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Deepening Strategic Visioning

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deciding which image to use to describe vision priorities

In a recent visioning session, long-time client Valerie used the ImageSet to help bring focus to a group of nurses who were getting stuck.

The nurses were trying hard to get away from their stock answers and needed something to spark some creativity and renew focus.

Using the VisualsSpeak tools, Valerie asked the nurses to think visually by selecting one or two images to represent their priorities.  Adding the physical element of getting up and gathering around the table to look at and chose images is a fantastic way to add additional tactile elements to the exercise.

They got up, moved around, engaged with one another and really embraced the experience.  This process lead to a much more in-depth discussion about what the priorities they were focusing on meant to them individually and as a group.

This is a common response.  Research shows that when you can get individuals physically engaged in a process you up the potentiality of new and deeper outcomes.  The physical coupled with the visual helps to bring new insights and fresh ideas to established patterns.

The nurses were struggling to come up with new ideas and meaning, the ImageSet broke the struggle and enhanced the process.  The visioning session was a success for Valerie and for her clients!

If you’d like to learn more about the ImageSet >>> Click Here!

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Can an Image Paint a Thousand Words?

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Here’s what’s interesting about the brain.  It relies on memories to develop our values and belief systems.

I had to think about that at first because my initial reaction was, don’t I decide what I believe?  Nope.  My brain has an active role in determining what I believe based on what I remember.  Of course then I get to filter that information. 

So the mind, what we think of as our conscious self relies quite heavily on what the brain is doing and lets face it, the brain doesn’t really have the best filing system in the world or I’d be able to remember the name of that movie, you know the one with that guy…

And that leads me to images.  Images are the place where our memories hang. 
If you don’t believe me then look at the word below:
 

 

Now, how do you feel? How many memories were immediately triggered?  Or did you have to think about what the word meant first? 

 

Now, look at the image below:

So, this time, how did you feel?  How many memories were immediately triggered?

With the word you probably got some ideas about what the word means and what it means to you.  But I’m betting you didn’t have an emotional reaction like you might have when you looked at the image.

Images are powerful.  Not only are they worth a thousand words, they are worth a whole host of emotions, values, beliefs, passions and more. 

This is what makes VisualsSpeak tools so effective.  When working with individuals or groups on big questions about innovation or leadership or teambuilding.  Nothing breaks through barriers quite as quickly as images do.  Images reach into the brain’s filing cabinet of memories and make connections we couldn’t make as well on our own.

If you want big breakthroughs with your clients, if you want successful sessions every time, give images an opportunity to shine.  You’ll be amazed at the results… we always are!

The ImageSet does it all – check it out! >> ImageSet

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Leadership as Art

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darknessI recently read an article, “Every Leader is an Artist” at the Harvard Business Review web site.  The article, written by Michael O’Malley, author of a book by the same name, makes the argument that great leaders are artists.  He compares the artist to the leader to show those similarities.

While I agree with O’Malley, it raises the question:   “How do we get leaders in business to see themselves as artists and, therefore, embrace art?”

It’s a big question.

Many in traditional leadership positions favor the “left-brained” way of thinking.  Spreadsheets filled with numbers certainly doesn’t feel like art.  On the surface most of the decision-making activities of a leader don’t feel like art.

But the interconnectedness of those numbers to real-world solutions is a form of art.  It takes not just analysis but the ability to see through the numbers to the bigger picture.  It isn’t just about one product or service but the implications of it’s existence in the marketplace.  It isn’t just about customer as consumer but customer as partner.

All those connections, some more abstract than others, reach far across both the left and right sides of our brains.  It is art.  It is analysis.  It is a combination of both.

So how do we get leaders to embrace art?

Is it in the ability of the artist to embrace analysis?

Is it in the joining of forces, the bringing together of both artist and business leader?

Where and how can we begin to create the threads that will bring them both together?

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Building Great Teams One Image at a Time

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What do pinterest, tumbler and facebook have in common with VisualsSpeak?

Images.  Visuals.  Pictures.

Over the last year, we’ve seen the popularity of visuals rise.  From Pinterest to infographics, images are everywhere.

The reason is simple.  Images are highly effective.

That’s what makes VisualsSpeak tools so powerful.

The ability to “paint a thousand words” in one image is one reason the human brain loves pictures.

One picture can convey years of meaning and memory.  When used in team-building efforts, images can be a powerful team-building tool.

Why Image Decks are So Powerful

Of course the primary reason the VisualsSpeak image decks are so powerful is that they are made up of images.  But, the decks aren’t just piles of images, the images themselves have been tested and vetted to make sure they get results.

In a team-building setting, images can cross all sorts of interpersonal communication boundaries between members of a group as well as shine light on all of the variations among group members.  But the images can also shed light on the similarities among a diversified group of team members.  Unveiling these often unnoticed similarities can create a more powerful group dynamic, creating a much healthier and more productive team.

Don’t Just Take Our Word For It

Here’s Lori Silverman’s story:

Lori Silverman is a builder. As a key leader of Portland State University’s Professional Development Center, Lori helps the university build new degree and certificate programs. And that means bringing teams, boards, and committees together. A lot.

So when it was time to put a new advisory panel together and set up a first meeting? Well, we’ll just let Lori tell you herself, in her own words:

“It was my first meeting with my advisory panel and on it’s way to a humdrum bother of a meeting for everyone until I decided to use VisualsSpeak. My biggest anxiety was giving up a full 90 minutes of a two hour meeting just to introduce

“In just 90 minutes I have the richest understanding of my new advisory panel’s ability to contribute, special attributes, natural leadership and group tendencies, willingness levels, commitment level, level of understanding of the program and most interesting to me – they have a genuine curiosity about each other – and a desire to work together in the future. Sometimes I have worked for months to glean that kind of knowledge on a team – and almost never got it.

“I have to admit that biting the bullet and committing 90 minutes of their first meeting to playing with images was risky – I didn’t know them well, and I felt like and they made me feel like I was asking a lot of them just to be there – but WOW. One of them had told me in advance that he would not be able to stay for the entire meeting – so when the meeting finished and I asked why he stayed – he said that he guessed it was a barometer for his interest in the meeting!

“I couldn’t have done that with my old agendas’ ‘Statement of Purpose, New Business, Yawn, yawn.’ Thanks to the team building tool, I think we have eliminated so much of the hidden agenda, anxiety, waste of time kinds of feelings on behalf of the group.”

You can learn more about the Team-Building tools here >>  Building Great Teams

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Unplugging at the Oregon Coast

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If you’ve been following our video series, you may want to know more about the Oregon Coast and why it makes for a great place to get unplugged.

Jalene and Christine talk a little bit about the Oregon Coast  in this last video.

If you haven’t checked out the Women Unplugged retreat page, please do, it gives all kinds of details about the retreat.  This is a one time opportunity to get Christine and Jalene together to help you unplug, get creative and have fun in a relaxing and restorative setting. 

 

 

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Connecting With Your Inner You

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If you are anything like me… you probably have some really cool projects and hobbies.  My office is filled with journals and sketch books, moleskines and pastels, watercolor paper and charcoal, photos and cameras, colored pens and pencils and yes, in the corner a guitar.

My partner’s desk is filled with electronic parts and little robots, drafting paper and sketch pads, catalogs and books.

Our creative endeavors are different to be sure, but the one thing they have in common… dust.

When I do think about working on “arting” up a photo or playing with some pastels the pile of invoices on my desk reminds me that I have bills to pay, inventory to buy, calls to make and, well, work to do.

The worst part is this, as long as I’m near my desk, 24 hours a day, weekends included – the work pulls me in and keeps me from those real pleasures.

We all need away time.  The closer we are to our work space the harder it is to get that away time.

Imagine a few days of reconnecting with your inner you… Having time to remember the stuff you really love to do and do it.  Maybe just reflecting on how to incorporate it more fully.  Maybe just figure out a way to make it a bigger part of the day.  And what about all those new ideas that you jot down and never get to?  What if you had time for those?

You do.  You can.  It’s what the Women Unplugged Retreat is all about.  It’s about connecting with you, the most important person around.

Join Christine and Jalene for a weekend of reconnecting you won’t forget.

Now… just to figure out how to get the guitar and pastels in the suitcase…

Let’s hear Christine and Jalene tell us more about the connection side of the Women Unplugged Retreat.

 

Remember:  Early bird registration ends August 31st.  
Click here for more info and to get registered.

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Everyone Is Creative

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In reading the new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer, I was struck by a story about an incurable brain disease.

And, like someone was trying to send me a message, the next day I listened to a Radiolab podcast with Jonah Lehrer as a guest talking about the same disease.

I was destined to write about it.

The Story

In brief, the stories in both the book and the podcast talk about a woman, “a brilliant biologist” who one day decides to quit her work as a biologist and, instead, become an artist… full-time.  Of course, her husband found it odd.  The biologist hadn’t studied art or trained or even had any experience, just a strong and sudden need to create.

She painted and painted and painted more, up to 10 hours a day in her studio.

She got better.  She began getting some high-profile commissions.  She began to get some gallery showing and had her work featured in exhibitions.  She painted for the next 15 years until she died of the very disease that unlocked her creativity.

Unlocking Creativity

It’s called frontotemporal dementia.  The disease destroys the prefrontal cortex.  According to Jonah, “As a result, nothing is repressed: the raw perceptions processed in the right temporal lobe of the cortex… are suddenly unleashed into the stream of consciousness.”

In the case of individuals with frontotemporal dementia, the disease creates an irreversible decline that starts with the need to… create.

What’s interesting is that we all experience, the shutting down of the prefrontal cortex, every night once we fall asleep.

Of course no one wants to shut down his or her prefrontal cortex just to create, but here’s the thing…

It debunks the long-lasting myth that only some people are creative and others are not.

Story after story about sufferers of frontotemporal dementia show regular non-artistic folks becoming highly creative and becoming good at it.

What Does this Mean?

Well from my perspective, it means everyone has the capacity to be creative.  That means you, me and all of the people we work with.

The idea that one must be creative to appreciate new things like using images to facilitate is simply wrong.

We all have the capacity to use creative tools, to enjoy creative things, to express creatively and to simply be creative.  The problem is suppression.

Once we practice suppressing self-expression and inhibit our impulses we stop those natural creative abilities. 

This means we need to be more active in the practice of letting ourselves go.  We need to make it safe to express.  We need to make it okay to let others express.  We need to be okay with expressing ourselves as well.

The next time someone says they aren’t creative or that they don’t understand creative things, tell them the story of the biologist turned accomplished painter.

Happy Visioning!

Check out the Radiolab podcast here.

Want to unlock your creative side?  Then join us for the Women Unplugged Retreat, you won’t want to miss this event!  Learn more about the retreat here >>>  Women Unplugged Retreat

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Plugging Into Your Creative Side

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One of the long time myths about creativity is this idea that creativity = art.  Not so.

Here’s another, only right-brained people are creative.  Also, not so.

Lefties and Righties are equally creative the only difference is the expression of that creativity.

That means that creativity is not all about art, many times it is about process.

The process of creating can be just about anything.  Of course it can be as obvious as writing, painting and composing music.

And yet there’s a forgotten side we many times overlook like just the act of throwing paint on paper no matter the outcome, maybe it’s a walk on the beach and reflecting, it could be meditation, yoga, running or journaling.  It doesn’t matter if there is a tangible outcome because what matters most is the process.  That is what leads to creativity and the practice of process can have huge implications on all those other things we do all day long that don’t feel creative.

Let’s hear Christine and Jalene talk about what creativity means to them:

 

 

 

 
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On Getting Unplugged and Reclaiming Yourself

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There aren’t many ways to truly unplug from the here and now which is why we long for it.

But it’s not just about getting away from work, responsibilities or life.

Unplugging has important implications.  In his book Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind, author Guy Claxton made popular the idea that most of our best “thinking” takes place in the unconscious mind.  And the unconscious mind has a hard time working unless we make an effort to slow down and unplug.

It is at the root of this idea where the Women Unplugged retreat hits the mark so powerfully.

In the below video, your retreat hosts, Christine Martell and Jalene Case talk about why they created Women Unplugged and what it means to them.

If you are looking to reconnect to your inner self, to rejuvenate your tired spirits or just want some time to remember what you love, the Women Unplugged retreat is for you. 

You’ll unplug from the here and now and plug into you.  The Women Unplugged retreat is about Relaxing, Remembering, Rejuvenating, Reconnecting and Restarting.  With the Pacific Ocean as your backdrop you’ll be refreshed and more importantly ready to restart!

Here’s Christine and Jalene:

 

 

 

 

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Building Better Client Engagement

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Leave the Deck Behind

Building Your Practice One Deck At A Time
 

Fear.

It’s one of the biggest barriers to growing a business, organization, team or department.  We want to keep much of what we know, our expertise, close to the vest. 

But failure to share means failure to expand and move beyond what exists right now into what could be.

Innovation and growth are the fruits of sharing what we know with others so that we can affect more people in more places.

You might be wondering why I’m bringing up this topic of fear.

It’s because I see the fear in the reluctance of facilitators, coaches, consultants, organizations, etc. to leave the deck behind.

VisualsSpeak tools are strategically designed to be left behind.  Whether you facilitate a group of 1 or 20 using individual decks for each participant, the deck is designed to be left with the participant.  And yet this practice rarely happens.

Busting the Myths

One reason is fear and it’s a big one.  You might be thinking a couple of different things like:

  • If I leave the deck behind they won’t need me anymore.
  • If I leave the deck behind they will know my secrets.
  • If I leave the deck behind I’ll be spending more money replacing them.

These few thoughts give you some insight into the fear we might feel about leaving part of our work behind.

But these are all myths.

A VisualsSpeak tool or deck is meaningless without you.  You know what to do and how to use the tools to elicit responses from the people using them.  On their own, users can certainly use the deck but it will not have the same impact or results in most cases because they are not trained like you are.

Your secrets are in your training, knowledge and experience.  Your secrets lie in the special abilities you bring to the sessions you facilitate.  Those can’t be replicated without you.

And finally, yes, you’ll have to buy more decks but the cost should always be written into the session prices you set, so the cost ultimately comes out of the client’s pocket and not yours.

Five Big Reasons to Leave the Deck Behind

So we’ve busted some of the myths surrounding leaving image decks behind with clients but what’s more important than that is why you should leave the deck behind.

There’s profit in those image decks!

Here’s why…

1.         Marketing, plain and simple.  Every time an image desk surfaces after you’ve left, the users are reminded of their session with you.  A deck left behind becomes a constant reminder of the benefits received when you brought the tool to the client.  The power of using the image tools is that they create lasting memories for participants; that means they remember you.

2.         The image decks you leave behind serve as your business card because they become great reminders of you and the work you’ve done with your clients.  Always make sure that you leave a business card in the box with the deck or affix it to the outside of the box.  Make sure when they pull that deck out they are reminded of you.

3.         As you know, VisualsSpeak tools are creative and fun.  Because clients enjoy and benefit from your use of the image decks, there will be a desire of clients to find more ways to use them.  When you leave a deck behind and clients start to use them, questions will surface.  That’s where you come in.  Make yourself available to answer questions, suggest uses and schedule new sessions.  Leaving the deck behind creates a reason for the client to call you, rather than you chasing the client.

4.         But image decks cost money!  Yes, and those costs should always be factored into your proposals and client costs.  In the event that your cost for a deck isn’t covered, remember this, the cost of an image deck is much cheaper than an entire marketing and advertising campaign which may or may not garner one new customer.

5.         Use the VisualsSpeak image decks as your own personal marketing and advertising campaign.  It is much cheaper over time to keep existing customers in the loop than it is to chase down new ones.  If you are working with the same clients over and over then you make the investment in leaving a deck behind only once.  From a business building marketing perspective, it’s a no brainer.

Build Your Business and Client-base

Remember, it’s easier to keep existing customers coming back for more than to pay the advertising costs required acquiring a new customer.

So the next time you use the VisualsSpeak tools consider them your calling card to better and longer-lasting client engagement and leave the deck behind.

Happy Visioning!

Individual Image Decks can be found in the Products area as Participant Sets and are available in the Exploring New Options set, Building Great Teams set and Developing Great Leaders set.

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