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.

“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™.

ASTD Honors CCL & CHP Partnership

The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) has awarded Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP) and the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) two Excellence in Practice Awards and a citation for our work on CHP's innovative Leadership Academy for executives and managers. The Leadership Academy received awards in both the Managing Change and Workplace Learning and Development categories, and a citation in the Organizational Learning category. See a summary of this work and it's outcomes at Story of Impact: Developing Next-Generation Leaders with an Action-Learning Approach.

CCL crafted fabric quilts as gifts to the graduating classes, using Visual Explorer images chosen by Leadership Academy participants to reflect their visions of leadership (special thanks to Susan Rice and quilt maker Mary Ellen Kranz). For more information contact Jon Abeles (CHP) and Patricia O'Connor (CCL). (See the 2003 class quilt at the top and bottom; click to enlarge.)

VE cards used in one-one-one interviews to assess an organization's leadership culture

Jon Abeles (Senior Vice President, Talent Management & Diversity) used the small-size Visual Explorer Cards during interviews and focus groups, with the goal of assessing the effectiveness of senior leaderhip within a region. In one-on-one interviews dealing with sensitive corporate issues, the cards help establish rapport at a deeper level. Jon then combined the images with notes from his interviews into a Powerpoint show for the feedback and discussion of the findings with the CEO and his leadership team. Here are some of his thoughts on this approach:

I used the small card deck for my personal interviews with the leadership team, the Board of Directors, and the Physicians. The goal of the assessment was to see how effective the senior leadership was. I liked using the poker sized deck with the individuals I met with 1 on 1. They were more personal, and easier to handle in a quick fashion. Leaders at this level and Board members do not want to be encumbered by size: the smaller the better. It was an intimate setting, and the poker-size cards worked well. There were enough cards. If there were more, it might have made the task a bit tougher for the participants, and would have reduced my time with them. There is great variety among the cards to get at any issue that I was interested in hearing about.

The cards were an excellent mediator of dialogue. This was a situation that was one of vulnerability for the leader, and also for subordinates and board as they disclosed sensitive persectives to me—a member of the Corporate entity. The cards helped break through this barrier, and were helpful in getting at the affective domain, as well as the cognitive domain when describing their circumstances.

Afterward, in a session with the President, I projected the images and personally read the related text about each image to the Divisional President. It took over 3 hours, and prompted great conversation.The cards will become as significant part of my tool bag. They were excellent, and really helped us with this audit.

Here are some excerpts from Jon's work, in the words and images of the people he interviewed:

Fire. This organization. This picture could signify a burning platform. Things need to be second guessed and transformed. Must burn out things that are history. We must pull together key people, examine key facts, and collectively come together to design the short term and the long term. Give this challenge back to the staff to solve. Don't cut your muscle. Expense reduction will not sustain us. Focus on growth and net revenue. We are in a defensive routine. ...

I'm trying to go in a direction. Don't know where the line will stop. Budget changes may affect our direction, depending on the day. … I feel that I am free falling, and wonder when it will be over. ...

The team that understands a crisis is at hand. Everyone is working together in what they have been trained to do to alleviate that situation. ...