VisualsSpeak blog

Diane left a comment for us:

I have just been introduced to VisualsSpeak and I am very interested in what it has to offer! However I have read through the manual and I am looking for more information on how to facilitate it. Can you offer any suggestions or point me in the right direction?

I emailed her to ask for more information and received this reply:

I am looking into using VisualsSpeak to try and bring out more personal awareness for individuals. I am not quite sure how to do this, I just know that I would like to attempt to. Do you have any suggestions? I will also use it for companies when trying to discover where their employees stand in relation to things such as the company vision.

Find a way to practice

The images in the VisualsSpeak ImageSet have been tested with thousands of people, so you can have confidence that the tool itself will work. What do I mean by that? Participants will find images that will inspire some kind of significant conversation. Even if someone just finds one image and then spends their time telling you why it really isn’t the right image, you will have learned that person is quite literal and perhaps perfection is important to them.

I would suggest finding someone you know to practice with. If you want to get insight into an individual, try the present and future framework. Using construction paper (or placemats) for a background, ask the person to make one image of the present and another of the future. The space between them can represent the transition if they wish.

Only give them about five minutes to do it, because the time pressure helps get better outcomes. By not allowing too much time to over think the framing question, you will help your clients get to their core values and foster personal awareness.

Ask the participant to tell you the story of their image. Don’t interpret anything for them even if they ask. Pay attention to the visual patterns to give you ideas about questions that will deepen the reflection. Here are some ideas:

• What is in the center of the image?
• Which photographs are on the edges?
• Are all the photos within the frame (background paper)?
• Are there any shapes that appear in multiple images (ex: circles, rectangles)?

If there is a photo of a tree in the middle of one of the panels, you might ask

• Is there any significance to the tree being in the middle?

Strive for clarifying questions about the visual patterns and their verbal input.

In an organization

To get more information about how employees relate to organizational vision, you could ask them to create an image of the organization in general, or the vision specifically. I would lean toward the general, since you tend to get better information about how people really feel if they are not trying to guess what you want. If the framing question is too specific, people will often try to depict what they think they are supposed to. So you may see people doing things like selecting images similar to those that illustrate the company vision poster that hangs in the lobby instead of telling you their vision or understanding.

Does this help?

Are there other things you are wondering about? Or specific examples? Please leave your questions in the comment box or email me at info(at)visualsspeak(dot)com and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Adam Chan was a participant in the session I facilitated at the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) conference in April. He purchased a couple of VisualsSpeak ImageSets to bring back to Singapore.

Adam works for an interesting company, Focus Adventure ‘Where every moment is a challenge’. They use outdoor adventure of all kinds along with experiential techniques for leadership, team building, and innovation. You can see a video on their homepage. Made me want to sign up!

Facilitating his first session

When I met Adam, I could tell he had a lot of interesting ideas. So I asked him to keep in touch as he started using the tool. I just knew he would find creative ways to use it that all of us in the VisualsSpeak community will find useful. Here is his first report:

The internal learning session was conducted on 2 May 08. My peers are absolutely amazed by its (VisualsSpeak ImageSet) ability and potential to create openness at a level they have not experienced before. Apologies, I don’t consider myself as en expert in this so I stayed pretty close to the way you have conducted in the IAF session but a slightly compressed one as I have only 1.5 hour. In summary, this is how it was done;

• Started with a brief introduction on what VisualsSpeaks is.
• Each learner receives handouts on pattern recognition.
• Each learner receives a base (about 40cm by 30cm) to work with.
• Divided into two small group of 6, given only 5 minutes, each learner to select any number of photos that will represent “yourself”.

Some interesting observations captured were,

1. Some did not use the base, they simply lay the photos on the floor. Participants replied, “ creativity has no boundaries” when asked why the base wasn’t used
2. Some selected photos were overturned but were found beside the frame formed by the participant. The participant was asked why those photos were selected but not revealed. We didn’t get a concrete reply but it was interesting enough to just ask the question. We all agreed that the act carries meaning that is implicit and not groundless.
3. Listeners should try to look at the frame with the same perspective as the creator, i.e. nobody should stand opposite of the creator.
4. One participant formed a frame that has no humans in any photos but only nature. It could very well mean he prefers the nature to a crowd, introversion, reserved, etc.
5. A few felt that the least instructions from facilitators, more room can be given to creativity and also allowing more implicit information to surface
6. As a facilitator, the expectation cup should be emptied to avoid any unwarranted influences.

Overall, the experience was great.

Results!

I’m especially excited by Adam’s results for a couple of reasons:

• while we tested the VisualsSpeak ImageSet with people from around the world, most of the images were created in the US
• it worked in a setting that is very different from where it was created
• Adam got excellent results after just three hours of training

Our dream is to create add-on sets of images to broaden the applicability of the tool. We want other photographers who represent very different viewpoints to add to the collection. This will make it more usable globally, with more inclusive images. But, the core set has to be solid, and having facilitators bring it into other countries is a way to test that at a new level. So thanks Adam, we look forward to hearing how we can make the image selection even better for your area of the world.

Affirming Adam’s observations

These are great observations, aligned with much of what we have observed over the years.

• Some did not use the base

Offering a background for people to assemble their images serves a couple of purposes. One, there is a segment of participants that really enjoy working with a defined space. They don’t know what to do without a defined area, so the background is important to them. Second, how someone responds to the idea of a background gives you a lot more information about how they think.

With a group of experiential facilitators and people who work for a super creative company like Focus Adventure, I would expect some to reject the background. There is no end to what people come up with, and the best part about it- it’s all OK. It just provides more to talk about and makes our differences quite vivid and clear.

• photos were overturned

I totally agree that there is meaning to the overturned photos. Not all the time, but it can be very significant. I have seen people have deep insights when asked about images that are hidden in some way. I have also seen a lot of emotion, with crying and even deep sobbing. It can be very powerful in a coaching situation when you are one-on-one. It can be very uncomfortable for some people if that happens in a larger group. Especially in a work setting.

I proceed carefully. With a group, sometimes I will point out to them as a whole that they may want to reflect on things around the edges of their images. Often people who feel safe will share insights, while others will stay quiet and I just respect that.

• same perspective

This is interesting to me. Yes, looking at the image from the same side as where the creator is describing it helps you understand their perspective. So, if that matches your session objective, it could be helpful. I have also observed people who are on the opposite side see something, and when they mention it, it offers an insight to the person who constructed the image.

If you are looking for creative insights, innovation, and breakthrough, I would intentionally look at things from different sides. So this is a good example of how the process might flex depending on your desired outcomes.

• no humans in any photos but only nature

I also suspect I am working with someone who is more reflective when I see images with no people. I listen carefully to their stories for clues that confirm it or not.

• least instructions from facilitators

I’m totally on board with this one. I’m always saying no rules, just a time limit. Participants do amazing things, and I never tire of listening and seeing what they come up with.

• expectation cup should be emptied
  

I love this. So insightful. I think this is the hardest thing for most people to get used to using VisualsSpeak. The more you, as the facilitator, can lessen your expectations of what the outcomes should be about the better the process will be. If you allow it to happen, magic can occur in the room.

Thanks Adam and the team at Focus Adventure for sharing with all of us!

I facilitated a session at the International Association of Facilitators conference in Atlanta, Seeing Differences: Using Photographs to Facilitate Diverse Groups. Like many of the breakout sessions at this conference the session was three hours long, which provided an opportunity to delve deeply into the material.

We covered a lot of material in the session.

• things to consider when setting up the room
• who is your audience?
• what outcome are you looking for?
• creating a question to bridge the audience and the outcome
• what we see in the visual language
• how the visual language gives us clues about the person creating the image
• what changes when people make images in a group
• adjusting questions, images, and process for different audiences

An interesting challenge arose

A VisualsSpeak user dropped by and presented an interesting challenge. How do you convey the results of a VisualsSpeak process to people who weren’t part of it? For those of you who have never been part of a VS session, a tremendous amount of information, ideas, strategies, etc are generated in a very short period of time. The challenge is not getting the input you want but what do you do with the data you get. This is an area that we have been working on and have a few ideas for you to try.

But first, let’s take a look at the kind of raw data that you get from doing a typical VisualsSpeak process. This is a condensed version.

Group images

We created group images exploring the question:

What makes facilitating diverse groups successful?

Here is what the groups came up with.

From the top left, we enter the concept through windows with many panes. Some we can see through more clearly than others. There are different colors of fabrics, different money, doesn’t matter, there is a variety of people who are different than Western culture. The woman is proud of her fuchsia hair. There is a yin/yang in the arms with interesting bandages where the colors are reversed. Different hands hold objects. There is a man doing yoga, children marching. There are multiple different colors, diversity in images. In some you can tell the ethnicity and culture and some you can’t, just a feel. Really builds us together in the natural world, salad, different bird feathers. Function in the farm metaphor of team working together to provide food. When all is said and done, all people looking all different, all the same, yin and yang parts together. The child in the water is looking to young people for inspiration for the need to take risks. The money shows the governments of the world meeting to build coins, far away, but similar. It is more attractive with all the colors, one would be boring.

In the center there is an underlying spark, creativity with new things coming from it. The salad bowl diversity, bounty coming together. The chocolates are all different, but all chocolates are neatly organized. Overall people, metaphors all together, but different. Windows of opportunity. We see some commonality in diversity like the celebration of family ties. Building bridges isn’t easy, fraught with challenges, so this bridge has different bushes and thorns. Different faces, not necessarily ethnicity, but different ideas in some communities. Overall perspective is the giraffe. All different kinds of beads, different but strung together. When it does work, and comes together, there is underlying conflict that can’t be ignored. At the same time you have to leap and hope to survive. Find a team with common things to bind. Doors of opportunity. Diverse looks. Beautiful by coming together with one objective. Bring down the fences, together sign universal cultures, commonalities like currency. Several windows, doors, labyrinths facilitators are aware of when working with diverse groups. A maze of confusion and challenging with pitfalls we can fall into especially if we aren’t partnering with partners in other cultures to help us find the pathways around them. The spider web of connecting. Eggs are the nurturing process, hope for new life bringing diversity together. The balloon has different colors but blended together which makes it interesting and able to take off.

Now the challenge

Here is where one of our VisualsSpeak customers dropped by and asked about sharing the results of a session she had done at her company. She has been using the VisualsSpeak ImageSet for strategic visioning and the team participating had to help others in their organization understand what had happened. She had tried a number of things to convey the outcomes of the session such as making poster prints of the images and having people tell the stories that emerged. It was OK, but didn’t really convey the power of what happened in the room.

The reports from the groups above have the same challenge. Magic happens in the room. People connect deeply. The process of offering your ideas and working through the negotiation to come up with the result is where much of the value lies.

The results seem like they should be more finished than they are. If instead of using photographs we used sketches to record these initial ideas, it would be clear that the sketches needed more work to become conveyable ideas by the very nature of them being sketches. Since the photographs look good, and many of the assembled images are attractive, they seem like they ’should’ convey a message. And to the people who were there they do. Because to them, the images are like notes, they remind the participants of the experience they had. For someone who was not part of the process, this is more like raw assessment data.

How to communicate the results of a VisualsSpeak process

There are a couple of options. Using the example above, we have two groups who have created images and stories.

You might ask the group participants to create a summary;

• What are the common themes?
• What are the images both groups used?
• How can you arrange the images and concepts to make them easier to understand?

The other alternative is to create a summary yourself to help convey the messages more clearly. In this example, I did not participate in the group discussions since I was facilitating the whole session. If I was facilitating for a business or organization and knew I was going to have to create a report, I would be listening to the process as it unfolded and taking notes. I would also ask questions in the debrief to get input from the group about what they thought the most important points were to include. Remember the wisdom of the group.

Don’t strip out the creative juice

One thing to watch in this summarization process is not to lose the minority input. Part of what VisualsSpeak is all about is giving voice to everyone. Sometimes the most important idea will be spoken by one person. Creative sparks and insights that can open up whole new possibilities most often are not the common themes. Often it is the combination of popular ideas with a minority spark that reveals new possibilities.

For more on using the VisualsSpeak process

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I got a lot out of all the sessions I attended at the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) conference, but this session is the one I have continued to think deeply about. The one that continues to intrigue me. There were a number of factors that intertwined to make it successful.

The method

Lisa Heft facilitated a plenary session at the conference on Facilitative Leadership. The attendees of the conference gathered together in one room in small groups at round tables. Lisa has the presence of an experienced facilitator, you can tell within moments that you can trust her to lead you into a process.

Lisa selected a dialogue technique originated by Leilani Rashida Henry, based on inquiry circles, that she describes as a Question Circle. The process starts with an open ended question, passing from person to person. No discussion, just deep listening. Each person ends with another question, which isn’t necessarily to be answered, but adds to the fuel of the dialogue process.

The design of the panel

Not only were the panel members very accomplished at what they did, their areas of expertise were widely divergent from each other. They were each leaders in very different contexts. This provided a foundation of rich input to start the process on stage, before each audience table group began the same process. The panel were seated in comfortable chairs with a low table in front of them on the stage. It created an accessible feel, like they were ready for a conversation.

The dialogue that developed about Facilitative Leadership

Each panel member started with reflecting on what facilitative leadership means to them. The ending question was what they were left wondering after sharing. This is an excerpt of their individual bios and some of what I heard from them.

Lisa Heft specializes in interactive, participant-driven processes for engaging dialogue, reflection, learning and interchange.

• Believe in the wisdom of the group
• Create nutrient rich environments
• Assist the emergent leaders
• Use mistakes for reflection and learning
• Don’t be afraid of the unknown, or if you are stay in the moment and walk forward into the unknown
• Gather collective wisdom, together we can figure it out
• Is it nature or nuture? Are people just like this, or can they learn to be facilitative leaders?

Deborah Dunagan is the Global Leader, IBM Intellectual Property Services, Corporate Technology and Intellectual Property.

• How can you reconcile with employee expectations?
• Starts with inquiry, who are you and what do you want?
• Many people prefer fear and control, they are motivated by it
• Facilitative leadership can be threatening to people who want to be controlled and stay where they are
• How do we enable people to not identify with their pain and instead enable expression?

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger belongs to the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation of Northern Alberta, Canada. She is the National Aboriginal Youth Engagement Coordinator for TalkingITGlobal.

• People don’t want to listen to high risk youth, they can’t get beyond their image of homeless, gangs and drugs
• Youth have a lot to say if only someone will listen
• Encourage people to take the responsibility to use their voice
• How do we take the risk to listen to those we don’t think will listen?

Phil Sharpe is currently SVP Sports Technology and Operations for Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

• Expect something new, but not something specific
• Look for people who can achieve goals, but don’t often get to pick
• What do I do with people who are aggressive? Develop them or let them go?
• It seems to be command & control versus free-market
• Are there folks who don’t respond to facilitative leadership, and what do you do with them?

Dr. Meenaskshi Chakraverti is Senior Associate and Deputy Director, International Science Programs at the Public Conversations Project.

• What is the language around how people speak about their realities?
• Does your question make sense in the particular environment?
• Can I understand what an appropriate question is?
• Realms of possibility are very different when you grow up in scarcity leading to differences in discourse
• Do we see the world differently?

The panelists told stories, here I just list what I concluded from their stories. Not the same richness, but I hope I’ve been able to at least share enough to demonstrate the range of input that emerged from their reflections.

Martha McGinnis graphic recorded the session. Perhaps a bit more of the flavor of the panel shows here?

Passing the process to the audience

After Dr. Chakravati’s gave her perspectives, the process moved to the individual tables in the audience. The sharing at the tables was just as rich. I won’t share the details of what I heard since I do not have permission to do so. The sharing was deep. People had been moved by the process to reflect on many aspects of their own lives.

I particularly noticed how people who had been in circumstances where they were not asked their opinions really struggled with how to regain their voices. Coming from organizations or being in roles where silence is the norm is contrary to the values we discussed in facilitative leadership. Listening to the sharing strengthened my resolve to continue working to offer voice to all through the work I do.

Ending with a question

Lisa brought the conversation back to the big group, and debriefed the process by asking for reflections. There were a number of people who spoke about struggling with the desire to offer solutions. There aren’t many places where we are offered the opportunity to just listen to the questions and then make a choice about answering or just letting them be.

Each of us was then offered the opportunity to write questions we were left with on index cards. We left these on the tables, and they were collected. The questions were sent to another session, which I will write about later.

How does this apply to VisualsSpeak?

VisualsSpeak facilitates significant conversations and begins with a framing question, similar to the question circle. We ask people to select photographs in response to the question, then ask them to tell the story of the photos. It offers people voice, gives everyone a chance to be heard. I’m thinking I can apply the question circle idea to the VisualsSpeak sessions by adding a request to end individual sharing with the question one is left with.

I’m intrigued by how stating what people knew and what they didn’t shifted the quality of the conversation. There is something about sharing your clarity and your confusion in sequence that created a richer medium for reflection.

I’m thinking adding questions to the individual sharing will be particularly helpful when doing group images. I’ve found it works better to start with individual sharing before trying to work together, to make sure every voice is heard first. This process would be a way to generate even more material to work with.

Recently I was asked to facilitate a day long leadership development session for high-level government leaders. The session was held at a retreat center. The group would consist of thirty-five people.

Ten days before the session, we visited the site. There were two meeting rooms reserved for us. Neither one of which would hold both enough tables and the participants. I could either have a room full of tables or a room full of participants. Not good. I had to have both. Did I mention that the rooms were on two separate floors? Oh my, I do love a challenge! Read the rest of this entry »

Does the idea of facilitating a large audience (50, 100, 200, 300 people) make you sweat?

In our announcement for the VizThink 2008 conference, we have a little fun with the fact that Christine will be facilitating a VisualsSpeak process with an audience that could exceed three hundred people. She is being given a whole thirty minutes to complete this exercise. As you can imagine this is quite the challenge. There are a lot of things you need to take into consideration before taking on larger audiences such as:

• Are the group dynamics of a large audience different than small groups?
• How do you prepare for an audience you’ve never met?
• How do you make sure your program is tight enough in order to minimize disruptions?
• How do you use any tools or props?

In our upcoming newsletter, Christine will be giving you some insights into how to think about facilitating processes for large audiences.

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I attended another session at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication titled, Theater of the Oppressed. It was facilitated by my colleague Stephanie Pollack, who is an experiential educator and facilitator who uses a lot of theater and art in her sessions. She is another person whose sessions I seek out at conferences.

Theater of the Oppressed

Theater of the Oppressed was developed by Augusto Boal and it utilizes theater techniques to facilitate insights based on Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In the session we experienced two activities, but I am going to focus on one called The Great Game of Power.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a question we received from a member of the VisualsSpeak Community.
“What is a way to use the pictures to close a meeting/seminar/coaching?”
Good question. I’ll suggest an answer or two, but I’m sure there are many ways to go about this. If you, the reader, have a suggestion please leave it in the comments box.

Because we are talking about the end of a meeting, etc, I think the best use of a photograph would be to try to cement the learning or the outcome. For example a simple exercise would be to ask the participants to “Chose a photograph that symbolizes one thing you learned today”. Or “Chose a photograph that represents something you can take away from this meeting”. There are a number of variations on this theme which should be tailored to your audience and the outcome you want to reinforce.

This is a good way to get people to remember one important aspect of the meeting. People will tend to remember an idea if they associate an image with it. Its important to allow the participants to choose their own photograph, because each person ’sees’ and remembers in a different way. If I associate a team goal with a photo of a butterfly and you see it as a lighthouse, then it may not be as ’sticky’ for either of us if the facilitator has picked out a picture of a pick-up truck for the whole group to use.
Read the rest of this entry »

When I started developing VisualsSpeak, I tried to find pictures of everything. If someone mentioned they couldn’t find a picture of a horse, I went off to find one and add it to the set. I had over 4000 images in the set. Filled a whole suitcase.

I noticed the stories people were telling weren’t as interesting to listen to. I wasn’t seeing as many insights, breakthroughs, innovation. As I worked to pare down the number of images, categories, and the amount of time to select the pictures, the stories came alive again.

Now I’m thrilled when you can’t find the image you want. Why? Because you now have the opportunity to dig deeper into the essence of what that thing you want means to you, and find another way to express it. You know the literal and obvious things about yourself already. You know the stories you individually and collectively tell about your organization. This is an opportunity to discover aspects beyond the obvious. To use the power of association and visual triggers to learn/realize something less clear.

We use words all day every day. If we could solve all the problems using words, things would work a whole lot smoother than they do. There certainly are enough tools, processes, and procedures that are word based. Photographs and visual tools offer you alternatives. Give you other ways to think and process information. Embrace the opportunity to think differently!

I encourage you to read Brian Libby’s article on BNET “The Right Way to Brainstorm“. He lists rules for how to set up for a successful brainstorming session. Its a quick and simple read. Also I have included my comments on his article about how brainstorming is a right-brain, creative process and needs to be treated as such.

Here are the 7 points he makes.

1. Choose Your Players
2. Assign Pre-meeting Homework
3. Don’t Tolerate Criticism
4. Encourage Collaboration
5. Evaluate Later
6. Don’t Get Discouraged

The Right Way to Brainstorm +

Brian’s post is excellent in how he simply explains the rules for setting up a brainstorming session. This is a creative process and any impediments, such as criticisms, in the initial stages are likely to sabotage the process. People are more likely and able to defend themselves if they are criticized about something in their field of expertise. However because so many people feel out of their league in a creative process, they are more likely to shut down their creative thinking if there is the threat, real or perceived, of taking flak for their ideas.

I would also go one step further than the guidelines Brian describes by highlighting the idea of brainstorming as a creative, right-brain exercise. In order to get the most out of a session, the facilitator needs to employ right-brain tools and strategies to get the most out of your participants in the quickest period of time. Don’t come to the meeting armed with spreadsheets, graphs, etc. These are left-brain tools and will squash the creative process faster than you can say Excel. These left-brain tools are best used for how the team is going to action the ideas generated from brainstorming. Two different processes for two different results; creative and actions.

In my company, we use photographs to stimulate conversations originating from the right-brain whether the group is focused on teambuilding, strategic visioning, or brainstorming. The exercises are quick and fun, not to mention bountiful, because our process is all about the right or creative side of the brain. Once the ideas are generated and the insights gained then we will use other types of tools and processes to make them actionable.

Tom Tiernan
www.VisualsSpeak.com