Living Backwards

A new client said to me the other day, “I don’t want to always have to go where I’ve already been. I don’t want to live backwards."   Those last two words really caught my attention.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked her.

She explained, “I want to create my life here, build something here – a home, a life. I don’t want to go backwards to stuff I know, just to be comfortable.”

This struck me as something very profound and very brave. As we explored this idea more, we discovered that she didn’t mean you should get rid of traditions or not go to places where you feel at home. It had more to do with exploring the present.

She was in a new place. Not just a new city, but a new professional cross-roads. What was the city she lived in all about? What kind of job should she be pursuing in this new place? It was more about living in the present and not always reminiscing about the past or thinking about the future. It is important to be able to shift between these different planes of thinking and being, but it is easy to get stuck.

Change can be hard: emotionally, mentally, physically.


Getting Stuck in a Rut

One way we often cope is by trying to control the amount of change we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. We keep the same routines -- drink the same kind of coffee, keep the same hairstyle. We look for the familiar in the unfamiliar, basketball courts in Taipei instead of tea houses, for example.

However, this is one place we can get stuck. Once we find these familiar things, we can get caught in making things like they used to be. Before CHANGE happened everything was clear, simple – just right. It’s great I can just recreate it again, isn’t it?!

That’s what we call a bubble. It feels safe and protective, but it also keeps you from growing and developing new skills and insights. Perhaps this is what my client meant about “living backwards”.

Coping with Change

We can stay in our safe bubble. Or we can choose to grow - to take risks - to transform. Change is scary. It can be stressful. Change can feel like you are caught in a fast moving tide, and you are not sure where it’s going. You can’t see around the next turn, although you try to plan for it. It can be exciting, exhausting or - both.

One way to cope with change is to recognize it, and observe it. Pretend it is a tide you are in.  I like to imagine that instead of swimming against the current or surfing the waves that rush ahead, I am just floating. Gently rolling up and down with the tide, saving my energy for the big push to shore.



Which shore? I’ll know it when I see it – and so will you.

The Power of Using Images

I just returned from participating and presenting at the SIETAR USA (The International Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research - now you know why they use an acronym) 2009 Conference, in Cary, NC. 

VisualsSpeak: Using Images to Build Bridges

I felt really fortunate that the proposal committee was able to get my submission in, because I love this tool so much. The power of using images, once people play with them, speaks for itself. And not just any images, because there are a lot of people already using images from magazines, or postcards. The images in the VisualsSpeak (from here on out I will refer to the tool as: VS), were designed to evoke deep emotional response.

How it Works - in a nutshell

Brain research shows that the right side of the brain is linked to circular, intuitive, visual thinking - which is what we access when we use images. Adding words to describing the images then links in the left side of the brain, which is the literal, logical, linear part. Right + Left = you end up using the WHOLE BRAIN. That tends to make people really remember and begin to integrate learning.



Yup, they go deep, which is what we intended.

From 4,000 images, we narrowed it down to several hundred "types" of images, and then the photo shooting began. We looked for images that represented many universal truths, if you believe in such a thing. We looked for images that weren't simply representations of one thing. (And when I say "we" I'm really talking about Christine Martell and Tom Tiernan, the two owners of VS and about 6 of us who helped do some beta testing.)

Take this image - one of my favorites - for example.



What does it say to you? (I bet each person has a slightly different answer.)

My Session

My goal at the conference was to introduce VS to more people, to give them another tool that I think is fun and innovative.  I only had 90 minutes, but we managed to do an ice breaker (chose one image) and a collage activity. Everyone had 5 minutes to chose images around one of two questions:

1. What are my goals for the SIETAR USA 2009 Conference?

2. Who am I as a culture being?

The questions are the key to using the tool.  They provide the framework and help people focus and grab on to specific metaphors. (Remember, Right + Left =  Whole Brain.)

  

As you can see from the photos of the collages, it is important to have a non-patterned surface to work with, or a neutral background, otherwise the its hard to focus on the actual collage.

The carpeting in the room was especially problematic!

Other Sessions

Funny enough - I wasn't the only one using VS at the conference.



Marlo Goldstein of Adelante Services used it in her session called "(More than) Two sides to every story", looking at conflict management approaches and activities. Here's what Marlo says about VS:

"VisualsSpeak never fails to first captivate people with the beautiful and intriguing imagery. Then, they are immediately engaged in conversations that seem to go right to the heart of the matter. They find that the images really facilitate their own storytelling as well as their understanding of others. It is a great tool for my work in Conflict Management because it provides an 'in the moment' exercise around differing perspectives (which in real life can cause conflict) and conversations to build understanding across those differences."

Riikka Salonnen of Oregon Health and Science University also used it in her session: Food for Thought - Diversity, Inclusion, and Intercultural Development at OHSU. We used it to create a collage about creating excellent multicultural customer service - a topic I am keen to introduce in Germany.

Right + Left = What it's All About

Using images is certainly not the only way to access deep metaphors, or to connect cognitive learning to changing behavior - but in every situation that I've used VS, whether its with an individual client, a team, or across various cultures - it gets at significant issues in a fun and low risk way. People become attached to their images, and they become attached to the ideas that emerge from them.

If you're interested in how this visual cognitive thing works, try reading:

1. Visual Language: Global communication for the 21st century by R.E. Horn (1999)

2. Creative Brain by Ned Herrman

And if you are in Germany, I'll be presenting it again at the Sprachen & Beruf (Languages & Business) Conference in Düsseldorf, June 16th.

(Yup, this is me - busy pollinating those ideas - ones I hope will bloom into something beautiful!)