Hi, we are Dees van de Hoef and Jan Jacob Stam.
What drives us: a deep curiosity about what lives in people, teams and organizations but hasn’t come into bloom yet. Think of a plant that has everything in it to flower, but somehow doesn’t. What lives in it, we call potential. Sometimes it is stuck, sometimes it is waiting for space.
We look at symptoms as signals. At what lies beneath them: patterns that keep coming back, and what is at play without being said. We have a lot of experience with this in teams and organizations. From that experience, we often quickly see a direction towards something new. We explore it together with you. Choosing and taking the steps remains up to you.
Those patterns don’t stop at the boundaries of a team or organization. More and more, we find ourselves in societal and geopolitical issues. There, the question reaches much further: into societies, and very often across national borders. We are happy to contribute to these issues, including the really tough and complex ones. We don’t have the answers. What we do bring is something Jan Jacob wrote earlier in a book about societies: “the will and the readiness to understand other people, even if it’s almost impossible.” From there, we look together at what is at play, without judgment. Sometimes something starts to move from there.
We have ventured from being problem-oriented, through solution-oriented, to being potential-oriented.
That also defines us, we are adventurers.
On a journey, you move more from A to B, with a fairly clear idea of where you’ll be and when.
For us at Transitionstudio, every program is an adventure. We know how we start, and we have a general idea of where we want to end up. But in between, there are many ingredients, and sometimes new interventions present themselves on the spot. We work with what is present and, above all, with what is needed, always in relation to potential.
Jan Jacob Stam, Annecy, Augustus 2024
“I’m walking through a nature reserve at the end of Lake Annecy. It looks a bit dull: reeds, marshy grasslands, trees, a brownish meandering stream, and glimpses of the lake and mountains. But there are signs. With explanations. Explanations about the origin and history of the lake: a glacier and a lake that was once twice as large. How the land was used by farmers and a lord who collected tolls.
Explanations about the beaver families that leave their marks here. About the connections between the beavers, the stream, the soil type, the trees, and edible plants.
Explanations about the impact of the context, which half a century ago was almost untouched, and is now full of tourism that tends to destroy what it’s drawn to.
With those signs, everything changes. They make the invisible visible, understandable, lively, and beautiful.
That’s exactly what systemic work does and what constellations do: they make the invisible visible.
And by making it visible, understanding arises, followed by a sense of control.
Connections and patterns become visible. What seemed dull and stuck gains color and charm. It becomes clear what needs to be done.
This is systemic work in a nutshell.”
Headache?
A painkiller helps for a while, and sometimes that is exactly what’s needed. But if the headache keeps coming back, the cause often lies somewhere else. A chiropractor looks for that spot, for example tension in the neck that in turn comes from a stiff lower back. That’s where the work begins.
Teams and organizations work the same way. Where it pinches is often not where it begins. Together we trace where it comes from, and that’s where we make a targeted intervention.
Dees embodies courage, audacity, and a focus on people. She uses her energy to bring out the best in people and teams. Her motto is: ‘It is possible’. Read more…
‘Connecting people and teams with their full potential’ is what drives Jan Jacob. Since 1996, he has been passionate about systemic work in organizations. Read more…
You could read about Dees and you could read about Jan Jacob, but what about them as a team? Remember: the whole behaves differently than the sum of the parts.
Marloes is our creative jack-of-all-trades and office manager. If you email Transitionstudio, chances are Marloes will be the one to respond.
