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WdKA – Willem de Kooning Academy

Participative Strategizing for Expert Organizations

Problem – What needed to be worked on?

Simplifying organisational structures to focus on what matters: learning through making

Rotterdam’s Willem de Kooning Academie (WdKA) is home to over 2’100 students and 450 staff members who make up a range of bustling communities full of expertise, inspiration, and creative practices.

As a result of past organisational developments, WdKA found itself in a position where everything was moving while no one was entirely sure of the right direction.

It became clear that WdKA needed to find way to harness this immense potential again. However, this time, it should no longer be defined top-down but developed together with the organisation.

How we worked

Living up to the organisation’s potential with participative strategizing processes

With the mandate of the executive team, we quickly started to assemble a powerful learning community from all levels of the organisation. This entrepreneurial core was key for keeping the participative strategizing process on track.

Together, we engaged in range of mapping sessions to gain perspectives on WdKA’s identity, what it does best, the current challenges in education, and how it is situated in the city of Rotterdam.

By connecting past and present, we turned these perspectives into opportunities. We developed concise directions through crafting a range of strategy prototypes and testing them with the organisation and beyond. The geneerated resonance was essential to uncover blind spots and gain momentum with the organisation members.

Finally, we made sure to concretise the strategy in a range of formats: From classic documents to interactive tools.

Measures of success?

Realising strategies by embedding them in the organisation with routines

For strategy to work, it must resonate with the people who engage with it every day. That’s why we focused on strengthening the routines that connect strategic movements to concrete initiatives.

Thanks to the participative process, every strategy movement already had ambassadors within the organisation to push its agenda forward. The only missing element was the establishment of a routinised way of strategizing to sustain this work.

At the same time, the past engagement from across the organisation created a sense of certainty in times of transformation, allowing for decisive decisions to be taken. All resulting in WdKA moving into the future stronger than ever. Not with a fixed plan, but a clear strategy how to move forward.

Measures of success?

Realising strategies by embedding them in the organisation with routines

Within the first year, ELIA’s newfound clarity on its strategic direction enabled it to secure significant funding and build momentum towards its key missions. With the strategy’s official approval at the general assembly in Milan, an exciting new chapter is underway. ELIA now has a strong foundation to proactively identify the questions that truly make a difference and develop effective solutions to answer them. In doing so, it no longer merely reacts but proactively translates its strategic initiatives into actions across a variety of community hubs. ELIA’s vital work has gained a new dynamic, thanks to its courageous leadership but also to the many team members who took up greater responsibility during this intense yet transformative process and will continue to do so.