“What is the top leadership talent challenge that your organisation is going to be facing over the coming years?"

Our colleague Natalie Pothier, leader of the Center for Creative Leadership's coaching practice for Europe / Middle East / Africa, used our new Visual Explorer™ Post Cards at The Talent Challenge 2008 Conference, in London, to help the audience explore the question:

What is the top leadership talent challenge that your organization is going to be facing over the coming years?

"I asked the group to pick a card from the laid-out set of Visual Explorer images that spoke to them in this respect. I then gave them 5 minutes individually to take down some notes on what they see in the card and how it relates to the talent question in their company.

"Then they shared the description of the card and what they see in it and the relation to the topic to the others in the subgroups- with group members adding to it if they saw more or different things.

"Part 2 of the interactive session was to ‘coach a partner’ in your group ( pairs of 2 ) on the topic and by the end of the 10 minutes session to come up with one thing they would do differently or do about tackling that challenge when they will be back at work next week.

"The VE cards worked very well. You could feel the uplift of the energy in the room when they had to discuss the cards they chose and the topic. It seems that it may be a good idea to ask a question like that at the beginning and then by the end of the conversation and exercise to ask participants to look back at their card and see whether they would describe what they see on the card differently after having had an exchange with peers. That may be a great way to really utilize the power of the VE tool to its full potential and to show immediate effect of the learning power of the tool to participants.

"The group's feedback was that the cards really helped them to associate with the issue, to launch a productive exchange and discussion between the group members and to give a different space for thinking about the topic, generating ideas from a different broader angle then from a traditional question and answer angle."

For more information about leadership coaching from the Center for Creative Leadership in Europe, contact Natalie Pothier, coaching practice leader for Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

>>more at Exploring a talent strategy, using Visual Explorer™ and Leadership Metaphor Explorer™.