Life-Career Planning in an MBA program

"It worked! The images they picked really hit home in ways that surprised them."

From: Carol Connolly Bruce,
To: Chuck Palus

Chuck,

I used Visual Explorer in my Mid-Career MBA course at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

 

There are evening students, most over 30 years, all with work experience. One of their assignments was to create a Life-Career Plan. So I asked them to pick an image that represents their Current Reality as part of their Life-Career Story. Picking the image helped inform their writing of the story. In preparation for the Life-Career Plan, they picked a second image that represents their vision for their life/career. In the plan, they used Robert Fritz’s concepts of Structural Tension, Current Reality and Vision/Aspiration. Then they integrated the two images, Current Reality and Vision, and the steps it will take to move from the first to the second.

Many of them didn’t think they could do it, but I encouraged them to try and just see what happened. Well, it worked! The images they picked really hit home in ways that surprised them. Their plans were very good, lots of authentic self awareness and opening up to go after things they’ve wanted to do but have pushed aside due to limiting beliefs and mental models, which they were to uncover in their life/career stories. Several are really going for it as a result of the work they did in the course, all are much clearer on what they want. They also commented on how they have a sense of renewal and less fatigue about where they are in their work and lives.

Carol

Carol Connolly Bruce

Faculty

The Center for Creative Leadership
brucec@ccl.org

Visually exploring burn out

Cathy M. writes about her experience of Visual Explorer cards as introduced to her by her CCL feedback coach.This is a great illustration of using VE for one on one coaching, and also suggests a self-coaching process, in this case on the topic of burn out.

During my attendance at CCL for the Leadership Development Program, I was blessed to have TZiPi Radonsky as my feedback coach. Prior to attending CCL, I was going through a bit of professional and personal “burn out”. During my feedback session, TZiPi offered me a deck of cards that had a photograph on each card. My assignment was to file through the deck and pull out any cards with pictures that spoke to me in some way. I flipped through the deck and pulled out 7 cards that contained scenes that evoked peace, tranquility and joy in me and 1 card that represented destruction and burn out.

Two interesting things came from the experience:

1) My initial reaction to the burn out card revealed a picture of a bridge embankment that had been destroyed by a tornado or bomb. This demonstrated how I was feeling at that moment. After the empowering, feedback session with TZiPi that followed, I looked at the cards one more time and I couldn’t find the card with the destroyed embankment. I realized that the picture I originally saw as destruction was actually a beautiful bridge crossing a canal leading to a forested area. I was stunned at how being in a more peaceful, clear thinking place completely transformed the picture into something of beauty. Additionally, I never could get the picture back to the original view.

2) The second awareness I had from the card experience came about 4 weeks later. I had been working hard on my CCL goals which included getting back to a state of peace. I began noticing a sense of calm and tranquility in the following weeks and enjoyed recognizing things around me that previously gave me joy. These included:

a. Snow skiing - so I began planning a ski trip with friends this winter.
b. Music - so I purchased tickets for a Christmas concert with the symphony.
c. Nature - so I made a point to notice the sky through the Fall leaves above me on a lunchtime walk through the woods.
d. The beach – so I gathered several girlfriends and went to the beach for the weekend.

A few weeks later, I revisited the cards that I had chosen at CCL (TZiPi sent e-files of them to me) and I was amazed to discover that all of the activities I had planned and accomplished were depicted on the cards I had chosen with TZiPi.

This was quite remarkable. I was pleased to see that the things that evoke peace and joy for me are true even in times when I am in a non-positive place. And, I was impressed that visualizing things I enjoy motivated me to make them happen.

This was an exciting activity!

Cathy M.
CCL attendee, September 2008

Metaphor My Life

Global Citizen Year Fellow Ananda Day talks about imagery, metaphor, and life:

"Some people live their lives in technicolor. Others live life in misery. And still others live in ignorance, bliss, knowledge, etc. While there may not be one way to live life, it has become blatantly obvious to me that almost everyone lives their life in metaphor."

clipped from globalcitizenyear.org Metaphor My Life  Ananda Day Two days ago, while struggling to fall asleep (due to the hilarious wolof jokes being told outside my window by ten Senegalese men), I pulled out a stack of Visual Explorer cards, from the Center for Creative Leadership, that I had gotten during training. Visual Explorer is basically a stack of really nice photographs that are card sized. I then asked myself questions, and tried to find out which picture perfectly explained my emotions or ideas about that question. It is surprising how much more you find out about yourself when you make yourself realize why one image or phrase resonates, and another doesn’t. This led me to think about how much of my life is explained like Visual Explorer – in metaphor. read more >>

"Can this blind man do Visual Explorer ... ?"

"I was of course pleased to meet Enos and glad to have him as part of our program. My mind, however, began working overtime on how I would incorporate him into the upcoming Visual Explorer exercise. What could I do to be sensitive to this blind gentleman’s needs? ... "


Steadman Harrison at the Center for Creative Leadership sends us this story from the Leadership Beyond Boundaries initiative:

"In December 2006 I traveled to Kenya as part of a research initiative called Leadership Beyond Boundaries. I looked at the map and guessed that it would take me about an hour and a half by car to drive from the capital city of Nairobi up to a smaller town called Nakuru where I was to host a Leadership Forum Workshop for our contacts at ERMIS Africa. In Nairobi I hired a driver who agreed to take me out to Nakuru and we started our journey.

"Kenya is a very large country. The short trip I had anticipated turned into a nearly 4 hour drive across the Rift Valley ridge of mountains more than 8,000 feet above sea level. The road was last paved in the 1960s and at times the driver chose to drive off road because the potholes were so bad. At one point I looked out and saw a heard of zebras and asked if we could pull over so I could take a picture. The driver simply veered the car off the road and drove straight out into the field into the middle of the heard so I could see them better. This was the start of my adventure.

"I’ll focus here on one story that happened that first day at the workshop in Nakuru. I decided to set up Visual Explorer early in the morning before the workshop began as a bit of a backdrop and to create some intrigue about the activities we would cover later in the day. The colorful 8.5 by 11 pictures lined 3 of the walls of the conference room. This was an open enrollment workshop and my friend, Bancy, had sent out all the invitations. I had no idea how many participants we would have nor did I know anything about their backgrounds. As participants came in that morning I would introduce myself and some of them asked a few questions about all the pictures spread out around the room.

"Enos Awili was about the tenth person to join us that morning. He came in being led at the hand by a friend. Shortly after being seated he invited me to come over and speak with him where he told me a little bit about his life.

Born in 1950, I became blind as a result of infections by Trachoma and Glaucoma combined. I then went through the normal academic education in a residential school for the blind twenty-seven miles from Nairobi city. I then worked for a bread-producing company until it closed down in January 1993. Since then, I have not been in any gainful employment but thank the Lord for providing me with sponsors who paid school fees for my three children. Despite my financial problems I still feel it’s my duty to teach people about the ethics of good leadership and how to stay free from HIV and AIDS scourge. So I am here today as a representative for Persons with Disabilities National Council of Kenya and look forward to this program.

"I was, of course, pleased to meet Enos and glad to have him as part of our program. My mind, however, began working overtime on how I would incorporate him into the upcoming Visual Explorer exercise. What could I do to be sensitive to this gentleman’s needs? After introducing Visual Explorer that morning I promptly assured Enos that he could be fully involved in the exercise.

"As the exercise began I asked him to briefly describe both his organizational challenge and the ideal future state of his organization (the two questions I had asked the group to consider as they picked out their two pictures). I then led him around the room briefly describing each picture. To my surprise this didn’t take long. When we came across the picture of ‘a donkey with its feet tied together’ he exclaimed that this was his picture he was looking for. And when I described ‘the bird with outstretched wings having just caught a fish’ he said that this was his future organization. The really rich part of the exercise was watching Enos’s sheer delight as each of the members of his small group described the two pictures in great detail.


"At the end of our debrief, he was in tears as he shared what a great gift it was to be a part of such a wonderful exercise that captured the challenges facing the disabled people of East Africa and the hope that he had moving forward to a day when so many people in need would have the resources they needed to soar like eagles.

Effective Group Coaching

Jennifer Britton has a new book called Effective Group Coaching: Tried and Tested Tools and Resources for Optimum Coaching Results. On her blog she cites Visual Explorer™ as the first of My Five Favorite Group Coaching Tools This Year. An excerpt:

Thursday, December 17, 2009
My Favorite Group Coaching Tools This Year

Every year at this time, I like to look back and take stock of some of my favorite tools and resources of the year, and share them here on the blog.

This year, five of my favorite tools and resources are:

• Visual Explorer from the Center For Creative Leadership. Those of you who joined me in Orlando know the power of this visual tool. I continue to bring it in to team and group coaching sessions, along with workshops and seminars as a conversation starter, and awareness builder. Visit CCL to learn more about the tool in its many different forms.
  
• Facilitative Coaching by Dale Schwarz and Anne Davidson. This book is chock full of exercises and resources for your coaching work. Although geared primarily for a 1-1 setting you could adapt many of these for a group context.
• MindMapping seems to make my list each and every year, but I do so love this tool for program design, brainstorming and getting clients unstuck. Check out the tag MindMapping for some ideas on how I use it. Once again, MindJet.com is the best computer based MindMapping tool around. Try out their 21 day free trial at http://www.mindjet.com.
  
  More at the Group Coaching blog>>

Levels of looking

Al Selvin has been a fine fellow traveler in the development of Visual Explorer from nearly the beginning. The first time I met Al we uploaded VE images into Compendium maps and a prototype of what we now think of as D!gital Explorer was born (see this joint publication for example). Al's ideas about knowledge art started taking off around that time as well.

One of the few ways that Visual Explorer can get off-track is when the level of looking is shallow or cursory. VE works best under conditions of "slowing looking down" (per David Perkins) and paying attention in more artful and more disciplined ways. This kind of attention is one of the potential benefits of using VE and needs just a bit of facilitation, usually, to come alive. Al's post on his Knowledge Art blog, reposted below, unpacks this essential insight.

clipped from knowledgeart.blogspot.com Levels of looking A few weeks ago I facilitated a Visual Explorer session for a social services agency for mentally disabled children and adults in the Hudson Valley. A friend is the IT director at the agency, and asked me to help run a communication session for the IT group and its internal clients. This was the first time in several years that I've done a true, extended VE session with enough time and mandate to set it up and introduce it properly. There were 10 attendees, half from IT and half from other parts of the agency. We did two rounds, the first on the question "What's the place of IT in the organization?" and the second, after discussion, debrief, and a break, on "How can IT best support the organization (and vice versa)?" We spent about 2.5 hours in all. In the first round, the small groups got engaged quickly and the discussions were lively. Even people who hung back at first got excited as it went on. One of the IT guys was at first reluctant to engage and didn't even pick a picture during the browsing period. But after the first two people in his small group took their turns, he jumped up and grabbed a picture, and ended up giving one of the more evocative and insightful descriptions. In both large group rounds, the discussion was engaged and (as far as I could tell as an outsider) did enable people to talk in ways they normally don't to each other. A number of themes emerged, such as the separation between the different groups, surprise by non-IT people about how the IT people felt about their work and their relationships with the rest of the agency, how to better communicate about the goals and benefits of IT projects and deal with resistance to change by helping people to see what they could get out of the new capabilities, etc. Afterwards, a number of the people said that it had been valuable and that the pictures enabled them to have a better and deeper dialogue with each other. I noticed a paradox in the session, which I've seen before. It involves differing levels of looking at and talking about what people see in a picture, and how the picture relates to their situation and concerns. It's relatively easy to get people to talk about what they see in a VE image on the level of what the picture "says", what they think the story of the picture is. This is a wonderful human capability -- something a computer could never do (e.g. "these people are happy because they just won a race", "nothing's really clear, the racers and the audience can't see each other well, there's such a frenetic pace" etc.). But the paradox is that it's not so easy to get people to go to the next level, to really look at and talk about the actual 'physical' details in the picture -- to engage with and talk about what they really see rather than the story or ideas that are suggested to them. In other words, people relate almost instantly to what they see as the "story" of the picture, suggested by the images, facial expressions, etc. -- the visual detail that strikes us on a sub-verbal level, all the time, in conversations with others (for example, the way we "read" other people's moods and interpret what that might mean for us, as we scan their faces or listen to their voices in a meeting). But to go farther -- to be able to say exactly what visual and aural nuances might have given us this impression (the crease of a brow, the elevated pitch of part of a spoken sentence) takes an extra effort and does not come readily for most people. I often think of what I had to learn in film classes in college -- not to just let a film "wash over" me in a tide of impressions and effects, but rather to pay close attention so I could see what techniques the filmmaker used to give me those impressions -- the small details of editing, sound, lighting, composition, color, and many others. This can lead to a deeper level of insight and articulation. As the practitioner in the VE session I'm describing here, I tried to inculcate this to some extent. As people were working in the small groups, I walked around and made a few suggestions, such as pointing out specific visual details and getting the groups to look at them, when it was apparent that the group was in 'story' mode and could benefit from taking a closer look. That did seem to shake things loose a bit and move the conversation to a more engaged level. This same dynamic occurs with other forms of collaborative media. Getting people to look closely and talk about what they see requires a level of effort -- for both participants and practitioners -- beyond what is easiest to do. The "story" level is also a good thing and generates dialogue that takes people out of their normal way of relating, but going farther is where a lot of the potential lies. Posted by Al at 9:27 AM

Visual Explorer™ in Afghanistan

Here is a repost from the CCL Leading Effectively blog. Clemsen Turregano goes on to talk about members of the Afgan Army picking Visual Explorer images to define leadership "in their hearts and their heads."

clipped from lbbtest.net Leadership Essentials in Afghanistan Clemson Turregano traveled to Afghanistan to deliver a Leadership Essentials program to the Afghan Army. In a series of posts on the Leading Effectively blog he recounts the experience: “We would have to deliver in Dari. We would be working with a population that although very intelligent, and may not have a had a great deal of formal education. Every one we would be working with had served in war, with the Northern Alliance, the Mujahadeen, or even the Soviets. Some of these men had actually fought against each other, on opposite sides, at different times. more part 1>> and more part 2>> and more part 3>>

Picturing action learning

My good colleague Tom Boydell at Inter~Logics writes:

Hullo Chuck ... It was interesting to hear of your postcard and playing card versions of Visual Explorer. We continue to use the original form extensively - some of the pictures are getting a bit worn; we bought a second set but it was stolen - shows how popular it is!

We use it for exploring almost any concept - not just leadership. Also quite often in an Action Learning setting when we ask people to describe where they have got to in their ongoing projects. As things have worked out we have used it more outside of the UK - especially in Jordan, Syria and Egypt - the latter many times on a large project with the Egyptian Post Office. We have also used it several times on a programme for a Danish multi-national - 15 different nationalities including N and S America, Europe, Asia, and Africa on each occasion.

So from all the above I think you can gather that we have found it to work really well in a wide variety of cultures.

All the best,

Tom Boydell
Director, Inter~Logics
tboydell@inter-logics.net

The newsletter of SetMatch in the UK just published this short piece by Tom Boydell on the use of Visual Explorer™ in action learning programs.

Picture Post

I use this name Picture Post – which reminds me of a long-defunct weekly magazine that I enjoyed reading at school – as a general label for a number of ways of using collections of pictures. You can use calendars, postcards, posters or other reproductions – good excuse to go into art galleries! – although we use a specific set that I will say more about at the end of this piece.

We find that pictures can be used in many ways, including:

• As an introduction exercise; lay out a number of pictures and ask each participant to choose one that says something about them or their problem/challenge. Then ask each to explain to the others why they have chosen that picture (they can choose more than one if you think this would be better)

• As a different type of introduction, as participants to choose and talk about one or more pictures that somehow represent to them eg
o what they are hoping to achieve from the Action Learning programme
o what they think Action Learning involves; how it works
o their team, department, organisation
o perhaps the course they are on (for example if Action Learning is part of a broader programme)

• Make the pictures available as a resource to add to an account of progress on a challenge or problem – say on a flipchart (as in the example at [the top of this post], chosen because we have found that pictures like this can be used in any cultural context)

• Ask participants to select one or more pictures that say something to them about the progress of the Action Learning set or programme. This can be “static” – i.e. as they experience it now – or over a timeline – say the past four or five meetings. Choose different pictures to represent each meeting and then explain how they represent the “biography” or “life” of the group as each member has felt it.

• Choose pictures that represent some of the key stakeholders in your project – how you see them, what you perceive them as feeling or doing, how you relate to them.

• Perhaps not so much in an Action Learning set, but in another context - e.g. a workshop - choose up to say four pictures that represent how you see and feel about the workshop topic (eg leadership; finance; diversity; equal opportunities; engagement; etc etc etc!)

• If there quite a number of participants, they can make individual choices, divide into smaller groups, share their pictures, then as a group select some that they want to represent them as a group. It’s often good to ask them to select at least more than one more picture than there are people in the group – so if say 5 people, ask them to select 6 pictures. This allows for each to have one of their “own” but also forces them to choose a more “collective” one.

And so on. There’s no end really to how they might be used. You do need quite a number of pictures – with groups of up to about 25 we use a set of 224, and two such sets if a bigger group. As I said you can build up your own collection, but we use a set called Visual Explorer™, published by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL ) at www.ccl.org/ve .

Action learning in Damascus, Syria (courtesy Tom Boydell)

Tom's books are found on Amazon and everywhere--great stuff, have a look! For example, A Manager's Guide to Leadership:

The Art of Public Service

Visual Explorer™ image #780

Excerpt from Dean Ellen Schall's Convocation Remarks
Presented to 2009 graduates of the
NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
May 15, 2009

See the related New York Times article: What do you see?
More at the NYU site

“In the Wall Street Journal last week, 10 college presidents were asked to answer a question from their own schools’ applications. They all found it harder than they imagined. We have always understood at Wagner that it mattered how we started to engage you, even as prospective students, that we were beginning a conversation, perhaps a relationship - one that could last for years.

Two years ago, when many of you applied, we decided to add a particular twist to our application - in part to get your attention, in part to signal we were after a different level of engagement. We gave you the possibility of responding to a photo, a visual image, from a collection of images developed by colleagues at the Center for Creative Leadership. As you may remember, we use Visual Explorer, which is what CCL calls this approach, at orientation as well. The basic idea is that it’s easier to get the conversation started when you have an object in the middle. And we wanted to get a conversation started.

It seemed fitting, as you graduate, for me to put myself to the test we asked you to take up as you, or some of you, entered. So I looked through the Visual Explorer photos and picked one. I will show it to you in a minute. On our application we ask you to tell us how the image you selected represents your connection to public service. Let me try to answer for myself.

The title of my essay is “The Art of Public Service.”

NYU Wagner named itself a school of Public Service 20 years ago, in 1989. For years we had to defend the choice, explain it, compare and contrast it to public administration or public policy, the more obvious choices. The faculty and the then dean, Howard Newman, stood firm though. In naming the school, they saw beyond the way the world was dividing itself into sectors and methods. They imagined that we would come to care more about results and change than in what sector the work was housed. They appreciated that careers were likely to cross boundaries, that people in their late 20s or early 30s were more likely to have 7 jobs than one, that claiming the name of public service for our school would set us apart… and indeed it has. Now 20 years later, we have a president of the U.S. who exemplifies the spirit of public service and who has made the call to public service a virtual national anthem.

I wrote a piece 15 years ago, a few years into being a faculty member at Wagner, called “Learning to love the swamp: rethinking education for public service.” The swamp is a metaphor for the important, complex, and messy problems that resist technical analysis. I argued that the world of public service has more swamp than high ground. Ending poverty, overcoming racism, ensuring equal health outcomes for all, creating public school systems that work, building cities that are sustainable - these are the kinds of challenges that await your talent and commitment. Important challenges, and ones that require the most sophisticated and skilled levels of professional public service. Another name for this professional excellence is …artistry - and that brings me to my image and to the topic of this essay. The Art of Public Service.

I believe more than ever in the need for artistry in the work of public service. We invited you to join us at Wagner to change the world. We offered you – or hope we did - a varied set of tools and frameworks from which you can draw. But tools and frames alone don’t do the trick. Public service is as much about art as science. When we bring artistry to public service, we bring passion, creativity and the gift of seeing new possibilities. Holding a sense of ourselves as artists as we go about the work of public service helps us to stay bold and aim high.

It’s important to remember at the same time that art is not easy and that there are no guarantees- either in art or in public service. I took a beginners’ pottery class this past fall.

I showed up every Monday night, from 6 - 9, much the way you showed up for a class. And it was VERY hard. I was the worst in the class, a fact clear to me and to every one else. Yet I stayed and kept on trying. I knew there was learning in the trying, in sticking with what didn’t come easily. I never actually cracked the code or became a potter. Yet at the end, I have these small little pieces of “pottery” in my house and the odd thing is I display them. They are on the entry hall table and they make me smile when I walk in. They remind me to take myself seriously, but not too seriously, to stretch even in the face of initial resistance, mine or others, to find pleasure in small wins.

Here then is the image I chose:

An image of a person - alas, not me - bringing a pot to life on a potter’s wheel.

This captures in a simple visual image what I wish for each of you as you go forth. That you embrace the boldness of seeing yourself as artists, as creators and changemakers, as people who bring passion and the fullness of your selves to the critically important challenges of public service. And that you have the discipline and energy and commitment to keep on going, even if you don’t get it right the first time around, that you learn from what works as well as what doesn’t and that you find joy in small things as well as big moves.

Thank you.

Need a Coach? Try an Avatar

A snapshot of a CCL coaching session in Second Life

Reprinted from the CCL Leading Effectively e-Newsletter, April 2009.
Contact Cresencio Torres

Looking for a coach? Planning a meeting across time-zones? Hosting a conference, running a workshop or training employees? If so, an avatar may be at your service. In the not-so-distant future, virtual worlds may be the go-to technology for getting work done.

It is "early pioneering days," according to Forrester Research, but "Virtual worlds like Second Life, There.com, and more business-focused offerings are on the brink of becoming valuable work tools." Forrester predicts that, within five years, the 3-D Internet will be as important for work as the Web is today. Tech consultancy Gartner, too, is predicting the growing popularity of virtual worlds: 80 percent of Internet users will be in a virtual world by 2011.

Virtual worlds open up whole new ways for people to interact. But the technologies may also influence what people communicate, how they innovate and what they learn, says CCL's Cresencio Torres. So CCL's early forays into Second Life are focused on both doing and learning.

For example, CCL's innovation group designed a campus in Second Life for coaching and feedback research. We conducted our first coaching and feedback alpha test in February. The coach and coachee spent three hours "in-world" interacting and using real world assessment data. (The picture below shows the two in the Visual Explorer™ room selecting a picture that began the feedback process.) Through the process, Torres and his colleagues learned a great deal about avatar interaction, focus and sharing of information and goal planning.

"Unexpectedly, we realized that we needed to move beyond the limitations of our current understanding of coaching. It was a major breakthrough in thinking about the entire feedback process and the possibilities that exist once you dramatically change your experience," says Torres. "Maybe in the future, for instance, coaching isn't called coaching at all, but something else."

Millions of Second Life users will have access to a CCL Network and Commercial Island in the summer of 2009. It will be the only Second Life leadership space created for both research and commercial use. Our avatars will see you there soon!

Playing Cards with Al and Aldo

Today's message from Al Selvin, live from the Tilburg railway station.

Chuck, David,

I'm finding the playing-card size VE very useful for spontaneous 1:1 sessions. Even the extremely rapid one that Aldo and I did this morning, in a coffee shop at Tilburg (Netherlands) railway station. It was quite high quality even in that short time, and with the small pix.

Aldo's site: http://communitysense.nl/

Al

Strategy as a Learning Process

Hughes, R.L., & Beatty, K.C. (2005). Becoming a strategic leader. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

An important part of strategic thinking is visual, imaginative, and intuitive. Visual Explorer is a tool for supporting this often neglected part of strategic thinking. VE supports strategy as a learning process, and can help clarify shared strategic understanding of who we are, where we are, and where we want to go, as well as discerning key strategic drivers.

The benefits of Visual Explorer ™ for strategic leadership & strategy creation include:

• Help assess “who we are” and “where we are” as a company in a marketplace
• Scan your environment and your organization with fresh eyes
• Explore, clarify and communicate mission, vision, and values
• Helping identify key strategic drivers
• Surface ideas, intuitions, and new perspectives
• Get people out of their “stuck” perspectives
• Engage emotional undercurrents

Rich Hughes and Kate Beatty (2005) describe strategy as a learning process. Their book Becoming a Strategic Leader shows the importance of both R-mode (“right brain”) and L-mode (“left brain”) processes for this type of learning, and describes how to use VE as a tool for strategic thinking.

Visual Explorer is useful for the front and middle of this learning process: assessing where we are, and, understanding who we are and where we want to go, and focusing on key strategic drivers.

VE is also useful in “clearing the lens” of the strategic learning process—clarifying mission, vision and values.

Facilitation

The five basic steps for a Visual Explorer session apply here, as well as the further measures suggested for fostering dialogue. It can be quite useful to capture the key images, metaphors, and language from the VE session as a means of engaging others in the strategic learning process.

Example

Bruce Byington, CCL Senior Faculty, teaches a process of strategic driver identification using Visual Explorer. Strategic drivers are those relatively few determinants of sustainable competitive advantage for a particular organization in a particular industry or competitive environment (Hughes & Beatty, 2005, p. 27). Visual Explorer’s R-mode processing can bring out new ideas and help to "unstick" people and groups.

1. Use VE to explore some of the following framing questions:

• What industry or business are we in?
• What is our vision?
• What would real success look like?
• What are we missing that might surprise us?
• What is the key organizational capability we need to drive our strategy?

2. Brainstorm potential strategic drivers, as informed by the VE dialogue.

3. Sort, classify, and prioritize potential drivers.

Further Reading

Hughes, R.L., & Beatty, K.C. (2005). Becoming a strategic leader. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Mintzberg, H. (1989). Mintzberg on management: Inside our strange world of organizations. New York: The Free Press.

Palus, C.J. & Horth, D.M. (2002). The leader’s edge: Six creative competencies for navigating complex challenges. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Enneagram and Visual Explorer™

Enneagram- Colored pencil on paper, 30" x 40", 1997 by Lee van Laer

submitted by

Rev. Elaine M. Kebba, M.Div.
Thomas J. Kebba, M.A.

The purpose of using Visual Explorer in the context of an Enneagram Workshop is to begin the process of inner transformation. This exercise will highlight the fact that there are many kinds of people with different personality types. It will suggest that what may be good advice for one person can be disastrous for another. A goal for this exercise is to help people become aware of the “filter” with which they think about and approach life without prior knowledge of the Enneagram. The challenge to the participants will be to use this exercise as a reference point for themselves when they are evaluating what part of the Enneagram, especially Enneagram Type related information, directly relates to them.

DIRECTIONS The leader(s) of the workshop will distribute the Visual Explorer pictures on the floor, table, or other accessible surface. The participants will be instructed to choose two pictures while thinking about two questions:

Step 1: Choose a picture that reflects YOU at your BEST.

Step 2: Choose a picture that reflects YOU at your WORST.

Step 3: In groups of 3 or 4: each person shares their pictures and why they chose them. Other group members listen without comment or inquiry.

Step 4: Each of the group members shares how the pictures chosen speak to them in terms of being at their best or their worst - i.e. "if this were my picture, it would reflect in me . . ."

Step 5: The initial presenter listens and makes connections to their own sharing (how it is the same, how it is different, how some connections may make sense for them, how some connections may not make sense for them, etc.).

Step 6: Group debrief

Step 7: Workshop leader(s) refer back to the Visual Explorer exercise at the end of the workshop day and asks the group about the connections they now see for themselves in terms of their “best self” and “worst self” and how that relates to their Enneagram Type.

DISCOVERING THE ENNEAGRAM
A Bibliography

1. Aspell, Patrick J. & Dee. The Enneagram Personality Portraits: Enhancing Professional Relationships, San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 1997.

2. Baron, Renee, and Wagele, Elizabeth. The Enneagram Made Easy. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994.

3. Goldberg, Michael J. The 9 Ways of Working: How to use the Enneagram to Discover your Natural Strengths and Work More Effectively. New York: Marlowe & Company, 1996.

4. Palmer, Helen. The Enneagram in Love and Work. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1995.

5. Palus, Charles J. and Horth, David, M. Visual Explorer: Picturing Approaches to Challenging Changes. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 2008 (Revised).

6. Riso, Don Richard, and Hudson, Russ. The Wisdom of the Enneagram. New York: Bantam Books, 1999.

Powerful moves in Visual Explorer™ facilitation

Here are reflections from our partner Hamish Taylor, outlining some powerful yet simple ways of using Visual Explorer, including digital collages.
"In the first instance, the challenge was to look at new ways of working in Global Virtual Teams. You can probably tell from the commonality of the images that the consensus view (i.e., the subset of common images that were selected by more than one syndicate group) was:

• International – the stamps.
• Required concerted involvement – the many hands.
• Was currently fragile and to thrive would always need nurturing – the cradled feet.
• Recognised the need for strong networking – rowing boat, interlinked and overlapped hands.
• Acknowledged the need to pull in one direction whilst strengthening the interconnecting bonds from a diversity of thought.
• Longed for the opportunity to celebrate and were seeking a new dawn!

Now when we look at the combination of factors, we start to see that hands is a common feature, linkages and connectivity are prominent. It is an organisation which thankfully is 100% equal opportunity, multi-cultural and practises strong gender-equality principles. It is actually a group that is not scared to be soft and understands Emotional Intelligence.

Now let’s look at a different use in which the CCL VE was used to understand the pillars of a leading brand.

Here the most obvious commonality was the craftsmanship, illustrated by the attention to hands and indeed craftsmen. There is also sensuality, taste and texture, all supported by a natural complexity and studied beauty.

Interestingly the brand also has a certain abstract quality and a subtlety that required that the respondents to this exercise, both very talented and experienced marketers, explained the hidden depths of their brand and its unique personality. I was later to discover, from a separate visit, that the depth of painstaking attention to detail was very much part of the company philosophy and indeed lay at the very heart of the brand.

In both instances, the exercise took less than 15 minutes to reveal a roadmap for me to explore later and it served to open up the eyes of the participants to new development pathways and opportunities for discussion. The second example only involved two people, the first had around 16 participants.

Elaborating further on the use of Visual Explorer as a one-on-one before progressing to workshop usage: Group leaders often have fears of what a new coach / consultant will reveal about their organisation and how it is functioning. Using the VE tool on a completely different question from that which will be later used with the group as a whole removes some of those fears. That step gives the group leaders an early insight that allows them to take fresh perspectives when they come to work with the tool properly in the workshop environment. The early exposure has indeed started them thinking. They recall the first round of one-to-one discussions and they engage more with the “live effort” without feeling threatened by what people “might say”.

I have really enjoyed the ease with which you can do a cut and paste from the image bank in order to make a single summary slide on PowerPoint - when you then have the images either on laptop screen or indeed on the big screen, you immediately see another degree of depth to them. Psychologically I think that this is because in daily business, we have become accustomed to taking things into account via the filter of our PC screen dimensions - therefore when you have several VE pictures together on the one screen, you start to identify patterns in terms of predominant colours, predominant moods, presence or absence of movement (some people tend to think in terms of still life, whereas others are more attracted to the images of movement) and the overall number of people in any given collage. I have found it quite compelling when you come across a particular syndicate group whose image selection is dominated by a selection of single people shots - this is very telling and as a coach, you start to probe on that point. Interestingly most often the collection of single people is the "current" and the "ideal" is the groups and team shots. I strongly believe that this is partially driven by the e-mail driven, teleconference facilitated virtual team environment in which more and more organisations are having to operate.

I've also found that by taking the images into the single composite, you get two bites at the feedback cherry - the first when people are talking through their selection of images (still the most powerful) and the second when as the coach/facilitator you run the review of the different syndicate groups on screen. This then leads to the wider audience commenting on each other's groups and I have found that you could almost vote on the composite of composites at that point. Both interactive stages are powerful, the composite exercise allows you to progress extremely rapidly.

As a coach, I have also found it useful to refer back to "representative images" later in the Workshop and use VE both as an energising ice-breaker and a powerful insights anchor. Moreover this use of the tool is something that I feel that CCL should teach as otherwise people will not be able to make full use of it (perhaps not everyone will be able to do so, however everyone could improve their EMPATHY skills through actively using VE).

Final feedback point before I head for bed on this side of the Pond - I get great value from playing the "numbers game" with Visual Explorer. I deliberately start by setting no limits - the syndicates almost always ask for a limiting number, I still don't give them one. You then get some groups who self-limit themselves (most often to 4 or 5 images) but for all groups, I then ask them to cut them down progressively - if they have gone for 7 or 8, I ask for 3; once they have done 3, I ask for 1 image only. This editing process helps distill out the values that are inherent to their image selection. The forced choice allows you to ask not only about the "Why that ONE?" but also the "Why did you cut out those ones at the first editing stage?". You can only do this if you do not force the groups to pick a limited number of images - once they have done their first selection and talked about them, you know that each image selected has a particular value to the overall task; therefore the editing process to 2nd Stage and 3rd Stage are effectively value-based prioritisations.

From: Hamish Taylor
www.shinergise.com

Using VE in youth leadership programmes at Excelerator: The New Zealand Leadership Institute

We have been having an excellent ongoing conversation with Lisa Markwick at Excelerator: the New Zealand Leadership Institute about effective applications of Visual Explorer in her work. Here is a fascinating story about using VE to conduct pre-program interviews, and work with participants in youth programs. Thanks Lisa ...

From: Markwick, Lisa, The University of Auckland Business School
To: Palus, Chuck; Horth, David;
Subject: RE: Visual Explorer

We run (and research) a variety of different leadership development programmes, with our most established being our 18 month development programmes. These are targeted towards a number of different contexts including young people (21-28y), the "Future Leaders Programme", Community Programmes (defining community as a geographic region), corporate programmes, and Senior Executive (cross sectorial) programmes. We have plenty of opportunity to engage participants and others in creative and strategic practices and processes where we have found VE to be a very powerful "starter cue".

Let me tell you an example. I was in Dargavillle meeting a group of prospective participants for a youth leadership programme. Dargaville is a rather depressed town about 3 hours north of Auckland, and the main centre of the Kaipara district where we had just been running an 18 month Community Leadership Programme. I asked this group of about 6 young people to each choose 2 pictures, one to represent the possibly for the future of Kaipara, and the other to demonstrate their commitment to participation in making it so. One of the young women chose a picture of a whole lot of empty blue seats in a stadium. For her it was about her commitment to participation: filling the seats and having people want to come to "what ever great things were on offer" in the area. When one of the others in the group saw it she built on this further (with enthusiastic backing from the others). Saying "yes...the colour of Dargaville needs to be blue...not red..." which we came to discover is the colour of the gang patches the local gang is currently wearing in town which are frightening and holding young people (and the district) back. This led to more fascinating conversation about commitment and belonging.

This is from a group of young people who hardly know each other and are not accustomed to speaking out at all, let alone in a group of strangers, for an "interview."

And a later story ...

Our latest use of the images has been with a group of 21-28 year-olds on our future leaders programme. We first engaged them with a fish bowl / open space type conversation about moments of “vitality” and encouraged dialogue to draw out how this may relate to their personal aspirations and hence to the sphere or core of their leadership challenges. After each person had been in the hot seat they went and literally sat by the fire where there a coffee table with the post card sized VE2 images spread out. From an intuitive space they each picked a card that represented their aspiration and hopefully where their leadership challenge lay within that. They really enjoyed having something tangible to “show” where they were at. Also because they knew we could then upload the digital image on our programme learning website (moodle based) they were able to have continuity with that image while giving us back the originals (mostly!!). Many of them then incorporated the image into a wider strategic picture of their challenge.

What we were attempting to get to was to find a way to represent leadership in complexity along side personal passion. I think they (and we) did that well and the images were an integral aspect of this. Some things just can not be said with the words we have at our disposal. Pictures hold those necessary nuances.

Regards,

Lisa Markwick, Programme Director
Excelerator: New Zealand Leadership Institute
The University of Auckland Business School

Artful coaching: Visual Explorer as a tool for one-on-one leadership coaching

.One-on-one coaching of leaders can benefit from artful coaching methods and tools (summarized below). Visual Explorer is one such artful coaching tool supporting a variety of coaching processes and objectives.

Related posts:
Experiments using VE Post Card prototypes in leadership coaching>>
Mystery of the cards>>
Transformation and healing>>
Assessing leadership culture>>

Leadership Coaching at the Center for Creative Leadership>>

Benefits of Visual Explorer in leadership coaching:

• Supports the key leadership abilities of visioning, perspective taking, creative thinking and action, and presence in expression and communication
• Supports positive development and whole person functioning
• Engage the client as a creative, imaginative person
• Help the client make sense of and navigate turbulence and complexity
• Build client-coach rapport
• Supports brief coaching
• Supports online / virtual coaching contexts

Artful coaching is the application of abilities, media, and methods from or related to the arts within the practice of one-on-one coaching of managers, professionals, and leaders.

The media and methods of artful coaching fall into six basic categories:

1. Creating, perceiving, and interpreting images such as drawings and photographs
2. Making, telling, and listening to stories
3. Becoming aware of and crafting metaphors;
4. Dialogue around artifacts from people’s work and personal lives, including their creative endeavors
5. Becoming aware of and crafting the environments in which coaching occurs
6. Becoming aware of and reshaping body movement, posture, kinesthetics, and voice

In our research on how coaches used artful practices, we observed that coaches were using these artful practices for the reasons shown in Table 1. Visual Explorer is a useful tool within this range of artful coaching objectives.

Example
Where are you?: A Presencing Exercise
By Tzipi Radonsky

Presence is the art of being in the moment: all distractions laid aside and the space cleared for the work of coaching to happen. Coaching sometimes is only seen as getting "there." Often forgotten is that coaching is a process of being alive in the moment to what arises in total support of assisting the client in getting what they want. So there is all this wandering from Here to There that must happen. Each place must be defined through presence, as a process of noticing what is. During the session there needs to be an awareness of distractions and then making the choice to listen to the words, the rhythm, the pauses, the sighs. Through inquiry the coachee can be brought into the present moment so they can do their work. So we start with here and the first question can be: Where are you?

The coaching encounter below illustrates some key insights regarding presence during coaching.

• Help the coachee separate from where he or she is coming from. Clear the space, as the threshold is crossed into the coaching session.
  
• Ask: Where are you? Use images to explore the present. The move to the image and establish presence, rather than starting with a goal statement.
  

Consider this disguised case. Jim is Jo’s coach. They had met once in person for a session, now they are doing a follow-up phone coaching session. Jo is a little late for the call. After greetings, Jim asks:

“Is there something that happened that made you late? Is there something going on for you that might want to get out of the way before we move into our time together?” “No” she said.

In this exchange Jim had sensed some unknownns and did not want to move forward without evoking presence. Jim then asks,

“Relax and take a few deep breaths … Close your eyes if that feels comfortable.”

Then Jim slowly led Jo through a brief guided reflection:

“Ok, Jo, I want you to ask yourself ‘Where am I?’ and respond, silently to yourself, in terms of the four worlds: Physically where are you ... emotionally where are you ... where are your thoughts ... and, where are you in connection with the mystery of life."

In less than a minute she responded in each realm. Then Jim invited Jo to look at the set of Visual Explorer images they could both see on their computer screens. Jim asked the framing question:

“What is going on for you right now? Where are you?”

Jo picked two images, the fencer, and the cathedral. She described each image, then what it meant to her. Looking closely at these same images, Jim listened and asked questions to keep Jo focused on each image.

“I am feeling strong and courageous. The fencer is both out of focus, and focused. I am feeling both strong and vulnerable. Both graceful, and decisive.”

Jo went on to talk about her sense of “do not fear.” She described how she had recently begun looking at people with love and appreciations, and she could see the positive changes that had caused.

Now that Jo was able to describe where she is, Jim felt comfortable in approaching Jo to talk about where she wants to be going.

Table 1: Typical Objectives of Artful Coaching Practices

Objective	Description
Provide key leadership perspectives and abilities	Artful methods are a way to promote leader qualities such as vision, perspective taking, creative thinking and action, expression and communication, etc. “Business leaders have much more in common with artists ... and other creative thinkers ... . (Zaleznik, 1977).”
Engage the client as a creative, imaginative person	Many coaches encounter ambivalence towards creativity and imagination in the workplace, and choose to declare their support for these qualities in their clients, especially as tied to leadership and whole-life issues. Also many clients are “stuck” in some way, and VE can be used to get unstuck.
Help the client navigate turbulence and complexity	Metaphors, stories, and images provide ways of engaging the complex and often chaotic worlds the client is operating in. Data by itself is not enough for representing meaningful connections and patterns.
Build positive client-coach relationships	Artful methods potentially lead to a deeper rapport with the client. This is about being present, paying attention to, and resonating with a client’s language, environment, artifacts, and physical being. Mutual vulnerability and trust are served.
Supports positive development and whole person functioning	Coaching can shift from transactional to transformational, and one needs more resources to do this Artful methods work from inner recognition and integration, rather than a sense of “broken getting fixed.” Artful methods are seen as natural to whole people. “We as humans talk and think naturally in metaphors, stories, and images.”
Supports the coaches themselves	Many coaches claim to feel more engaged and authentic when using their artful approaches. Typically coaches have invented or adapted methods resonant with their own talents. Some organizations with coaching processes provide (in the words of one coach) “a specific template on the coaching relationship,” which some coaches find restrictive and narrow.
Brief or distance relationships with some coachees requires bolder methods	Artful coaching provides some ways to quickly connect and deepen reflection, presence, and shared meaning with clients. Distance coaching (i.e. telephone) can benefit from methods for creating shared imagery.

Table 2: Three Levels of Artful Coaching

Levels of Artful Coaching	A: Coach	B: Coachee	C: Coaching Encounter
Level 1: Attention (Entry) Initiation of relationship / Beginner as artful coach Supporting active perception by coach and coachee	Coach “reads” (pays careful attention to) the coachee, situation, and environment by listening and looking for stories, metaphors, images, artifacts, etc.	The client is supported in paying attention to (“reading”) self, relationships, and environment, using an expanding repertoire of senses and devices.	The context is one of rapport building. The environment provides opportunities for each party to pay attention. The notion of artistry is implicit rather then explicit, and involves attending to artifacts rather than creating art.
Level 2: Tool Use (Instrumental) Intermediate / Experimentation Using tools and media for the creation of meaning	The coach helps the coachee deliberately construct and shape various kinds of meaningful artifacts such as self-narratives, personal metaphors, scenarios, etc.	The client is actively constructing various kinds of representations and perspectives using any of a variety of media.	The encounter involves more explicit use of artistry. Artful tools and methods are at hand, and offered depending on readiness and need. An environment of shared sensemaking and reflection is provided or created.
Level 3: World Making (Mastery) Mastery / Integrated Artful Practice Remaking the relationship of self and world	The coach has a refined sensibility and philosophy for using artistic means in service of human transformation, including experience and competence in a variety of media and tools.	The client explores and develops his/her own competency as a world-maker or artist with respect to the transformation of self, relationships, and environments.	There is a sense of risk associated with exploring the unknown, and commitment to transformation. All creative resources are fair game for application toward further development.

REFERENCES:

Palus, C.J. (2006). Artful coaching. In Ting, S., & Scisco, P. (Eds.), The CCL Handbook of Coaching: A Guide for the Leader Coach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 259-285.

Palus, C.J., & Horth, D.M. (2005). Leading creatively: The art of making sense. Ivey Business Journal. September / October. Reprint # 9B05TE05. www.iveybusinessjournal.com

Palus, C. J. (2004). Artful coaching: An exploration of current one-on-one leader coaching practices. Proceedings of the Second International Coach Federation Coaching Research Symposium. 03 November, 2004, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

Note: The term Artful Coaching is used by the Adler School of Professional Coaching (www.adlercoachsw.com/pdf/artfulcoaching.pdf), and predates my use of the term. The meanings are compatible but I use it as an umbrella for a family of perspectives and practices, and the Adler School’s is a proper name of a course offering as well as a specific set of principles.