Experience
Since 1989 I do research and consultancy. I was trained to be an historian, as I wanted to know what mankind had created. Then I wanted to better understand why and how historical developments were building our society and started studying sociology. During my working life I felt the need to understand why people do what they do and decided to study psychology. Today I observe people, organisations and society from the threefold surprise ‘why, how, and when?’. I guess that is why my research and consultancy work keep amazing and refreshing me.
I take photos eversince I was fourteen. My way of working has always been intuitive. Learning by doing. Seeing things around me ‘through the lens’. I prefer when my images are not too much directed, but rather taking the moment as it happens. Although I follow courses and study ongoing, I do not see myself as a professional. I thrive on enthusiasm!
Services
Can I help you? I like to apply ‘workplace innovation’ as concrete as possible and in dialogue with the people involved. Research in joint cooperation with teams and their members why innovation and renewal get stuck, and co-create ways that solve the issue. One way is to anticipate on what might happen, another manner is to adapt the working environment. Often solutions are a combination of human skills, the organisation of work, and the role of technology as a control factor or enabler. This may sound self-evident, but the interaction of elements is complex and hard to get a grip on. I combine insights from management and organisation science with behavioural knowledge, because I have learned that innovation or change is likely to fail, when each of these elements is dealt with separately, and not in conjunction.
If you wish to start a conversation with me, please use the ‘contact form’.
Vision
My personal motivation in projects about ‘work, organisation and management’ is to contribute to employment that is both meaningful on the one hand and productive, healthy and safe on the other. My view is a humanistic one. I think we are ‘here’ to learn, and that the work we do should contribute to our talents and abilities. For the longer term and from a broader perspective society will benefit from that as well. Applied to my own job, it implies that I wish to support 1] humanised strategies, organisational structuring and functions, that provide space for 2] meaningful work, and organisational cultures and behaviours that 3] enable its employees to very well understand how to best achieve the goals of the organisation where they are working. Our organisations are networks of complex relations between people, technology, and many elements from within and around the organisation. My approach is to make such relations understandable and tangible with the help of theory and empirical analysis; such that it creates actionable ways for others to deal with them in a concrete manner. I see this as the change and innovation that can be brought to a success by the people involved.
Network
Some networks and communities to which I am associated, are the ‘workplace innovation network’ (Euwin Europa), and research communities on work en innovation, the Humanist Federation in the Netherlands. See further my LinkedIn-profiel.