Category: Engaging your people

  • ‘Resilient Dynamism’ – the theme of Davos 2013

    The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2013 is taking place this week in Davos, Switzerland. Its key theme this year is about creating ‘resilient dynamism’ – in other words helping organisations, governments and other body’s to create a positive and creative environment in which growth and development can happen within an evermore transformational, complex, challenging, competitive and inter-connected world.

    To enable this ‘resilient dynamism’ to flourish will initially require:

    • A clear vision of what is meant by the term ‘resilient dynamism’.
    • A clear strategic plan of how this global goal can be achieved.
    • The engagement of employees and employers around the globe with the vision and strategic plan.
    • Initiatives to ensure the that organisations and their people have the skills and ability to play their part in achieving the global goal of ‘resilient dynamism’.

    To achieve the above, people development, organisational development, employee engagement and clear (visual) thinking would seem to have an important role to play. Crackerjack therefore hopes that the importance of these disciplines is recognised as part of the toolkit required to achieve ‘resilient dynamism’ during the discussions in Davos.

  • Post-It notes and Visual Thinking

    Many people will have experienced using Post-It notes to structure thoughts and ideas in meetings and training events. However, in many cases the Post-It notes simply have words/phrases on them resulting in them being, in effect, a moveable linear list. Research continues to show that linear lists are not the most effective way of helping your brain understand complex and diverse information.

    Visual Thinking encourages people to share their thoughts using pictures, diagrams, sketches and other visual techniques. This helps people:

    • see concepts more clearly
    • see the relationships between different ideas more easily
    • resolve problems more efficiently

    Crackerjack People Development can help you and your organisation harness the power of Visual Thinking by designing and facilitating visual meetings and events and helping your people develop Visual Thinking skills in your organisation.

    To find out more, please click here to contact us.

     

  • Can you ‘see’ your customer?

    Do people in your organisation really see how their job impacts on the experience of external customers (i.e. the people who buy your products and services)? Or are they so far removed from the front line that the external customer doesn’t figure in their thinking? Does this matter? If you think it does, using a visual thinking approach to help your people to map out the ‘line of sight’ between their role and the external customer can increase engagement and productivity in your organisation. To find out more, please contact us.

  • Crackerjack: the engagement, learning and creativity alchemists!

    Crackerjack People Development is now a multi-disciplinary consultancy focussed on helping people and organisations perform to their maximum potential. We achieve this by offering a blended consultancy approach which incorporates the following disciplines:

    Learning and Development
    Designing and delivering pragmatic learning solutions that enable people to improve their performance in the workplace

    Visual Thinking
    Facilitating workshops and events that use visual tools and techniques to help people visualise their ideas, ‘see’ problems more clearly and identify more innovative and creative ways of resolving them.

    Organisational Development
    Helping organisations to identify, understand and implement the organisational changes required to enable them to remain successful in their chosen marketplace.

    The alchemy of these three disciplines produces a unique approach that enables Crackerjack People Development to support businesses in engaging their people and achieving their ambitions.

    To find out more and discuss your requirements, click here to contact us.

  • Think visually in 2013!

    Happy New Year!

    Why not make 2013 the year when you and your organisation unleash the power of visual thinking?

    Visually communicating your thoughts and ideas to others using pictures, diagrams, scribbles and cartoons etc. could help you find the big idea that leads to success in 2013 and beyond!

    To find out how Crackerjack Visual Thinking can help you do this, click here to contact us.

  • Got a difficult problem to solve?

    Have you and/or your organisation got a particularly difficult problem to solve?

    Have you had numerous meetings about this issue without moving things forward?

    If so, then it may well be time for a different approach!!!

    Using a visual thinking approach can help you ‘see’ the problem more clearly and identify more innovative and creative ways of resolving it.

    Using a combination of large scale co-created graphics and effective problem solving activities and games, Crackerjack Visual Thinking can help you to achieve the outcomes you want for your organisation.

    To find out more, please do contact us by clicking here.

  • Engaging your people using a visual ‘strategic narrative’

    Visual thinking 7

    David Macleod and Nita Clarke, authors of the ‘Engaging for Success‘ report produced for the Department of Business, recommended four key enablers to employee engagement:

    • Having a strong ‘strategic narrative’
    • Having engaged managers
    • Ensuring the ‘employee voice‘ is heard
    • Leading with integrity (the ‘say do gap‘)

    Crackerjack Visual Thinking can help organisations develop their strategic narrative using a variety of visual thinking tools and techniques.

    The example above was created for Action Homeless to help describe their vision to both their internal people and to external partner organisations.

    To find out how we could help your organisation, please click here to contact us.

  • Sheffield Hallam University graphic recording

    SHU graphic recording example

    Thanks to Sheffield Hallam University for agreeing let me share with you a graphic recording I created for them in real time at a meeting earlier this week…

  • Great day graphic recording at Sheffield Hallam University

    Just wanted to say ‘thank you’ to Tracey and Jacquie at Sheffield Hallam University for choosing Crackerjack Visual Thinking to graphically record their meeting yesterday! It was great working with you both. 🙂