Visual Explorer featured in new edition of The Change Handbook

CCL’s Visual Explorer featured
in new edition of The Change Handbook


February 2007 - Greensboro, N.C. – The Change Handbook, considered the definitive resource for best methods on organizational change, features a chapter on the Center for Creative Leadership’s Visual Explorer in its second edition.

“We designed Visual Explorer to help people in organizations make sense of complex challenges,” said CCL inventor Charles J. Palus, who developed the game-like, conversation-starting tool with colleague David Magellan Horth. “Its inclusion in The Change Handbook illustrates its broad applicability as part of the change paradigm. People are using it in the context of transforming leadership cultures.”

The Change Handbook, 2nd Edition, is a compendium of 61 proven change methods drawn from foremost practitioners. In their chapter, Palus and Horth provide a concise understanding of what Visual Explorer is and what it does, and they use vignettes to highlight the diverse ways companies have employed the tool.

One example cited is Crate & Barrel, which uses it to craft a shared vision for their web-based innovations. Said Palus, “This is a company that likes to be productive but also to have fun, and Visual Explorer helps them have their serious conversations in a more playful way.”

Palus and Horth write comprehensively about Visual Explorer and the research behind it in their book, The Leader’s Edge: Six Creative Competencies for Exploring Complex Challenges (Jossey-Bass, 2002). Their book and Visual Explorer itself are both available from CCL Press (hyperlink)

The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems is available from Berrett-Koehler Publishers.


About the Center for Creative Leadership
Founded in 1970, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®) is a nonprofit institution that focuses exclusively on leadership education and research, offering top-ranked programs and other services to clients worldwide. Ranked in the top five in the Financial Times annual executive education survey, CCL is headquartered in Greensboro, N.C., with campuses in Asia, Europe and North America. Its work is supported by more than 500 faculty and staff.