of core team members to maintain fresh perspectives and co-ownership. A transparent governance structure would define roles, responsibilities, decision-making processes, guidelines and membership.
As has always been the case, the community would be open to all members with different backgrounds, skill levels and perspectives, so that we foster diversity. Community guidelines would promote respect, constructive discussions, openness and trust, sharing with all by default (because sharing is caring), and support for beginners to help them integrate the community.
Gatherings, events, networking
At the moment, we have the ISC as the annual and official meeting time for our community members. If these gatherings are great, it is not enough (for plenty of obvious reasons). We should organise regular online events and encourage local gatherings and networking. A few countries organise such meetings, in presence and online, at national/regional level (to my knowledge, in Germany and in Belgium where I am involved). Great initiatives such as meetups, sketchnoting sessions, workshops, webinars, are already being organised locally and online. But only those close to you or those who are well informed are aware of them. These initiatives would benefit from being known by more members of the community, and above all could inspire others to host similar initiatives locally. This is where having a central platform to share information about local events would help members find and join them. The more we are aware of events, the more we can connect with others, learn, co-create together, discuss, and have fun.
Resources and learning opportunities
The central platform would also serve as a repository for all community material. How many guides, web addresses, tutorials, best practices, books, templates and so on are exchanged bilaterally or locally during a webinar and are then lost in our emails or social media private messages? And what about the difficulty of exchanging our best photos after an event? I feel the lack of a central platform after each ISC to collect the most beautiful photos and selfies.
Communication
Again, the central platform would help enhancing the community communication by keeping members informed about its news and events. Organisers of upcoming ISC events would no longer need to create a new website themselves, the central platform would host their information pages (no more need to have different web addresses each year). Using a newsletter and/or social media would allow messages to trickle down to members while respecting their preferences.
Celebrations
There is always something to celebrate in a community: the great or small accomplishments of community members, the collective progress of the community, the contributions or help of individuals or groups, etc. Let’s never forget to celebrate together whether in person or online, or just a kudo with a sketchnote.
Experiment, evaluate and adapt
I said at the beginning that evolving as a global community can be a delicate process. Let’s consider a strategy of small steps, without setting unrealistic goals. Let’s experiment (following the same advice given by Mike Rohde for the sketchnoting practice) and evaluate what works or does not work, and adapt our strategy. We can do it by gathering regularly feedback from our members on the community’s direction and needs, and make the necessary adjustments.
“Each story is like a star. It is bright, shiny and grabs our attention. Stories find their home in narratives, like stars in constellations, and each individual story makes sense and is believable only if it attaches to a narrative. Stories bring narratives to life, while narratives infuse stories with deeper meaning. Taken together, stories and narratives shape our culture.”
I really love this metaphor used by Nayantara Sen and other cultural strategists. I could only sketch it so that it was even more part of me. It gave meaning to a quest I carried out for 10 years. Today it guides me in many work projects and helps me to better understand the societal changes around cultures.
This is the story of how this metaphor came to me. It all started with stardust, with a tagline.
Stardust
Somewhere in 2012, I asked my Director-General “- Walter [Deffaa], how would you explain to your daughter who knows nothing about it, what the Directorate-General for Regional Policy you lead does, in a tagline?”. He slumped in his chair and replied “– Claudio, I’ll never do it. What we do is far too complex to be summed up in a single sentence.“
I remember my confusion. As internal communicator, I was always looking for ways to motivate colleagues in DG Regional Policy, to put stars (12) in their eyes and make them proud of their work. I expected from my Director-General a motto that expresses our purpose and our activities. Something easy to remember, in which each of us could identify, could draw pride and motivation from it. Kind of like the motto a janitor of the NASA space centre gave President JFQ in 1962 “Well, Mr. President, I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
Star
If a tagline is too short to sum up the complexity of what we do, maybe a story would do, I thought. Not only can a story convey information but it does much more than that. A story activates our imagination, involves our senses, triggers our emotions, transmits values and social principles, connects us to identities. Also our brain fundamentally structures and relates our human experiences through stories. That’s why people love and remember stories. As Jung Chang told me in 2013 “- If you tell your message through a story, people will remember your message. Because they will remember the story“.
Convinced of this, I worked for a long time with my colleagues in the communication unit to write the story that tells our organisation, the DG Regional Policy.
The fact is that we never managed to create The perfect story that tells what DG Regional Policy does, and why, in a comprehensive, inspiring, and memorable way. Even just a good story, in my opinion, despite the efforts of my colleagues1 . In my quest, I came to question my idea of one story that would tell everything. And because nothing comes by chance, I watched “The dangers of the single story” TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I suddenly had the conviction that we were, I was on the wrong track from the beginning. From the TED talk: “I’ve always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of their stories of that place and that person.“, and also “when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.“
Constellations
How could one story be the entire story? We had to think of a collection of stories rather than a single story. Not only did we have to tell stories, lots of stories, but above all not to create them ourselves, we the communication experts. These stories had to be told by those who lived them, by the protagonists.
This is how we, Eva Maria S. and I, created the “Our stories” internal video series, the first narrative. Within two years, we interviewed more than 130 colleagues. We asked them to tell us their little big stories of what they do in their work, which we filmed and published internally. The series was a source of inspiration and motivation for all staff to do more, to do things differently, with joy and together. The series made it possible to understand the narrative of what we were doing and how, but it still lacked the narrative of why we were doing it, the meaning.
With Agnès M., I then imagined a new collection of stories, for another narrative. “An aggregate of similar stories that produces a meaning-making pattern” to better understand who we are, and why we do what we do. It was time to leave our walls and our colleagues to go to the field to collect other stories. The little big stories of the beneficiaries of the European funds for which we worked. As I explained to my colleagues in the vision paper for the launch of the series in 2019 “this collection of stories constitutes the compelling narrative that will broaden our spectrum of vision to the meaning of what we all do together for the ultimate benefit of the citizens of Europe.” You can watch and listen to these little big stories on Youtube in the “Stories from the regions” playlist.
Galaxies
With great humility, I don’t believe that these constellations of stories have brought about any cultural change in DG Regional Policy. That was not the objective. At most, the colleagues who have taken the trouble to listen to the stories hopefully better understand the deeper meaning of their daily work, as well as the culture of our organisation. That was the objective.
According to Nayantara Sen in Stories for change: “to transform our culture, we begin by changing the stories that we tell. Because each story has the power to shift narratives, and by extension, change belief systems in our culture“. The objective was not to change our culture in DG Regional Policy, so we collected and told the stories that supported our current narratives. To instill a culture change in the organisation – useful for any organisation that wants to evolve and adapt – it would take humility and audacity to collect other stories, to use other storytelling models, in order to shift the current commonly accepted narratives. This is the biggest lesson I learned on my journey from stardust (a tagline) to galaxies (cultures).
Footnote
My colleagues in the communication unit of DG Regional Policy continued the reflection and came up with this motto that you can read on the Regional Policy website: “Regional policy is the EU’s main investment policy. It supports job creation, competitiveness, economic growth, improved quality of life and sustainable development, leaving no one and no region behind.” Well, my former Director-General, Walter Deffaa, was right in 2012. It’s impossible to sum up the complexity of who we are and what we do in a single sentence, however elegant and punchy it may be.
In the article that I co-wrote with my colleague and manager Agnès Monfret, we explain how we adapted our way of communicating internally and externally when the pandemic hit our habits, our ways of working and thinking.
Once again, the use of handmade drawings greatly supported the messages, and brought that touch of humanity necessary in a world of communication and collaboration that has become entirely digital.
The original article was published on TerritoriALL, the EPSON magazine (page66). Thank you Agnès for this collaboration and for the work done together.
17/11/2020 – La deuxième vague de contaminations au virus COVID-19 en Belgique a atteint son apogée, enfin, et les différents indicateurs sont tous à la baisse. Il faut espérer que cette inversion de tendance se poursuive.
Les données du site sciensano.be[1] montrent que la deuxième vague a atteint des pics plus élevés que la première du printemps 2020. Les personnes admises à l’hôpital pour cause de COVID-19 par jour ainsi que les patients en soins intensifs ont été plus nombreux, mais heureusement il y a eu moins de décès par jour.
La décroissance est certainement attribuable aux changements de comportement des personnes en société, en famille, au travail; changements qui ont été eux-mêmes influencés/imposés par les mesures prises par les dirigeants politiques [2]. Ce sont les décisions politiques, comme celle de mettre la population en confinement, qui conditionnent le plus nos comportements et nos agissements quotidiens, bien plus que tout autre facteur (la connaissance, les croyances, les relations,…). C’est pourquoi je me suis posé la question est-ce que nos dirigeants ont pris les bonnes décisions au bon moment pour tenter de contenir la deuxième vague?
Intuitivement, je pense que nos dirigeants n’ont pas pris les décisions au bon moment avant et pendant la deuxième vague, et que des morts auraient pu être évités. Pour confirmer ou pas mon intuition, j’ai décidé de comparer les deux vagues et de coller dessus le moment où les importantes décisions politiques ont été prises.
Les décisions politiques
D’abord, le système décisionnel pour tout ce qui touche à la santé est compliqué en Belgique, très compliqué. Les compétences de santé y sont éclatées entre les différents ministres des gouvernements du fédéral, des régions et/ou communautés. Ce que l’on appelle la lasagne institutionnelle belge est en fait un spaghetti (un foutoir?). J’ai tenté de l’illustrer sans y parvenir:
Les différents gouvernements ont pris des mesures chacun à leur tour et ont donné autant de conférences de presse pour les communiquer. C’est ainsi qu’on a eu droit à un triste festival de conférences de presse au mois d’octobre: d’abord le gouvernement fédéral avec un renforcement des mesures le 6/10, puis des mesures plus dures le 16/10, puis des mesures encore plus strictes le 23/10 au matin, les gouvernements de Wallonie et de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles adoptent des mesures plus strictes ce même 23/10 après-midi, la région de Bruxelles prend ses mesures un jour après le 24/10, le gouvernement flamand adopte ses mesures le 27/10, et finalement le gouvernement fédéral décrète le deuxième confinement le 28/10. Le manque de coordination a été… flagrant. Cela est venu s’ajouter à une communication souvent confuse. Un problème rencontré depuis la première vague, avec par exemple le port du masque conseillé, puis rendu obligatoire, pas partout ici mais partout la-bas, tout le temps ou à certains moments selon la région, puis à nouveau conseillé puis à nouveau obligatoire selon la région. Même chose pour les cours à distance dans l’enseignement, la fermeture des commerces, les horaires du couvre-feu, etc.
J’ai placé les événements principaux qui se sont succédés en Belgique sur une ligne du temps (impossible de tous les mettre, mais indiquez-moi si quelque chose d’important manque):
Les deux vagues
Pour comparer les deux vagues, je me suis limité à 3 indicateurs journaliers avec 1) le nombre d’admissions à l’hôpital, 2) le nombre de patients en soins intensifs, et 3) le nombre de morts. Ce sont les seuls indicateurs qui soient assez comparables entre les deux vagues. Les autres indicateurs comme le nombre de cas et celui des tests effectués ont trop changé au cours du temps selon la stratégie de testing adoptée.
Dans le graphique ci-dessous, la vague du printemps 2020 est encadrée en bleu et la vague de l’automne 2020 en orange:
J’ai ensuite rapproché les courbes en les faisant glisser sur l’axe horizontal jusqu’à ce que leurs sommets (= la valeur max de chaque vague) tombent le même jour:
J’ai aussi ajouté le taux de reproduction, Rt (ou R0), sous les graphiques des 3 indicateurs. Sur la ligne du temps ci-dessous, la couleur orange (la plus claire) indique un Rt inférieur à 1, la couleur rouge indique un Rt supérieur à 1, la couleur noire (la plus foncée) indique un Rt supérieur à 2. J’ai utilisé la tonalité, de clair à foncé, pour le RT dans les graphiques de comparaison des courbes.
Comparaison des deux vagues
Voici les visualisations qui comparent les deux vagues de printemps et de l’automne 2020 pour 1) le nombre d’admissions à l’hôpital, 2) le nombre de patients en soins intensifs, et 3) le nombre de morts. Les courbes ont leurs sommets alignés sur le même jour et les décisions de mesures importantes sont situées à leur date respective selon la vague.
1. Comparaison des admissions à l’hôpital
Cliquez l’image pour pouvoir l’agrandir ou la décharger à partir de ma gallerie Flickr.
2. Comparaison des patients en soins intensifs
Cliquez l’image pour pouvoir l’agrandir ou la décharger à partir de ma gallerie Flickr.
3. Comparaison des morts
Cliquez l’image pour pouvoir l’agrandir ou la décharger à partir de ma gallerie Flickr.
Conclusions (qui n’engagent que moi):
Je dis BRAVO, chapeau bas, respect, au personnel médical en hôpital, aux professionnels de la santé et au personnel des maisons de repos. Moins de personnes sont décédées par jour grâce à eux lors de la deuxième vague. Ils l’ont fait malgré la fatigue, le stress, la peur, et le manque de resources, alors qu’ils ont eu plus de patients à traiter que pendant la première vague. Je ne suis pas expert, mais mon explication simpliste est qu’ils ont appris les leçons de la première vague. Ils ont développé et amélioré leurs protocoles afin de mieux combattre le virus. Merci infiniment à Vous tous!
Je ne dis PAS BRAVO au monde politique belge. Ni à l’actuel qui a dû gérer la crise sanitaire, ni aux précédentes générations de politiciens qui nous ont légué ce système institutionnel et décisionnel. La complexité du système a donné lieu à une belle cacophonie pour communiquer les décisions anti-covid.
« il manque des structures claires [dans le système de santé belge] où on sait qui est responsable pour quoi. Le système belge a aussi contribué à la 2ème vague. » – JanDeMaessener, Professeur émérite de médecine de famille à l’université de Gand [3].
Sans parler de la communication confuse des mesures lors de certaines conférences de presse. Cela a non seulement contribué à éroder l’adhésion de la population aux mesures [4] mais cela a aussi augmenté la défiance à l’égard des institutions et alimenté la propagation des théories conspirationnistes [5]. Mais les décisions ont-elles été prises au moment opportun, au moins cela, pour freiner la montée des courbes? Surtout lors de la deuxième vague de l’automne? Le doute est permis quand on compare les deux vagues.
A la première vague du printemps, le virus nous a touché presque par surprise. L’inconnu et l’incertitude étaient totals et le monde politique et surtout médical ont du réagir en mode gestion de crise. Rétrospectivement, on constate que le premier confinement de la Belgique a été décidé tôt par rapport aux sommets de la vague, alors que les chiffres étaient encore relativement bas.
Après la première vague, les scientifiques ont alerté le monde politique et nous les citoyens qu’une deuxième vague allait arriver. Forts de l’expérience de la première, on aurait pu s’attendre à ne plus être pris par surprise, ni de devoir réagir en mode gestion de crise, et qu’une stratégie allait être mise en place par le politique pour mieux anticiper. Non seulement ce ne fut pas le cas, mais la situation dans les hôpitaux a été pire! Rétrospectivement, on constate que le deuxième confinement de la Belgique a été décidé très tard par rapport aux sommets de la vague, alors que les chiffres étaient déjà relativement hauts, déjà plus hauts que ceux de la première vague (sauf pour le nombre de décès qui est heureusement resté inférieur, les politiciens n’en ont pas le mérite). Même les mesures restrictives prises avant le deuxième confinement l’ont été quand les chiffres étaient déjà bien supérieurs à ceux de la première vague.
L’évolution du taux de reproduction Rt confirme également le retard des décisions qui auraient pu le faire baisser pendant la deuxième vague. La comparaison des deux vagues montre qu’il est repassé sous la valeur de 1 plus rapidement pendant la première vague que dans la deuxième alors qu’il partait de valeurs supérieures à 2.
Sources d’information:
Les datasets COVID-19 de Sciensano, l’institut scientifique de référence en épidémiologie des maladies infectieuses en Belgique: https://epistat.wiv-isp.be/covid/
