Picture Perfect: The Realm of Art and Imagery in Leadership and Change
Drawing and painting are powerful enablers to unlock either what is unconscious or what we are unwilling or unable to share verbally. In strategic sessions where a team is planning their future, particularly larger themes involving mission, value proposition, trends and forces at play, emotional state of the company, current and future customers, the leader could begin with facilitating a drawing session rather than a discussion alone in order to unearth deeper thoughts and emotions. This exercise could produce a richer and more honest conversation to follow. Of course, there is enormous value not only in viewing what people draw but asking them afterward, ‘Why did you draw that?’ In explaining their picture, the individual can then express their feelings and ideas that previously only dwelled under the surface.
A more challenging but potentially more rewarding exercise is to ask a team collectively to draw the future of the group, company, industry or market on one enormous sheet of paper. In this manner, colleagues must communicate dynamically with one another, constantly check in and sense check, collaborate with one person or cluster and then another, ‘yes…and’ people’s ideas, and simultaneously communicate thoughts and emotions on the page. The leader should be fairly hands-off except to remind people not to overthink what they draw or to be critical of their or their teammates’ outputs. If anyone is stuck and not creating anything, ask them just to start drawing anything, even if they have no idea what might emerge. They could even simply add colours or textures to an image that someone else has sketched. Responding to someone else’s contribution in the drawing is as valuable as inserting a brand new element. Inevitably, the vision and themes that manifest in a drawing of this communal nature are more ambitious than what the team would have envisioned merely in a conversation.
The facilitator of this collective drawing exercise can also conduct scenario planning in a similar manner. First, ask the group on one sheet of paper to draw their vision of the future together in whatever context of ‘the future’ is relevant. Then, put another sheet of paper alongside or perpendicular to the first and ask the group to draw another possibility based on a new input. For example, let’s say the team is drawing their company’s future ten years from today. After a short discussion of this work, the leader could put down a new sheet of paper that branches off from the part that illustrates their future customers and say, ‘Now draw our customers of the future in a world where people feel disengaged from social media.’ This is a valuable means to capture a collective view of different scenarios that can be faster than dialogue would yield and would certainly not get bogged down in disagreement, as the group simply has to keep drawing. If people disagree, then they each draw those different visions, and no one is curtailed unnecessarily.