by Jim Ware
A picture is worth a thousand words (a very old saying)
I once worked for a textbook publishing firm based in Chicago, Illinois. In the midst of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, the President of the firm and I had a fascinating (nonpolitical) conversation about the power of the televised images of the confrontations between the police and the rioters (images that were eerily familiar to some of what we're all seeing right now as the Occupiers clash with authorities in Oakland, California, New York City, and other cities all over the world).
Anyway, the President and I were sharing our observations about the power of television to bring the unrest in the streets right into our living rooms. I also commented on how impactful television had been in exposing the entire country to the Vietnam jungles and battles with the Vietcong during that horrendous period in American history. Those images had certainly contributed mightily to the antiwar protests that filled the late 1960's.
The President agreed with me about the power of television, but then he added that the editors in our firm would certainly agree with me that "a picture is worth a thousand words"—if they could write the thousand words.
I've never forgotten that comment, partly because it is so sadly true. In spite of the continuing "invasion" of television and online video into our lives, the fact remains that most of us are still heavily dependent on the written word, even though visual images convey far more information, far more quickly.
To be completely candid, I live with, and by, words. I am a voracious reader; and I write several thousand words almost every day. I think with my fingers on the keyboard. And the availability of word processors, email, text messaging, and the plethora of blogs, wiki's, and other online text (along with text-driven search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing) has certainly made the written word an even more central part of our lives today than it was back in 1968.
Word are certainly important, and I value good writing as much as anyone does. But the real power of words comes from their ability to construct visual images in our minds. In fact, we use metaphors of images all the time. What is a "corporate vision" if not an metaphor for a picture of the future?
To be fair, as human beings in the 21st century we certainly depend on both words and visual images as we think, imagine, and communicate with each other. It's my sense, however, that many of us are overly reliant on words, even though we usually grasp meaning more quickly and with more depth when we have access to pictures. And by "pictures" I mean photographs, charts, graphs, cartoons, sketches, diagrams, maps, and every other kind of graphic image you can think of.
And those examples are all static images. Let's not forget the central role that video plays in our lives today. We go to movie theaters; we watch television for news, dramas, comedies, and sporting events. Many of us attend live theater and music concerts, as much to see the show as to hear it. The epitome of success for an author is to sell the book rights to Hollywood, and to see the story turned into an on-screen "moving picture."
There is no question that pictures can convey far more information, and vastly more meaning, than tables of text. Here's a simple example from the business world: a table of statistics followed by a chart created from the same data:
| 2011 |
2012 | |
| Revenue ($000,000) | 23,425 | 19,452 |
| Cost of Goods | 16,852 | 12,459 |
| Administrative Expenses | 3,452 | 2,589 |
| Profit Before Tax | 684 | 2,409 |
| Income Tax | 116 | 410 |
| Net Profit | 568 | 1,999 |
In my humble opinion, it's a lot easier to see how the increases in Cost of Goods Sold and Marketing/Sales Expenses have eroded profits when you look at the pie charts than when you read the table with the raw data. Notice too how color helps to highlight the key areas in question.
Given the vast array of visual media available to us today, isn't it surprising that we don't make better use of imagery in the business world?
I believe that part of the deterioration of visual imagery in business actually lies at the feet of technology (there's a visual image for you, right there). Even though in 2011 we now have access to very powerful data analysis and visualization software, we have spent the last 30+ years living with crude digital tools that made it very difficult to embed any natural drawings into presentations and reports. Let's face it; PowerPoint® and Word® were not really designed to include hand-made drawings as a core part of the application.
But in fairness, it's only been in the last few years, with the introduction of tablet computers and touch-sensitive screens, that our digital tools could actually capture anything other than keystrokes from a traditional keyboard. Now, however, we have no excuses. With tablet computers, with Smartboards® that capture, digitize, and transmit hand-drawn graphics, and with high-definition desktop webcams, we have no reason any more for "bullets to boredom" presentations, or for meetings that rely exclusively on the written or even the spoken word.
I have recently become aware of, and very sensitive to, the power of visual images in communication and learning. I am personally committed to eliminating bullet point lists of all kinds from my presentations, and to taking meeting notes that include many more sketches and diagrams than the endless lines of words that now fill my notebooks.
I owe much of this re-awakening to the simple but profound book Visual Meetings, by David Sibbet of The Grove Consultants International. David has just recently published a sequel, Visual Teams, which I also recommend highly.
I have also been influenced by an important book that my wife Cindy has recommended for many years. It's called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards. I don't think of myself as much of an artist, but as Betty Edwards points out, very few of us do. As children all of us are creative, uninhibited artists; it's not until the adults in our lives begin critiquing our sketches and telling us that we aren't any good at drawing that most of us self-censor ourselves and stop trying to represent ideas visually.
As you spend time over the next several months in meetings and in preparing your own reports and presentations, think hard about how to visualize the ideas you are creating and sharing. A picture is truly worth lots more than a thousand words; visual images are central to our understanding of our lives and our emotions. Shouldn't they be a much bigger part of our work as well?
I'll stop here, because I've gone well over my own self-imposed limit of 1,000 words for this article. Could I have said all of this with one picture? Somehow I doubt it. I do hope, however, that I've at least piqued your curiosity about a terribly important, but almost extinct, arrow in your communications quiver (that's a deliberate attempt to leave you with another visual image).
One final comment (I can't resist): If you aren't embedding visual images and rich stories that call up visual images in your strategic planning efforts, you are missing one of the most powerful ways I know of to build understanding, consensus, and emotional commitment to your ideas.
What do you think? Please send your comments directly to me or post a comment here. I'd love to help you and your organization "see" the future more clearly.
