Adapt diagrams to express concepts

Conveying data with diagrams – pie charts, flowcharts, etc. – is routine. Be innovative: use diagrams to convey concepts! Many people are visual learners; if you want them to follow your thinking, draw them a picture! The example opposite shows the comparative value of Talk vs. Action in a more poignant way than text on a slide. Go to Indexed to see how other concepts were distilled into a simple diagrams.

Below are (funny) concepts communicated with a Venn Diagram and a process map. Adapt almost any conventional business diagram or even simple shapes. Why use bullet points to describe what is inside/outside scope of work when you put a list inside/outside a circle? Caution: if a diagram feels forced or needs too much explanation, that’s a sign that your concept doesn’t lend itself to a visual.

When presenting, engage your audience in your diagram piece by piece: either draw it on a white board or build it in layers in PPT. As you go along, pause and ask questions e.g., “How do we get from here… to here?” Once you’ve created the whole picture, either leave it on the white board or provide a print-out – and point to it as the discussion progresses. People have a visual memory; they will recall what you said in context of where you were pointing.

Show how key concepts link together

A large financial organization once hired me to help them find new revenue  in their existing competencies. They didn’t want to “buy new oranges” – just “get more juice” out of those they already had. At the first briefing, I drew on flipchart what they told me about their existing services. The result looked like a floor plan with each service its own room. My client had never seen it this way before; it instantly triggered insights and ideas. I used it as a visual touchstone during all our idea sessions – I pointed to a room and asked, “How can we leverage the resources here?” – and we generated 22 new product ideas!

Another corporate client brought me in when the teams in her department were having trouble coming together to achieve an urgent goal. Using the three circles of a Venn Diagram, we captured the three main “points of value” all teams agreed they could apply to the goal. The intersection of the three circles represented the “concentrated value” the teams offered when they came together as a department. It became their focal point going forward.

To inspire your doodles, keep a library of interesting visuals – even if it’s humour – and browse it often. This is a tip I talk more about in Ignite ideas using a trigger library.

Show the progression of a concept from start to finish