Visual Leaders

What Visual Meetings did for meetings and Visual Teams did for teams, this book does for leaders

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.

Introduction Tracking a Visual Revolution xiii

Part One: The Visual Leadership Advantage

1. Seven Essential Tools / Metaphors & Models, Visual Meetings, Graphic Templates, Decision Rooms, Roadmaps, Storymaps, & Video 3

2. Seeing Results in Action / Why Leaders Get Visual 11

3. How to Run Visual Meetings / What Every Manager Should Know 33

Part Two: Looking At Your Own Leadership

4. What Is Your “Operating System”? / The Power (& Peril) of Mental Models 51

5. What Kind of Organization Do You Lead? / Linking Tools to Stages of Development 61

6. Developing Your Visual IQ / How Visualizing Makes You Smarter 73

Part Three: Power Tools for Visual Leaders

7. Metaphors & Models / Helping People See What You Mean 91

8. Visual Meetings / Stimulating Engagement & Creative Contribution 107

9. Graphic Templates / Visuals for Any Kind of Planning 115

10. Decision Rooms / Making Choices in a Big Picture Context 129

11. Roadmaps & Visual Plans / Managing Milestones & Swim Lanes 139

12. Graphic Storymaps / Connecting Plans with Culture 147

13. Video & Virtual Visuals / Mobile Video, Tablets, Animation, & Panoramic Display 157

Part Four: Managing the New Media

14. Technology & Visualization / Enabling the Right Tools 171

15. Virtual Leadership / Communicating with Intention & Impact 181

Part Five: Leading Organization Change

16. Anticipating the Need to Change / Putting Visual Tools to Work 193

17. The Chrysalis Effect / Creating the Conditions for Transformation 205

Part Six: Links, Books, & Other Resources

18. Websites & Bibliography 215

Appendix / About Arthur M. Young 223

Index 224

David Sibbet is a world leader in visual facilitation and visual thinking for groups. He is the founder and president of The Grove Consultants International, a company whose leading edge group-process tools and services for panoramic visualization, graphic facilitation, team leadership, and organizational transformation are used by consultants and organizations around the world. Sibbet was the visual cartographer for the 2008 TED conference. Also in 2008, he received the OD Network Member Award for Creative Contribution to the field of organizational development.

Access the visualization Revolution!

Leaders and managers are immersed in new, dynamic media that need to be shaped and guided. Building on the bestsellers Visual Meeting and Visual Teams, Visual Leaders shows how leaders can take full advantage of the visualization revolution. It introduces the Sibbert/Le Saget Sustainable Organizations Model for thinking about the kind of organization you need to lead or change. Seven essential tools will help you raise your organization’s visual IQ and vastly improve understanding and engagement across your organization. Case studies show how visual leaders work with visual practitioners to align entire organizations on new plans. The book is full of examples of visual communications and formats. It include overviews and insights about how to use new digital media and shows the direct link between metaphors, mental models, and the strategies used to communicate across whole organizations.