Visual Leaders: New Tools for Visioning, Management, and Organization Change
By David Sibbet
4/5
()
About this ebook
Visual Leaders explores how leaders can support visioning and strategy formation, planning and management, and organizationchange through the application of visual meeting and visual team methodologies organization wide—literally "trans-forming" communications and people's sense of what is possible. It describes seven essential tools for visual leaders—mental models, visual meetings, graphic templates, decision theaters, roadmaps, Storymaps, and virtual visuals—and examples of methods for implementation throughout an organization.
- Written for all levels of leadership in organizations, from department heads through directors, heads of strategic business units, and "C" level executives
- Explores how communications has become interactive and graphic and how these tools can be used to shape direction and align people for implementation
- Brings tools, methods and frameworks to life with stories of real organizations modeling these practices
Visual Leaders answers the question of how design thinking and visual literacy can help to orient leaders to the complexity of contemporary organizations in the private, non-profit, and public sectors.
Read more from David Sibbet
Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Visual Teams: Graphic Tools for Commitment, Innovation, and High Performance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Visual Consulting: Designing and Leading Change Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Visual Leaders
Related ebooks
The Innovator's Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Service Design for Business: A Practical Guide to Optimizing the Customer Experience Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Secrets of Facilitation: The SMART Guide to Getting Results with Groups Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTen Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Design Thinking Playbook: Mindful Digital Transformation of Teams, Products, Services, Businesses and Ecosystems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Exceptional Presenter Goes Virtual: Lead Dynamic Online Meetings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Alchemy of Ideas: Design Thinking and Innovation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMake Virtual Meetings Matter: How to Turn Virtual Meetings from Status Updates to Remarkable Conversations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollaboration Design: A step-by-step guide to successful collaboration Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Draw a Better Business: The essential visual thinking toolkit to help your small business work better Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVisual Collaboration: A Powerful Toolkit for Improving Meetings, Projects, and Processes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVisuaLeadership: Leveraging the Power of Visual Thinking in Leadership and in Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation: What They Can't Teach You at Business or Design School Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Visual Strategy: Strategy Mapping for Public and Nonprofit Organizations Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Coaches, and Trainers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Design Thinking Meets Change Management Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQuestions Are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mapping Innovation (PB) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Remote-Friendly Icebreakers: Quick and Easy Warmups and Energizers for Better Meeting Mojo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Change Maker's Playbook: How to Seek, Seed and Scale Innovation in Any Company Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Change by Design, Revised and Updated: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Design For Strengths: Applying Design Thinking to Individual and Team Strengths Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Design Thinking for Business: A Handbook for Design Thinking in Wicked Systems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Workshop Book: From Individual Creativity to Group Action Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Little Booklet on Design Thinking: An Introduction Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Turning People into Teams: Rituals and Routines That Redesign How We Work Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Human Resources & Personnel Management For You
Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/52600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews: Ready-to-Use Words and Phrases That Really Get Results Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Third Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First-Time Manager Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Way of the Shepherd: Seven Secrets to Managing Productive People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leading the Unleadable: How to Manage Mavericks, Cynics, Divas, and Other Difficult People Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The New One Minute Manager Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Moved Your Cheese: For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else's Maze Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rocket Fuel (Review and Analysis of Wickman and Winter's Book) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ace Your SHRM Certification Exam: The OFFICIAL SHRM Study Guide for the SHRM-CP® and SHRM-SCP® Exams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Speed of Trust (Review and Analysis of Covey's Book) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Virtual Assistant Solution: Come up for Air, Offload the Work You Hate, and Focus on What You Do Best Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Game of Work: How to Enjoy Work as Much as Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeaders Eat Last (Review and Analysis of Sinek's Book) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Success Mindsets: Your Keys to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Performance Appraisal Phrase Book: The Best Words, Phrases, and Techniques for Performace Reviews Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Preparing for the SHRM-SCP® Exam: Workbook and Practice Questions from SHRM, 2022 Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe 9 Types of Leadership: Mastering the Art of People in the 21st Century Workplace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radical Focus SECOND EDITION: Achieving Your Goals with Objectives and Key Results Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Getting to Yes with Yourself: (and Other Worthy Opponents) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Executive Assistant : Exceptional Executive Office Management Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Workplace NeuroDiversity Rising Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for Visual Leaders
8 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strong on visual part, weaker on the leadership side. If this is your first book from the series then probably you could bump the rating to 4 out of 5. I've read Visual Meetings and skimmed Visual Teams before and the best parts of this book are largerly repeated from the previous ones. Somethimes they are covered in more detial or presented from a different (executive/managerial) angle, but still these are the same tools and the same examples (each of the books in this series uses exactly the same stories to show tools in action). The leadership aspect of the book sometimes feels forced or empty, as author needs to simplify many things, but occasionally it deliveres valuable advice. Print and paper quality is better than in Visual Meetings, so reading experience is nicer. Author starts to acknowlege digital and remote reality, but still many parts of the book feel dated - stories, technology, leadership and organizational models. However, the communication principles, visual tools, and psychology of transformational changes are as valid as ever. I'd recommend reading one book from the series - the core is the same in each, so it doesn't matter much which one - but not sure if Visual Leaders would be my top pick.
Book preview
Visual Leaders - David Sibbet
Part One: The Visual Leader Advantage
1: Seven Essential Tools This book begins by reviewing the most essential tools for visualization that a leader should have in his or her toolkit. Part Three will elaborate on these. This overview covers the use of metaphor and models, graphic facilitation, graphic templates, decision theaters, roadmaps, storymaps, video, and what you can do with virtual visualization.
2: Seeing Results in Action This chapter tells the story of visual leaders in a health-care organization who learned to use many of the essential tools indicated in this part. They were not skilled at drawing or experienced at visualization but got terrific results and moved to make visualization a standard way of working in their organization. The case is interleaved with practices you can use right away.
3: How to Run Visual Meetings This chapter covers what every manager should know about how to work with visual meetings and visual practitioners. Leaders set the norms for how everyone relates in meetings. There is creative room for shaping expectations and opportunities if you have a clear idea of what results you would like to achieve.
1. Seven Essential Tools
Metaphors & Models, Visual Meetings, Graphic Templates, Decision Rooms, Roadmaps, Storymaps, & Video
Have you ever set out to learn something new as an adult, say playing a sport or a musical instrument? You probably already know something about whatever you set out to learn, or you wouldn’t be attracted to it, but chances are, you didn’t learn the underlying discipline or practice enough to be masterful. If you are lucky, you will find a teacher who has experience and knows how to pick just the right foundation elements upon which you can build more proficiency. It’s a step-at-a-time process.
If you are young and immersed in visual media already, you’ll benefit from seeing what an experienced person like myself has found that works across a broad range of organizations and leaders. You can check to make sure your foundation skills are strong.
If you are more experienced, perhaps having learned to read your own form of sheet music
for leadership, you can look forward to broadening your repertoire by learning some of the underlying theory and practices that will allow you to improvise in different situations and different organizations.
Beginning with the Tried-and-True
In music, beginning simply and building step by step with the basic elements that every musician knows makes all the difference. The goal, if you are studying jazz, is to have freedom of improvisation. But interestingly, a good teacher will start with the constraint of learning basic melodies, keys, and chords rather than sheet music with all the notes. Sheet music doesn’t really teach you what the music is about, or encourage a wide range of possible variations. If you put basics first, in a short time your playing will jump to a whole new level. Visualization tools function just like the basic components of music. As with music you’ll learn specific melodies (strategies and practices) that sound great even in their more basic states. This is the approach we’ll take in regard to visual leadership. All the way along are stories that explain the music
and exercises that will teach you the basics. If you practice them as suggested in this book, you’ll literally see the results. Because this book is written for leaders and managers, I’ve included the basics on improving your visual IQ, as well as coaching and guiding your teams to work visually so they don’t necessarily rely on you to do it all. This chapter is for orientation, and then each tool will get its own chapter in Part Three. As you begin to get the basic ideas, we will improvise around the edges and you’ll hopefully get a sense of the larger world of visualization that awaits. It’s every bit as vast as music!
What Is a Visual Tool?
Tool
is clearly a metaphor. It’s used to indicate tangible things you can do to get desired results. Every tool is a product of some intention to do something. With repeated use, a tool will evolve and become refined. A good tool will have a central use but will also be usable for things other than it was intended. For instance, a good hammer could be used to prop open a door. In this book the metaphor of tool indicates any distinct, learnable process or practice that can be described and repeated to get an effect, such as the Four Flows framework on this page.
When thinking through all the tools a visual leader can use, it helps to understand the repeating challenges that a leader needs to meet, in any situation, at the broadest level. From the widest possible point of view, your challenge is to focus organizational awareness, support engagement of your people, clarify insights into the right things to be doing, and build ownership in projects and initiatives. A simple Goals of Leadership model is illustrated on the next page (an improvisation on Four Flows). The seven essential tools are ones you can use to meet these goals.
Appreciate that any generalization like this is for the sake of revealing the foundational elements, not all the variations, just as in the music. As you read this chapter let your own experience resonate with the examples and work out your own adaptation of this framework.
FOUR FLOWS THINKING
The Four Flows framework is a key tool for facilitators, but it also relates to leadership. You may have noticed the band of four shades of blue that run across the opening Parts pages of this and previous books. It is a graphic way of indicating the four ways humans make sense of things. In common terms we talk about spirit, soul, mind, and body. Carl Jung identified these as intuiting, feeling, thinking, and sensing modes of knowing. Here we call them attention, energy, information, and operations. All tools in leadership and management are aimed at handling these singly or in combination.
Cartoonists use 0-dimensional, 1-dimensional, 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional graphics to show the same idea.
Goals of Leadership
Ed Friedrichs, former chief executive officer of Gensler, a very successful, large architecture firm, says, Leaders focus on doing the right things and managers focus on doing things right. You need both in an organization, even though people often have leanings one way or the other.
This book is written for both, so keep both in mind as you look at the five goals illustrated on this page. At the most general level, leaders and managers focus on what needs to be done, with whom, in what time frames, and with what kind of quality.