Visual Explorer Facilitator's Guide

Charles J. Palus, David Magellan Horth

• Publisher: Center for Creative Leadership Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781604910841
• eBook ISBN: 9781604918298
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Group dialogue can be difficult for any number of reasons, such as hidden conflict, power differentials among group members, an unclear idea of the problem the group faces, and group or organizational norms that make some topics off limits. Visual Explorer uses images to facilitate conversations, creating new perspectives and shared understanding. The tool consists of 216 images, available in letter-size (USA), postcard-size, and playing-card-size formats, and this facilitator's guide. A team leader or member can, with the benefit of this facilitator's guide and a little practice, guide groups through a Visual Explorer session to remarkable outcomes. Visual Explorer's original applications focused on groups of managers and leaders in organizational settings, but it has been used effectively in a wide variety of settings-for example, in education (preschool through adult), in marketing focus groups, and in one-on-one coaching. This facilitator's guide describes a number of those alternative methods and applications.

Visual Explorer Applications

In this section, we introduce a variety of specific ways in which Visual Explorer can be applied. Visual Explorer has a powerful versatility that allows facilitators to generate creative conversations, to precipitate appreciative inquiry, to foster collaborative dialogue, and to develop leadership capacity. It has been used extensively in one-on-one coaching, and even as a personal reflection tool.

Each application treatment begins with a short introduction to the use of Visual Explorer in that specific context. We list benefits to using Visual Explorer in that way. To encourage further experiments using Visual Explorer, we also describe related applications. What we call Facing Complex Challenges, for example, is related to Creative Problem Solving and to Visioning. Facilitators can cross-pollinate applications to customize and invent their own scenarios for the use of Visual Explorer. We encourage you to share your ideas and experiences with us (send to [email protected]) for posting, with your permission, on the Visual Explorer blog—you can find the URL in this guide's References and Resources section.

Further, we provide instructions for facilitating a Visual Explorer session in each particular context, and we provide an example of the application in action. Finally, we provide a list of additional resources that can help facilitators think more deeply about and act with greater purpose and precision in regard to each application. Full bibliographic information for the additional application resources is located in this guide's References and Resources pages.

Benefits of This Application

• Provokes new questions
• Generates alternatives
• Builds direction, alignment, and commitment
• Builds on ideas
• Articulates what has been unspoken or is undiscussable
• Encourages fun, playful, yet serious dialogue
• Taps into personal experiences and passions
• Draws careful attention to details and to the big picture
• Makes abstract conversations tangible
• Helps frame and illustrate thoughts so they can be shared
• Surfaces individual and group assumptions
• Bridges different contexts and cultures
• Creates new metaphors
• Helps individuals and groups get unstuck

APPLICATION: ENABLING DIALOGUE

Dialogue is a skilled conversation that invites shared meaning-making and deeper inquiry. By putting images in the middle of a dialogue, Visual Explorer helps groups surface and explore assumptions and perspectives, so that they can be more collaborative, innovative, and effective in the longer term. “Slowing down now to speed up later” is a key proposition of dialogue. Visual Explorer supports dialogue by providing a safe and reliable way for people to constructively apply their emotions, intuitions, opinions, insights, and personal experiences in service of the challenges at hand.

Facilitation

In using Visual Explorer to generate dialogue, the basic instructions in this guide for a typical Visual Explorer session apply. Facilitators should note the following points if serious, long-term dialogue is a goal of the group.

• Prior experience with Visual Explorer is helpful.
• Skill in facilitating dialogue is necessary if the conditions for talking at this level of engagement are difficult or risky.
• Dialogue is a process that occurs over time and can't be limited to an hour-long session. What happens before and after the Visual Explorer session will determine the quality of the long-term relationships among the participants. For this reason, a basic level of trust must be present. Facilitators can design follow-on activities to take advantage of deepening trust and relationships.
• Do not shortcut the sharing of images during the Visual Explorer session if dialogue is the goal. Paying careful attention to the images each person selects—from his or her perspective and from the perspective of others—can move the participants past superficial interactions.
• Visual Explorer can surface strong emotions and powerful insights, and it can shine a light on topics assumed to be off limits. The facilitator should allow for enough time, for a safe space, and for adequate exploration and follow-up to do justice to the powerful experience created for at least some of the participants.
• The right-brain (visual, nonverbal, intuitive) aspects of Visual Explorer are very helpful to dialogue. Emphasize not talking during the browsing, play instrumental music, and allow time for the right-brain thought processes to kick in. Encourage people to slow down and pay attention to the details of the images—not thinking about the challenge at first, but just looking at the images themselves. Journaling and reflecting also support right-brain cognition.

Related Applications

Dialogue is the foundational application of Visual Explorer, and the basis for the other applications. While it is true that Visual Explorer can be used in many other ways, it is the potential for deeper levels of engagement that makes Visual Explorer such an effective tool. The dialogue pointers in this section thus have value for all the other applications.

Example of This Application in Action

The senior leadership team at Angstrom Inc., a telecommunications company, met one weekend to think about business strategy in the face of significant challenges. The team talked with a number of invited experts, who presented their views of a rapidly changing telecom industry. After the experts had their say, the team wanted a deeper dialogue to make shared sense of what they had just heard. Visual Explorer was used to help the team reflect amid this flood of information. The Visual Explorer session focused on this framing question: “What stands out above all else from this morning's presentations, and why?”

The team broke into groups of three or four. Each group shared its images among its members and generated plenty of insights. The Visual Explorer session began a cycle of dialogue that ran throughout the day and that the team used to imagine the company's future. For example, one team member, John, selected a picture of a person ice-fishing (see Figure 5). John used the image to describe the simplicity and the demands of fishing. Angstrom is a high-tech business, yet for John, the work came down to certain basics: patience, focus, and a bit of suffering. John's small group noticed in his picture the wooden stick and simple metal tool lying on the ice and tried to determine what those represented in Angstrom's business. They noticed that the person in the picture was alone, and they wondered why.

Figure 5. One participant reads simplicity in this image.
Photographs provided by Getty Images, Inc., ©2004. All Rights Reserved.

Additional Resources for This Application

Bohm. On Dialogue.

Dixon. Perspectives on Dialogue.

Dixon. Dialogue at Work.

Ernst & Yip. “Boundary Spanning Leadership.”

Isaacs. “Basic Components of a Dialogue Session.”

Kahane. Solving Tough Problems.

McGuire & Palus. “Using Dialogue as a Tool for Better Leadership.”

McGuire & Rhodes. Transforming Your Leadership Culture.

Palus & Drath. “Putting Something in the Middle.”

Palus & Horth. The Leader's Edge.

Schrage. Serious Play.

Schwartz. The Art of the Long View.

Vogt, Brown, & Isaacs. The Art of Powerful Questions.

Another team member, Mary, chose an image of a rock climber (see Figure 6). She talked about the exhilaration and fear she experienced working at Angstrom. Another member of her group noticed that Mary held the image upside down—the trees in the distance belonged at the bottom. The conversation shifted to examine perspectives, and the group began a dialogue about what might happen if certain key assumptions that Angstrom held were inverted.

Figure 6. Exhilaration and fear combine in another participant's image. Photographs provided by Getty Images, Inc., ©2004. All Rights Reserved.

Benefits of This Application

• Draws careful attention to details and to the big picture
• Surfaces individual and group assumptions
• Bridges different contexts and cultures
• Creates new metaphors
• Builds direction, alignment, and commitment
• Helps individuals and groups get unstuck
• Calls forth artistry
• Enables a shared understanding that helps in establishing a vision, making decisions, creating action steps, and picturing impacts
• Surfaces, engages, and transcends emotional undercurrents

APPLICATION: FACING COMPLEX CHALLENGES

Complex challenges sprawl in many directions, across many territories. It's ha...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Visual Explorer Quick Guide
• Contents
• Introduction
• Using Visual Explorer
• Preparing for Visual Explorer
• Conducting a Visual Explorer Session
• Visual Explorer Applications
• References and Resources
• Visual Explorer Worksheet
• Frequently Asked Questions
• About the Authors
• Contact Information