Bernie Saboe is a performance consultant with Raytheon Professional Services LLC (RPS). RPS is a global leader in learning services and training outsourcing. They help businesses meet their critical objectives by designing, implementing and managing efficient training solutions that align employees, customers and partners with business goals.
Bernie Saboe facilitates global executive leadership learning and innovative strategic workshops. The creator of the InnovationStation ExperienceSM, he challenges business leaders to explore alternative solutions to emergent problems using visual and creative thinking techniques, enabling teams to discover imaginative business and learning solutions that were once out of reach. To learn more about RPS and Bernie’s experiences, visit www.rps-pc.com. To hear a podcast or learn more visit www.raytheon.com/businesses/other/rps/capabilities/index.html
Q. Bernie, could you share one book with our readers that has influenced the way you approach training & development?
Recommended by Raytheon's Consultant, Bernie Saboe
The Back of the Napkin, by Dan Roam. I was given his book by a colleague who said it was a ‘must read’ for visual thinkers. I opened the book for the first time on a transatlantic flight (where there was no shortage of cocktail napkins) and by the time I read the 3rd chapter, I had already drawn some stick figures on the back of a napkin.
When I got back to my office I scanned the napkin and sent it off to the author. I met Dan Roam at the VizThink Conference in San Jose, CA last year and shared my ideas for integrating concepts from his book into the InnovationStation Experience. At the book signing, not only was he pleased to see the connection, he asked me for an autograph—on a napkin. You can see his great stuff on www.digitalroam.com
Q. Dan sounds like a great guy! After reading the book, what was the big takeaway for you?
The Back of the Napkin provides visual thinking methods missing from much of today’s learning environment. The ability to quickly illustrate complex concepts in a simple drawing that allows other people to “get it.” The process for visual thinking focuses on the way we look, see, imagine and show.
Q. Have you had the chance to apply some of these new-found processes to any real-life training work?
I have applied some of the principles from the Back of the Napkin in the InnovationStation Experience. Participants convert their thoughts and ideas into pictures in a way that others can understand, appreciate and build upon. Storytelling through pictures provides the context for new awareness and discovery.
Some examples, courtesy of Bernie
Dan Roam’s book does a great job at helping us look at the world around us. Looking is collecting and screening the inputs. How we interpret or see this world is shaped by our ability to filter and sift the information. Seeking patterns and relationships to make conclusions or decisions about what we see. Imagining allows to us see what is not there, and it’s the key component in RPS’ InnovationStation Experience so it and The Back of the Napkin dovetail nicely. Lastly, showing helps make the idea clear to myself and others.
After reading the book, I redesigned the learning objectives for InnovationStation Experience to apply Roam’s six ways of seeing: who/what, how many, where, when, how and why?
Using basic drawing skills, participants describe the problem or opportunity that faces them in an illustration, answering these six ways of seeing. This exercise accomplished a few objectives:
- Allows people to become playful with their ideas, crafting pictures instead of a written thesis.
- Puts the issues in context using proximity, size and shape to emphasize the key points by directing the eye to focus on specific elements.
- Enables participants to ‘tell the story’ behind the pictures with greater emotional and intellectual connection to the topic.
- Prepares them for the next step in the InnovationStation Experience, creating storyboards to describe the sequence of a visionary future state.
If you would like to share your ideas on visual thinking or learn more about my InnovationStation Experiences feel free to contact me: Bernie(at)raytheon.com
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