Category Archives: visual tools

Simple pictures for complicated situations

“Solving problems and selling ideas with pictures.”

That’s the subtitle of Dan Roam’s best-selling business book, The Back of the Napkin. Wait, did you say business book? That sounds like a pretty “lite” title for a business book. Well, a book doesn’t have to be ponderous or dense to be useful. In fact, the more accessible, the more likely the ideas will be considered and adopted. Dan’s book is clear and well-organized, teaching how to use visual thinking to analyze business problems and communicate clearly about them.
Political issues rarely get this kind of treatment. Buzz words and emotion rule, with little rational analysis or explanation for the average citizen. Dan and a doctor decided to provide some perspective on the current health care reform debate. He posted a 4-part presentation on his blog, using simple hand drawings, to explain the factors involved, the types of proposals being considered, and how individuals will be affected under each. It was such a breath of fresh air that Fox News had him go through some of it on-air, and Business Week magazine and Slideshare.net named it the best presentation of 2009 in a recent contest.
Another example of the power of a simple drawing is the “rich picture.” I learned about these a few years ago. Last week, Dave Lash turned me on to a useful diagramming tutorial site which is part of a university-level systems thinking curriculum. For 6 different diagram types, self-paced Flash movies explain when each is most useful and how to draw them. Transcripts of the narration are also provided.

A rich picture is a sort of hand-drawn info-graphic, used in the very early stages of an analysis to explore the issue and surface assumptions. This diagram examines a controversial situation in England a few years ago. Here are some comments on the diagram by its creator, from the accompanying transcript (I’ve emphasized some points that make rich pictures so valuable, in my view):
I don’t think rich pictures can be used to depict everything in a problem situation, I think they are devices for some kind of discrimination – you are actually saying what you think are the important issues, and you have to decide on what’s important according to the purpose the rich picture is being constructed for, for a particular problem situation.

In this case my purpose was just to try and gain a general understanding about the miners’ situation.

It can be used as a personal device, so you can explore your own understanding. When you begin to put symbols down on paper and to draw the rich picture, you begin to question your own understanding and it can throw up questions for yourself about what you understand and what you don’t understand. It begins to put some structure on the problem situation from your own personal perspective.

It’s probably got a number of faults in it, and I think that’s one of the strengths of a rich picture. It makes you begin to declare assumptions, and because you are declaring and discussing those assumptions, they can be challenged by other people. So your understanding of the situation can be explored, challenged and modified by the debate that ensues. The power of a rich picture is that it provokes that kind of debate, there’s a bit of visual interest there that can spark off thought, you can visit the rich picture randomly, you can move around on it which is stimulating for debate in itself.
I haven’t had a chance to go through all the diagram tutorials in detail yet, because I’m preparing a presentation for the next Elephant Egg night. (In developing this presentation, I’m experimenting with the methodologies of Cliff Atkinson and Andrew Abela, who have both recently published excellent books aimed at helping people communicate more clearly in presentations.) If you’re on Maui, you might enjoy stopping by Moana Cafe on Thursday, October 22 at 6:30 for an evening of serendipity and new ideas!

What is your definition of success?

We chase it, usually unconsciously, all of our lives. If we stop to think about it, we may define it in terms of career achievements, or luxurious possessions, or talented children. Usually, one aspect will dominate at any one time, then some event will bring another area into focus, perhaps health or family. To me, it is multifaceted, with the whole adding up to an overall feeling of peace of mind, contentment or satisfaction. I once defined it for myself in nine elements, which I depicted in a circular, mandala arrangement, with colorful images and evocative fonts. Later, I came across other definitions with eight elements which map almost exactly to the nine I had defined. Last week, I created two sheets which can be printed out and filled in by anyone wanting to explore their own definition of success.

You can use the “Wheel of Life” to define your idea of success in eight areas of your life, and rate how your current situation compares to your ideal. This may provoke some ideas to change in some areas to better align your life with your goals. Sometimes it only takes a small change to make a big difference, and just being aware of the mismatch or desire provides all the motivation necessary to make the change.

The “Table of Life” uses the same eight areas as the Wheel of Life, and can be useful for evaluating a proposed major change, such as a career move or geographical move, to see how it might impact all areas of your life. This allows you to “try on” the change, and can give you a better feeling for whether it’s a good idea for you in the long run. I used this approach once when I felt my life felt out of balance, and I was considering options for improving it. Enumerating the impact in each area supported my gut feeling about why the change made sense.

Using tools like these is effective because they involve your head and your heart, engaging both logic and intuition. The whimsical images encourage a light-hearted, fun approach, which is a productive state of mind for exploring options. The structure ensures that all areas are addressed, and provides space for exploring the answers in your heart.

The eight areas of life used in these tools are:

  1. Career, life purpose
  2. Money
  3. Health
  4. Family and friends
  5. Romance and intimacy
  6. Personal growth, spiritual alignment
  7. Fun and recreation
  8. Physical environment

(When I decided to write about this topic, I remembered a poetic definition of success attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. When I investigated, to see if I wanted to tie it in here, I found that it was actually most likely written by a woman named Bessie Stanley for a magazine or newspaper contest. There are theories about how it became associated with Emerson, but no one knows for sure. There is an interesting investigation of the topic, with several versions and theories, here. There’s a humorous take on the evolution of what defines success in various stages of life at the bottom of the page.)