Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity

Chapter 20. Training & Workshops: Leveraging Action Learning

During the 1990s I worked with a team to design a facilitation training program that ran worldwide within a huge consumer goods company. It focused on how to lead meetings, teams, and organization change in one three-day program. We organized the course around the Team Performance framework, explaining that teams are really the molecules of an organization, and meetings are mostly about supporting them getting results. Organization change was the work of creating an environment where the teams could thrive.

SUPPORTING WORKSHOPS WITH VISUALS

Here is a picture of a facilitation mastery workshop where we used large person outlines for introductions, journals for note taking, and digital cameras for documenting.

All the HR personnel and IT staff in this company eventually went through the program in Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. We succeeded in creating a program that within a couple years was conducted completely by internal staff and continues in an evolved way today. Visualization played a central part. An unexpected dividend is having this visual way of working migrating to many of the other programs this company conducted. The process was a great example of training trainers through experiential action learning.

Using Visuals in Learning-Oriented Workshops

Here is a list of the ways you can use visuals integrally ...