TL;DR “Too Long; Didn’t Read”

But I LOVE words!?! I prefer written instructions over YouTube videos, I read my news rather than watch it, and I love it when people use words that you don’t hear often, such as “copacetic.”  

In my role as an organizational change management (OCM) practitioner, I am also a word nerd. I love listening to people speak, especially leaders, and noting unique word choices or colorful phraseology that they use and incorporating those into key messages. However, as a professional, my verbal responses are sometimes indirect and wordy, and despite my ability to pull together a tight deck, my word-heavy presentations may not be best suited for those with a more visual communication style. 

As an OCM practitioner, communicator, and consultant, can I increase my effectiveness by keeping my words in check and incorporating more graphics, pictures, and visuals? Despite my word addiction, I reached out to Marcos Goldstein, Visual Storyteller and Change Maker at FosterWe, to find out: 

What role do pictures play in communication? 

Humans gravitate towards beauty. The effect of beauty is underestimated – colors, visuals, design, art – as humans we are all drawn to it and can be moved by it.  Art has power and we often lose sight of this in the corporate community. We’re moving fast, we have to get the right message out right now, and we obsess over the WORDS. We’ve all experienced the painful and often ineffective 100-version-communication because of endless wordsmithing!  Pictures provide a universal language. 

Why is visual storytelling effective? 

1. Pictures transcend boundaries and stakeholder groups 

A Change colleague of mine once rescued the failing communication efforts of a global transformation effort to their multi-lingual, multi-cultural audience by literally minimizing the use of words in their communication strategy and incorporating more visuals including attention grabbing memes.  

2. Pictures create a memorable experience 

Memory champion, Nelson Dellis, shares “My goal whenever I memorize something is to turn it into a mental picture in my mind…that’s because it’s much easier to remember a picture of something that you are familiar with than words relating to something new and difficult.”  

3. Pictures evoke an emotional response 

I have been encouraging my 11-year-old daughter to graduate from graphic novels to chapter books without pictures. She protests, “No Mom! I like the pictures. They take me right into the adventure!” 

Putting Pictures Into Practice 

Putting all of this together, a practical example of how pictures can be used in the corporate setting is to enhance the awareness and understanding of policies.

Policies are often shared in a text-heavy format that accomplishes little more than communicating, “Yes, we have that policy” to the dedicated reader who actually gets all of the way through the snooze-worthy document. 

By incorporating pictures and personas, we are able to begin to tell a story that not only conveys how the organization supports and values the outcomes of the underlying policy, but also does so in such a way that invokes an emotional response so that we will remember the policy.  

In this example, we introduce the Americans with Disabilities Act. We augment the required words with pictures of a gentleman, a man that you can relate to directly or through someone that you know.  

We see him, assisted by a wheelchair, productively working at his desk and actively collaborating with his colleagues. Through pictures, we are able to bring the policy to life and show that the organizations supports and values everyone’s contribution. 

The burning platform is that our lives are already overwhelmed with messages and the individual and collective attention span has got shorter and shorter. We are in a constant state of information fatigue. With our minds already full, more information, in the shape of more words, is not always the answer. As OCM practitioners, we need to rethink communication strategies to support our audience's holistic needs, striving to communicate what we need in the split second that we have their attention. 

The irony is not lost us that we just wrote 700 words to communicate this...  

This is part one of a two-part blog series focusing on the intersection of organizational change management and visual storytelling. 

• TL;DR “too long; didn’t read” 

• Use A Picture Instead of 1000 Words  

Contact ChangeStaffing to learn how our consultants can help tell your stories more visually, emotionally, and impactfully. 

A very special thanks Marcos Goldstein, beautiful Visual Storyteller and Change Maker at FosterWe, for his beautiful storytelling, thought leadership, and for collaborating with us on this blog. 

Imagery by FosterWe