“Sensemaking is the process by which people interpret, understand & give meaning to complex, ambiguous or unexpected situations. Figuring out “What’s going on” & “What should we do next”.
Under Maria Scordialos’ wise guidance, colleagues from DG HR, JRC and EC Centre for Organisational Transformation explored what sensemaking means in times of complexity and uncertainty. It starts with listening to people’s stories on a shared topic. Then we look for patterns, map them, and discover patterns within patterns until insights begin to emerge, sometimes pointing to what we should do next. What stayed with me most is this: the stories must be told by the people at the heart of the issue, and explored together with them. Sensemaking is a collective process that draws on the group’s shared intelligence, the more diverse the group, the richer the insights. And one more thing: even an impromptu graphic recording like mine can help people make sense of conversations on complex topics.
Looking back at an event I recently attended at Visuality EU. Entitled “Teams on Track”, the focus of the day was conflict(s), whether underlying or already out in the open. The morning featured a keynote by Professor Martin C. Euwema, followed by practical workshops in the afternoon. My main takeaway (which I have attempted to capture in my visual notes) is that conflict, and the stress that accompanies it, are part of life. They are even essential to our survival. The key is not to avoid conflict, but to choose consciously the right strategy for addressing it. Whatever our personal style and sensitivity and that of the other party, whether more dove or more hawk, we often need to navigate between the two, depending on our goals and the context. Positioning oneself as a peacemaker, and actively practising and fostering peacemaking, particularly when leading a team, may well be the boldest approach. It is also, in many cases, the most effective way to address workplace conflict. Thank you to the organising team and all the participants for such an inspiring day. One that, in its own way, gave me hope for humanity.
On Friday 16 January 2026, I held the very first day dedicated to sketchnoting within the European institutions. The idea was simple: to celebrate sketchnoting with colleagues who had followed the StartSketch course, and with anyone curious about the practice.
For this first edition, Celia Pessaud kindly agreed straight away to organise it with me. We chose to keep things light and flexible. Colleagues could drop in at any time, without registration, and stay for as long (or as little) as they wanted. We offered a few simple and playful sketchnoting activities. We began with a warm-up to step away from daily work and reconnect with creativity. Then participants could choose what suited them: sketching their 2025 retrospective, their 2026 resolutions, their hopes and fears for 2026, a visual agenda, or contributing to a visual dictionary of EU jargon. We ended with a large mural where everyone could leave a trace: an avatar, a thought, or a quote.
The atmosphere was calm and relaxed, but also full of energy. Smiles quickly turned into quiet focus as people leaned over their paper and started sketching. Many told us they had barely practised sketchnoting since the course, but that the day gave them fresh motivation to start again. Others said that thinking visually helped them reflect differently, less linearly, and clarify their ideas. Several even suggested doing this every month.
So, what do I take away from this first EU Sketchnote Day?
First, it simply feels good for those who practise and for those who watch. It creates a different state of mind: more attention, better focus, stronger synthesis, and more creativity. And all this without needing to “know how to draw”.
I also realise that one day a year is not enough. The interest is clearly there. We will keep an annual celebration, but between those moments we could organise regular “Visual Fridays” to practise together around a theme or a concrete need. And we should keep building our shared visual dictionary.
Finally, what I treasure most is the reminder that I work with extraordinary colleagues. Starting with Célia, who supports all my visual ideas, and Catherine Focant, with whom I developed the introductory sketchnoting course.
If you’re not part of the EU bubble, you may not be aware that the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has asked Commissioner Piotr Serafin to lead a large-scale review of the Commission’s organisation and operations, together with an external benchmarking exercise. The aim is to ensure that Europe has a modern, efficient public administration capable of delivering on its political priorities and improving the daily lives of Europeans.
Since April 2025, I’ve had the privilege of supporting, from time to time, the internal team working on this initiative. I contribute with the tools and capacities I know best, especially participatory facilitation and visual thinking, during consultation and reflection sessions with staff.
Last Friday, all European Commission staff were invited to a meeting, held onsite for some and online for most, where the main actors openly discussed the process behind the initiative. Among other things, they explained that the review seeks inclusiveness and collaboration to help shape a more agile, effective, and attractive Commission for the future. My role in this major event was to visually capture the key points from the discussions. For the first time, I worked from an interpretation booth, alongside the French and German interpreters, where my task was to “interpret” the room’s conversation into visual language.
My graphic recording was widely shared internally afterwards as part of the follow-up communication. The feedback I received, both privately and publicly, has been very positive and truly encouraging: colleagues highlighted how valuable visual harvesting is for complex, high-stakes discussions, appreciated the clarity and completeness of the capture, and praised how the visual summary distilled 1h15 of exchanges into a single, accessible image.
I’m proud to see how my practice of visual thinking, which includes graphic facilitation, sketchnoting, and graphic harvesting, has evolved from a tiny niche within the Commission more than 20 years ago to something now requested and used at high-level events. One of my greatest satisfactions is having helped bring this innovation into the Commission, equipping colleagues to think not only with text but also with hand-drawn visuals (icons, arrows, containers, etc.) for richer, broader and more inclusive reflection. I’m grateful to all those who believed in this approach, who had the courage to try visual thinking, and to everyone today who is keen to learn it.
The European Commission needs more creativity and innovative thinking to meet the complex challenges of today’s world. Visual thinking is a skill to be relearned, not just a tool, and it can help achieve this. This is my personal conviction and it is entirely my own opinion.
It would have been so much easier to write a prompt and receive my starter pack image in one second. Instead, I thought about what I wanted in mine and worked on it long enough to decide I didn’t want to be boxed in. So I escaped from the box. Basically, I’m sad and infuriating to see AIs stealing artists’ rights by copying their art (Studio Ghibli knows something about this), and to make people believe that creating a drawing or any image can be done by prompting an AI with text for a result in a few seconds. Where is the pleasure in taking the time to hand-draw your image? Where is the learning from making mistakes, from wanting to start again and again?
Art and visual creativity are not just a result but are above all and primarily a practice.
Here is my graphic recording from the 3rd meeting of the ECI network, the European Citizens’ Initiative. For a full day, European partners working to promote and communicate this unique tool of participatory democracy gathered at the invitation of the Secretariat-General of the European Commission. Their goal? To explore how they could better collaborate so that more EU citizens are aware of and make use of the initiative. From my external perspective, one key takeaway stood out: to truly reach citizens, we must meet them where they are, with stronger, more effective communication. This means better campaigns, clearer tools, and more resources. Partners also expressed the need for financial support from the EU and called for a simplification of the administrative procedure, so that reaching the goal of one million signatures becomes more realistic. Incentives, encouragement, and active support from the Commission would help initiators stay motivated throughout the process.
And you, have you heard of this unique European tool for participatory democracy?
I would like to thank Barbara Walentynowicz and Adriana Mungiu for trusting me for the second consecutive year with the graphic recording; and thank Mira Bangel and Marina Lynch with whom the facilitation of the event is so natural and efficient.
