Apr 21, 2017

Apr 21, 2017h in Cognition & Communications, Collaboration Strategies, Contribution to the Field, Graphic Facilitation, Mental Models, Online Tools, Personal Development, Social Change, Transformational Leadership, Visualizing by

I’m writing to share about a wonderful collaboration with Alan Briskin and Amy Lenzo creating a new “gyrocompass” image for their on-line, six session series on Activating Collective Wisdom, launching this June. The Five Practices of Collective Wisdom is a distillation of work Alan Briskin has been doing over many years on the subject. How this image came to be is a wonderful story of emergent creativity.

Some Context

Gyrocompassv5The collaboration began in Germany last year at the Leading as Sacred Practice (LASP) Retreat held at the Beuerhof Farm in the Vulcan Eifel region of Germany East of Cologne. Alan presented about these five practices and led a rich inquiry into what is deep listening, as well as how to suspend certainty, welcome emergence, keep the whole system in mind and prepare for the extraordinary when working with groups. I graphically recorded the session. Read more…

Aug 04, 2016

Aug 04, 2016h in Cognition & Communications, Graphic Facilitation, Leading Change, Organization Development, Visual Leadership books by

I am preparing to write a new book called Visual Consulting: Designing & Leading Change, potentially as a fourth in the Wiley visual leadership series. This one will be co-authored by The Grove’s VP of Global Learning, Gisela Wendling, Ph.D., an expert on personal and organizational transformation. It seems right that after so many changes in our own lives, that we focus now on our learning about change, and engage the exploding global network of visual practitioners about how to become skilled consultants with this orientation. Our leading of The Grove’s new Designing & Leading Change workshop the past two years is fueling this new project.

WileySeriesCovers - Preparing to Write—Visual Consulting

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Jun 11, 2015

Jun 11, 2015h in Cognition & Communications, Graphic Facilitation, Leading Change, Mental Models, Organization Development, Visualizing by

I’m just back from Amsterdam doing some workshops with our Grove partners, Business Models, Inc. Gisela Wendling, The Grove’s Director of Global Learning, and I conducted a public workshop on Visualizing Change for 25 consultants and an internal workshop on Mental Models & Mindsets for BMI as the kickoff to their International Week. I want to share this experience of teaching systems thinking through drawing practice, which echoed my first meeting with Patrick Van Der Pijl, BMI’s founder, at a VizThink conference in Berlin 3-4 years ago.
MentalModelsChart - Business Models & Mental Models

 

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Feb 08, 2015

Feb 08, 2015h in Collaboration Strategies, Graphic Facilitation, Leading Change, Organization Development, Systems Theory, Visualizing by

'75EarlySibbetPhoto - What's the Future of the Visual Facilitation Field?Recently I was interviewed by a bright, young reporter from Communication Arts about The Grove’s work in visual facilitation. “I’m talking to a lot of different people and really wanted to talk with you, an acknowledged leader in this field,” she said. “I want to get to some of the underlying theory and structure of what is happening.”

This opening triggered an immediate cascade of memories back to the 1970s when Interaction Associates, Geoff Ball, Fred Lakin, and I were on fire about Group Graphics, the future of technology, facilitation, and organizations. After all, we were in the curl of the massive wave of rethinking that all of my generation was doing about established institutions. Why not take on knowledge work and how we know what we know?

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