Examples of Visual Explorer applications

Here are three cases that illustrate how VE is used.

Verizon leadership development

We used the VE tool with a group of high-potential employees at Verizon who were about to step into the executive ranks. They were invited to a leadership workshop to address a critical challenge the company faced: how to accelerate the cycle time for developing and introducing new products to the market. We asked each of the participants to choose an image that in some way provided a metaphor for the issues they were wrestling with in their part of the organization.

Our specific instructions to them were to “select an image that in some way speaks to you about your own challenge as a leader and manager. If you can’t find an image that seems to fit, perhaps there’s an image that you’re drawn to or perhaps is picking you.”

With the images selected, we began a dialogue about them in small groups, allowing each person to gain insights about his or her own challenge from the observations and interpretations of others. Used the same images they had just used, we had them explore the connection of their own challenges to the overarching challenge of time-to-market. With that group and others, a critical step in sharing the images and developing meaningful dialogue around them requires that as people share their observations of a picture not selected by them, they must take temporary ownership of it—as if they had selected the picture and “own” the challenge described by the person who selected it. The facilitation language we use includes such statements as, “If this were my picture, I would notice….” Or, “The connection I would make is….” We encourage the participants in the dialogue to always stay in the first person, using “I, me, my” language. That enables the person who originally selected the picture to remain engaged, yet detached from the image and the thoughts, knowledge, and experiences it represents, while new perspectives and ideas are offered by others.

With the aid of Compendium, a computer- based dialogue facilitation tool developed by Verizon, NASA, and the Open University, we convened the broader group to explore and reframe the time-to-market challenge into the specific strategy development, alignment, and execution issues the company faced in its turbulent business environment. The images formed a touchstone for rapid recall and continuing dialogue about a strategy model the team developed. An image of two viaducts winding into the distance was used to convey the team’s high-potential, collective thoughts on strategy. One image of a massive number of bicycles of the same model and another of a large old tree with a complex root system were used to convey the group’s thoughts about strategic alignment. An image of a complex clover-leaf road system was used to capture their thoughts about maintaining strategic alignment.

The model the team developed and the pictures they selected were presented to a senior executive who visited the workshop, serving as a multi-dimensional tool for facilitating a deep and meaningful dialogue about the role of the senior executive and the workshop participants in developing and implementing emergent product strategies. In that way, not only had the group of high-potential executives developed a model for thinking about the original challenge, they had developed their strategic thinking capabilities in a way that helped them effectively engage with a senior executive whose main role was strategy development. The process enabled the participants to make a useful contribution to the strategy development process for the organization and to develop a clearer handle on their own role in its development and execution.

See also:

Exploration for Development: Developing Leadership by Making Shared Sense of Complex Challenges
Consulting Psychology Journal, 55 (1), 26-40
Charles J. Palus, David Horth, Mary Lynn Pully, and Albert M. Selvin

Sensemaking Techniques in Support of Leadership Development
Knowledge Management, 7(1)
Inside Knowledge Magazine
Albert M. Selvin and Charles J. Palus

An insurance firm

A large, U.S.-based insurance and financial institution has been using Visual Explorer as a tool for teambuilding within work groups. Katie Davis, a consultant and trainer with the company, has found that visual images are a great tool for building trust and alignment when teams come together to resolve problems and tackle opportunities. “It’s not unusual for individuals in a workgroup– even those that have been together for a long time–to be ill-at-ease with each other,” says Davis. “Using photos and images brings safety. You’re not talking about me. Instead, you’re talking about a picture. That’s safer for folks and inspires confidence.” Photos can also level the playing field and give everyone a voice, Davis points out. “When you have a discussion in a group, typically there are the people who jump in and dominate and there are the people you never hear from,” says Davis. “Using this format creates the expectation that everyone will share.”

Davis says images are also useful to help teams define and develop a shared understanding of a concept. She likes to ask members of a group to select a picture that represents a quality of their dream team—transferring the characteristics that people describe on paper and then hanging the papers on the wall. “We then distill those and get down to the five or six core values that are held by the team,” she says. “It’s also a powerful tool to help define what a word such as honesty means and to build a common understanding.”

Davis points to one work group that used images to define what accountability meant to them. Participants prepared a summary of their session, as Davis asked each team to do, and came back to the information time and time again as they addressed real-world challenges. They began to call each other on not living up to the principles they established as a team and to use their shared experience to resolve business issues. They also agreed to share accountability and take on more work so that the company could save money by not filling an open position in their work group. “Nothing I could’ve done with them could have gotten them to that point without the image tool,” Davis says.

The Leadership for a Changing World initiative at New York University

>>more about visual tools for social change at Social change leadership

Sonia Ospina, a professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, has used visual images successfully in her classes and seminars and in her work with the Leadership for a Changing World program—a partnership of the Ford Foundation, the Advocacy Institute, and the Wagner School that is designed to recognize and support outstanding leaders in not-for-profit organizations.

“The Leadership for a Changing World initiative brings together community leaders from across the United States four times a year to share their experiences in grassroots organizations and to learn from each other,” says Ospina. “We used Visual Explorer in an introductory session when we brought our first group together, serving as a way to start a conversation among the participants about their work and to express something important about their community leadership–who they are and what’s important to them. I found that it helped us move well beyond a traditional introduction and brought much more substance to our dialogue.”

Ospina has also used the tool as an icebreaker in her classes at NYU, asking students to pick an image to help them introduce themselves and the work they do. She has used it in large plenary sessions to draw out common themes. She has found that the approach transcends cultural barriers. “I used images in a workshop for individuals involved in the social services delivery system in Ecuador,” she says. “I found that it was very cross-cultural in its impact, and the participants loved the idea of choosing among the various possibilities. It allowed them to jump deeper, faster. By the end of the exercise, people learned about each other in a way that made them feel they really knew each other more.”