Are there actually benefits to drawing during meetings? Isn’t it taking away from the serious matter at hand?

We’ve all sat next to someone in a meeting who doodles in the margins of their notepad. If that isn’t your habit, you might be concerned that it’s distracting from the conversation around the table. And for the person presenting or facilitating, the lack of eye contact might be unexpected and off-putting.

I know these concerns because I’ve always been one of those people who doodled in the margins. But I didn’t always draw to the full benefit of my team and myself. However, over the last 20 years, I’ve transformed my doodling habit into visual thinking, and in the process, I’ve learned just how valuable having someone with drawing skills can be for my clients, my team, and myself.

So here are five benefits of drawing during meetings.

There isn’t one single reason for this. It may have been:

• How the material was presented.

• Whether the participant was engaged.

• Fear of asking questions for clarification.

• The complexity of the topic.

• Digital distraction during remote meetings.

But imagine if the conversation was captured with live drawing. This tool, visual thinking, allows us to use images to more clearly communicate an idea. It also gives others concrete elements to reference, ask questions about, and remember later.

Often it can feel like an extra step and an expenditure of time to get visual with a conversation. But you can save energy, time, and resources by making sure your team truly shares the picture of the goals and the path to get there. 

For those observing, the drawing is semi-performative, which is fun to watch (don’t discount fun in engaging people!), and seeing the conversation through visuals increases attention and participation. 

The images, icons, and diagrams help us better understand and remember. They create more connections for the brain to hold onto. That means that after the meeting is over, team members are more likely to remember the information and apply it when they need it.

In these drawings, a shared visual language begins to emerge that can be used to communicate more quickly and clearly within a team. A shared language is often a component of a strong culture. 

Beyond the visuals themselves, visual thinking allows you to more easily make the intangible tangible. 

When you give your team a clearer, more tangible idea of your purpose and the transformation you want to create, and how their work contributes to it, your employees will be much more engaged.

{3} Feel Heard

When someone’s words, ideas, and feelings are drawn out, there is a handing off of those elements from the individual to the canvas that makes them more real. They hold space. The individual is seen.  There’s a record of their contribution. And there is recognition of their value in the team. 

As leaders, one of the simplest and most impactful things we can do to show that we value our team is to show them that you hear them. They give more of themselves, their passion, and inspiration when that effort is seen and appreciated.

The compounding benefit of that equation is that you receive the insight, perspective, and experiences of your team. This gives you the ability to see the whole picture more clearly. A clearer picture leads to better decisions.

When done consistently, this benefit compounds even further. Feeling valued allows people to open up more, become even better contributors. Visual thinking provides the means to make their value visible.

{4} Spark Creativity

Ideas start as wisps in our mind - hard to grab onto and name. For them to be of value to our business we need to conjure them into being, give them form and shape. Drawing and sketching is often the first step for many inventors and innovators. The sooner you can start giving an idea shape, the better!

Giving an idea space on a canvas or board gives it more space in the minds of others. Suddenly, more of their cognitive resources are focused on the work - and I mean that in a couple of ways.

First, our brains are “visual first”. If there’s a visual component to the problem and we are presented with visuals, we go there first. We find information more quickly with our eyes than we do with our ears. Not just because we are sight dominant, but visuals can convey more information than text or audio. 

Secondly, when you externalize thoughts, like drawing them out on paper or a board, you free up your mind to think about the next, hopefully more important thing. By offloading the work, we are able to lay out all the pieces of the puzzle and get a 10,000 ft view. 

Lastly, the drawings become stepping stones to more and greater ideas. We think about things differently through our eyes than we do in our minds' eyes. We even start to see where the gaps are allowing us to explore around more corners. 

{5} Collaborate Better

Visual thinking in collaboration brings the previous four benefits together. It is a microcosm of your company as a whole.

That shared understanding is one of the first things a team seeks at the start of their work together. A picture of what they want to achieve together. Digging down into that purpose or why can be difficult, and it can also be hard to keep front and center. Visual thinking can help collaborators sort through that purpose and visualize it so it can remain in focus throughout the project.

Visual thinking is an engaging way to share and capture information and ideas. In collaborative work, that exchange can be dynamic and high-energy, but it also has to be handled respectfully so that each contributor feels heard and valued. 

There’s more than one way to solve a problem and the unique talents and experiences of the group, as well as external constraints, will determine what path the group takes. The ability of a team to generate creative ideas and sparks can determine their success.

Key Takeaways

These are only some of the ways visual thinking practices and tools can bring value to your team and to your business. While verbal and text communication can feel like they allow us to communicate at lighting speed, it’s often inefficient and flawed. Words don’t provide everything that people need to capture, process, and communicate information as quickly and fully as they need to perform at their best in their work.

Visual thinking is a people-focused skill that can be incorporated at all levels of your business.

If you are interested in learning more about how your business can cultivate all these benefits from visual thinking or want to experience it for yourself, contact us today.