Retreats That Work with Visual Explorer

Visual Explorer goes with me to almost every retreat I facilitate—even when we don’t actually plan to use it ...

says Sheila Campbell, president of Wild Blue Yonder. Campbell is co-author, with Merianne and Jeff Liteman, of Retreats That Work: Everything You Need to Know about Planning and Leading Offsites. Merianne Liteman, of Liteman Rosse, Inc., agrees.

“Because it’s so versatile, we find lots of uses for Visual Explorer in retreats. We believe in responding to what’s happening in the moment, so sometimes we see uses for VE that weren’t in our retreat plan. The deck is almost always in the room with us.”

Liteman likes using the deck to help a group deal with particularly thorny issues about which people might have strong emotions.

“The introspection that VE encourages makes the discussion about these tough issues much richer. VE often helps people see all sides of a dilemma rather than be staked in their original positions.”

Campbell and Liteman design a flow into their retreats, peaking in energy as participants make decisions about the issues framed in the retreat.

“By the end of retreat people are tired, but excited about the progress they’ve made. They’re full of good intentions about making a difference when they return to work. But we know they’ll also be bombarded by conflicting priorities and an avalanche of interruptions as soon as they get back in the office. We often use Visual Explorer to help them bridge that transition.”

One of the strong suits of Visual Explorer, say these retreats experts, is that it moves people into a reflective silence in which they can begin to take responsibility for insuring that the decisions made at the retreat take full effect.

When they use VE to close a retreat, Liteman and Campbell usually select a portion of Visual Explorer images that broadly connote leadership, teamwork, achievement or other themes of the retreat. (“At this point,” Campbell explains, we don’t want anyone getting stuck on an image they might interpret as discouraging.”) They choose four or five images for every one person in the group. The images are displayed on a table at the back of the room during the final break of the day. Participants often wander over to look at the pictures and wonder about their use, but they aren’t given any clues upfront. After all the decisions in the retreat have been made, and the group has talked about how they’ll introduce the results to everyone back at the office, the facilitators then talk about how important it will be for each person to keep the retreat spirit alive --- and how difficult that can become in the heat of day-to-day work.

Participants are asked to be silent as they write this incomplete sentence at the top of a sheet of paper: My strongest contributions to keeping the results of this retreat alive will be... . They’re given a few moments to think about the question. Before inviting them to choose an image to begin their own reflections, either Liteman or Campbell demonstrate how to use the pictures, usually inviting one of the group to choose an image. This randomness in the choice of image helps reinforce that it doesn’t matter what image a person chooses, because, of course, the message evoked is within the person viewing it, not inherent in the picture itself.

“One thing we love about Visual Explorer is how many options it gives us in facilitating this critical closing of a retreat,”

After participants have been given time to choose their images and note their reflections, the facilitators can choose to move in several different directions. With a small group of fewer than twenty, they can invite every person to share their resolutions, which can solidify the respect and closeness that have developed in the retreat. (See What I See for Me, pp. 410-412 in Retreats That Work for more information about how Campbell and Liteman use Visual Explorer to close a retreat.) If the work group is likely to encounter serious obstacles in achieving their goals, the facilitators might have them do a second round of reflections based on completing the sentence: I can foresee some challenges, but I will be able to overcome them by... . These reflections, shared with a small group that works well together, can strengthen the group’s resolve to see their decisions through, and help them see how to support each other.

In larger groups, Campbell and Liteman have the participants break into dyads or triads to discuss their VE reflections.

"We feel it’s important for people to voice what they’re thinking, even if it’s not to the whole group. Somehow hearing yourself say it aloud makes the ideas more memorable.”

Liteman and Campbell are not surprised when this closing leads to strong emotions about the retreat. Almost always, they say, some participants are quite moved by the VE images.

"When that happens, we invite people to take the picture home with them. “It wrecks our Visual Explorer decks, but the decks are replaceable; we can stand to lose a few pictures. What we never want to lose is the commitment that the pictures evoke.”

Liteman and Campbell teach beginning and advanced retreat design and facilitation courses for organizations that conduct internally-facilitated retreats. Beginning and experienced facilitators in the program are taught how to use Visual Explorer in a number of ways, from creative thinking to facilitating teamwork to inspiring vision. Months later, Liteman and Campbell report, when they check in with people who have been through the course, the students often reference the VE images they chose at the end of the program.

“People tell us, 'I look at my picture every time I design a retreat, and it reminds me to have confidence in my skills.’

Resources: Liteman, M., Campbell, S. and Liteman, J.: Retreats That Work: Everything You Need to Know about Planning and Leading Offsites, San Francisco: Pfeiffer / Wiley, 2006. www.retreatsthatwork.com www.wildblueyonder.biz