Author Archive

The Leadership Journey: A Picture Worth a Thousand Words, and Hours of Discussion

on January 13, 2012

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Leadership is a JourneyThey say that a picture is worth a thousand words. And that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And that leadership is not a destination . . . but a journey. I’m not exactly sure who “they” are, but regardless of who said what, there’s something moving and memorable about the power of a beautiful, colorful visual image like this one — and a simple, thought-provoking metaphor.

In my leadership workshops, as well as in the NYU graduate course I teach on “Transformational Leadership and Team Building,” we spend almost an hour discussing — and pretty much an entire semester referring back to — the single, powerful metaphor that we refer to as “The Leadership Journey.” “An hour on one simple picture? How can that be?” you might be wondering.

Gunsworthy12 people like this
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De Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats”: A Powerful Visual Thinking Method That Will Forever Change the Way You Think

on November 21, 2011

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Six Thinking HatsOf all the different management, leadership, communication, innovation, and thinking tools, tips and techniques that I’ve learned over the years, nothing has affected me more, or has had more practical applications, than Edward de Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats” model.

De Bono, the guru of “thinking about thinking,” originated this framework that I now use, either consciously or unconsciously, literally every single day. It’s one of the best examples of how we can use visual and metaphorical thinking and communicating to solve real-world challenges.

Gunsworthy22 people like this
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The Art of Napkin Sketching: A Simple, Powerful Way to Generate and Communicate Ideas

on October 24, 2011

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Southwest Airlines is born.Sitting in a San Antonio bar with a business partner in 1967, the entrepreneur Herb Kelleher grabbed a (now-legendary) cocktail napkin and sketched out a simple triangle while posing this question: What if we were to create a small, local airline that connected these three cities? With that sketch, the idea for Southwest Airlines was born.

The next time you are trying to generate ideas, brainstorm a solution, or explain a complex idea to someone, why not use a cocktail napkin — or a scrap of paper, or a flipchart or whiteboard — and sketch it out!

Even if you don’t think you can draw, it’s not about artistic ability . . . it’s about getting ideas out of your head and down on paper so they can be shared succinctly with someone else.

Once, a new coaching client of mine, a regional vice president at an international pharmaceuticals company, was wrestling with a costly, complex, and incredibly challenging business dilemma that had been distracting him and keeping him up at night for months.

On my first meeting with him, I solved his problem in less than five minutes –- simply by means of a napkin sketch.

It’s not that I’m so brilliant — in fact, I really didn’t fully understand all the complexities of his situation (that actually might have worked to my advantage) — and I can barely draw. But my napkin sketching ability saved the day.

Gunsworthy26 people like this
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Stand Out from the Crowd with a Visual Bio or Resume

on September 23, 2011

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We’d like to welcome Todd Cherches to the blog. As a co-founder of the BigBlueGumball training firm, he has a lot to say about ways to help your career through the power of visual thinking and learning. In his first post, he shows a simple tool you can create to help your job application break through the sea of text that floods hiring managers’ and recruiters’ in-boxes.

As we all know, the traditional resume is an important and essential part of the job search process — a way to efficiently tell your career history on a sheet of paper or two.

But after a hiring manager has sorted through thousands of resumes and interviewed hundreds of candidates, your text-based black and white resume can easily get lost in the crowd and buried in the pile (“I forget… who’s the guy who used to work for Disney and CBS?”).

This is why I recommend that you consider creating a visual bio or visual resume, a colorful, image-based version of your text resume. It’s a personal branding and marketing piece that you can take along on your interview, use as a visual roadmap to tell your story, and then leave behind. It will give you an opportunity to demonstrate your creativity and help you stand out from the crowd.

Gunsworthy30 people like this
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Product Management, User Experience, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Usability Testing

Project Management, Program Management, Production, Content Production

Animation, Art Direction, Creative Direction, Corporate Identity, Flash Design/Dev, Graphic Design, Web Design

Content Strategy, Editorial, Copywriting, Copy Editing, Research, Blog Outreach

Brand Management, Business Development, Sales, Product Marketing, Event/Conference Planning, Promotions, Marcomms, Corporate Comms, Direct Marketing, E-Marketing, Public Relations, Market Research

Account Management, Account/Brand Planning, Media Strategy, Communications Planning, Media Planning/Buying, Social Media, Search (SEM, SEO), Web Metrics & Analytics

Web Development, Front End Development

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