Someone drew a shopping list for me today. Drew? Yes, exactly, in just an instant. I wasn’t aware he was capable of doing that. Nor had I ever seen him doing this before. The little chicken has been with me all afternoon. I find it refreshing to look at it. It gives me joy.

I work a lot with illustrations and images. Not all are done by coachees or workshop participants themselves. But some are. 

In an organizational re-structuring process, I encouraged the middle management to find easy and concise ways of conveying the content they had worked on to their staff. So one of them drew a series of pictograms. Everyone loved them! His team was surprised - and proud. And he clearly enjoyed being visible in his leadership position from a completely different angle.

I use scribbles when coaching speakers for presentations, as well. One for every paragraph. Being reduced and condensed in the process, they then provide a red thread through the presentation. No more notes needed. I had a young guy give a speech on tokenization when this was still something novel. Not an easy subject. He was nervous, so he forgot the clicker for his powerpoint presentation, but he still gave a memorable speech, because he had memorized the scribbles.

People are often very shy about their creative potential. But most of us have scribbled little things in their maths exercise book, right? It’s a good way to practice, and a powerful means of explaining things. Because, before I can put a thought into a single picture, I have to think about it and find the essence. That’s why.