Stop Talking About Your Vision: Draw It
When I asked the Chief Executive about his vision for the organisation, I was in for five minutes of The Incomprehensible, that jargon-fuelled lingo with more bullet points than Full Metal Jacket that seems designed, in the listener’s ears, to bamboozle and exclude. “… And that’s really the DNA of our organisation” he said. It really was like DNA. You needed a doctorate to understand it.
Indeed, as a persistent doodler during any meeting, I had begun to draw what it felt like to me. Aiming for a one-thing-depends-too-much-on-the-next kind of spiral, I added a few dots, and presented the image to the webcam: “Like this?” I asked.
Thank goodness he laughed. And we got the contract.
But drawing your strategy or vision is far harder for most organisations than writing it. There’s no defence in the shape of fancy wordsmithing. It’s raw, and reveals the gaps between the moving parts of the company, school or studio.
That’s why many NoTosh Design Thinking sessions will, at some point, involve teaching our clients to draw. It’s as critical to thinking as speaking or writing well. When working with a group of kindergarten teachers, we often get a kind word that people enjoyed the process (and a niggle in the back of our heads that they didn’t quite get how serious this fun is).
But sketching has more value than lifting morale to avoid a mid-afternoon dip in a conference workshop.
We’ve been partners on a fascinating ongoing innovation development work with thyssenkrupp, the Innovation Garage:
Early on in the process, we did something that, even in our own planning, felt a bit facile, a bit “not serious enough”: we taught engineers how to draw (again). These world-class engineers otherwise live in a world where often Computer-Aided Design is the first go-to when you have an idea.
Starting from the humble post-it, and developing ideas into paper models, then 3D printed machines, allows proof of concept to be undertaken in a fraction of the time, with more feedback, earlier. The results not only save millions in the innovation process itself, but develop products worth millions more to the firm.
Tom Wujec has been one of the strongest advocates for visualising your ideas early on, and his own Draw Toast experiments, which you can do with your own teams, show how such a simple activity that we take for granted can be represented in so many — confused — ways:
So, try making toast, or learning to draw again with your whole leadership team. And then, in silence, maybe you’ll design a better vision and strategy than you’ve ever done before. And if you want someone to come and get your team drawing again, you know who to call…
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