The Power of Pictures

Whoever coined the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” was not in the business world. If they were they might have rephrased it to be, “a picture is probably worth 250 words, maybe, if you use it right.” Here’s what I mean by that. A picture in the business world won’t tell your whole story and often can’t stand fully alone but they can help get your audience there and it is priceless in selling your idea.

Without a picture the audience is left to read countless bullets, or worse paragraphs, and will be left to their own devices to create a mental picture on their own - just like you do in every meeting, we all do! If you have more than one member in your audience, which the majority of time you will, then each member will create their own picture which subsequently creates endless paths for your model, thus skewing your desired end result options. If you provide a picture for them from the start, you’ve done the majority of the work for them and allow them to focus their mental energy on the true topic – what you really need them to understand – your punchline.

So how do you get there? Like anything, there is a spectrum. But let’s be clear from the start: I’m not saying that only designers for Apple or marketers for Chick-fil-A can create telling stories with pictures and their designs. Nor am I saying stick figure diagrams can’t serve a valuable purpose to paint your picture. The ends of the spectrum are valuable but for now let’s talk about living in the middle of the spectrum.

“a picture is probably worth 250 words, maybe, if you use it right”

I’ve set up three principles that can help anyone become better at telling their story with pictures:

1. Draw your story or product first on paper or a white board
2. Thinking directional flows, the way you imagine it being executed or utilized
3. Compare and contrast current and future states

Drawing your story first outside a computer

Most of us spend our entire working days on computers and without noticing it we can be framed in by them. By taking time on a sheet of paper or white board to visually display your story you provide yourself a way to hash out the actual product through another medium. You’ll likely find that you naturally use pictures or icons that help, or how you leverage foundational systems or teams throughout, and you may end up seeing major flaws or benefits not otherwise known. These mapping sessions can lead to a one-pager, executive summary, or even one picture that compliments your story. “When I mapped this out I realized we can really leverage our current team X in this way to improve our performance, looking at the picture here you’ll see how.”

Think in Directional Flows

Without bringing Stephen Hawking into the discussion, let’s agree that human beings live within a time spectrum. Because of this we can’t help but think in linear, progressive time frames. So let’s leverage that and show direction in our story, product, idea, or solution and how they work over time. Execution is key to success and actually showing that execution in a flow chart, icon progression, or visual picture, can mentally walk your audience through the future in ways that words alone fail to do. “Walk with me through this member journey as we see how introducing touch points at X and Y will change the way our members utilize services.”

each member will create their own picture which subsequently creates endless paths for your model

Current and Future States

Every executive wants to know, “what’s different than what we do now,” or “what is the value add to your request,” or even “why should we do this?” These are great questions that allow them to shape our companies for success. It’s up to you to show them that by comparing the current state (lacking of course, which is why you want to improve it) against your solution with will be wonderful! So show them a picture of it. Map out in one PowerPoint slide with the left side showing what you do now and the right side showing your future state. Highlight the differences and note the measures you’ll use to prove you’re right. Leadership is always thinking strategically (hopefully) and they may have a future state idea that this meshes with or they may not have thought about this particular solution. Either way, showing the improvement will visually through pictures a clear difference. “Here’s an picture of our current sales team and their impact, here’s another view if we add an iPad to them and below I’ve listed the benefits that cannot exist without it.”

Bottom line, think visually and include pictures that help tell your story. It’s been said that the brain processes images thousands of times faster than text, let’s help the brains of our leaders get where we want them to go by showing more pictures.