Introduction

This book is the fourth in a series sponsored by Wiley & Sons to comprehensively explore the rapidly expanding field of visual practice for facilitation, group leadership and consulting. (See Figure I.1). Visual Consulting: Designing & Leading Change (Figure I.2) builds on prior books, but assumes a more general level of understanding of the purpose and power of visualization than when the series began. Since Visual Meetings was published an entire body of literature has emerged with an ever-widening delta of practitioners, and attendant confusions about how these methods really work in practice.

Figure I.2

Visual Consulting: Designing & Leading Change explores the integration of visual facilitation, dialogic practice, and change work, as practiced by co-authors David Sibbet and Gisela Wendling, Ph.D. It introduces a new Seven Challenges of Change model.

A deeper purpose for writing Visual Consulting emerges from our experience of current events on local and global levels moving very quickly in complex and polarizing ways. We believe there is a need for practitioners who can be constructively involved in responding to these challenges and help guide change using the tools that visualization and dialogic practice provides. Both of us authors are fully engaged in long-term projects working on organizational and community change, often combined with supporting practitioner development. We feel called to share what we are learning more now than ever. We are eager to reach consultants in general who are becoming aware of the power of visualization, but also to visual practitioners who are awakening to the possibility of using their skills to help design and facilitation change in a more expanded way.

As with the other books, what we are sharing is based on experience enlivened by relevant theory. We know practitioners need concepts and light scaffolding to guide their developmental work, and specific, useful practices that can be applied. And we also know that reading stories of how these approaches work in actual practice can bring the theories, skills, and approaches to life.

Blending Three Fields

We are integrating three fields of practice in our conception of visual consulting: Visual facilitation-Dialogic practice-Change work (Figure I.3). Each of these fields has disciplines, associations, literature, practices, and special language. What makes it possible to integrate them is they share a need for process awareness and process thinking.

Dialogue

Figure I.3

Visual Facilitation

Visual facilitation is my (David Sibbet,) lifelong passion with decades of organization and community consulting across multiple sectors. I, Gisela Wendling, have spent my professional life researching and supporting change work with a continuous focus on integrating the principles and practices of dialogue in my work. We are excited to introduce readers to several new visual frameworks that have been especially powerful with our own work in this regard. One is the Consulting Framework for Respectful Engagement that will help consultants of any type understand their roles and the type of relationship they hope to establish with clients.

A second, the Liminal Pathways Change Framework, has grown out of my, Gisela's, research at Fielding Graduate University. It re-conceptualizes the basic archetype of change embedded in traditional rites of passages as a human systems change framework, offering insights not only into the phases and milestones of change but also inner process and outer process dynamics that accompanies it. This framework has been consistently eye-opening and useful to people who are participating in our workshops.

The third model is a Seven Challenges of Change framework that integrates The Grove Consultants International traditional organization change model (described in Visual Leaders) with the Liminal Pathways work.

Being Aware of the Inner & Outer Dimensions of Change

These frameworks and process models are outgrowths of our joint leadership of many change projects and our work of teaching process consultants about these methods. Over the course of our professional practice we have became increasingly convinced that one's own inner awareness and how this applies to the use of oneself as an instrument for change is as important as the supportive outer structures consultants create, including the hands-on practices and tools they use with clients.(Figure I.4) Of course this dual focus on the inner and outer dimensions applies not only to consultants and their development but also reflects the dual focus that is needed to effectively support change in client systems. As we began sharing these ideas, we found more and more colleagues coming to similar conclusions or feeling confirmed by what they have sensed or known all along but had not seen simultaneously well-integrated before. Throughout the chapters we come back to this dual focus and share specific approaches and practices to working with each of the seven challenges of change.

Use of Self

Figure I.4

Change Work

Anchored in Student-Centered Learning

We bring 70 years of collective, field-tested knowledge to our writing. Our methods have been refined through actual practice in the field, informed by reading and extensive exchange with colleagues. Underlying this we share rich, formative experiences in student-centered learning.

I, Gisela, as a student in the humanistic-oriented psychology department at Sonoma State University was part of a several-years-long extraordinary learning community modeled after the principles of student-centered learning. This community was guided by true elders in the field of humanistic psychology-William McCreary, who had been a student of Carl Rogers, and Arthur Warmoth, a student of Abraham Maslow. In this approach it is the learner and not the content, the instructor, or the institution that is at the center of the learning process. It taught me what it means to be an empowered learner, to locate my self-authority, to pursue my callings, and embrace community as a deep resource for personal and collective learning and development.

My passion for supporting transformative learning processes grew while I was in the masters program in Organization Development, also at SSU, learning the trade by participating in immersive action research projects­­-a program which I later directed. Being part of the scholar/practitioner doctoral program at the Fielding Graduate University further deepened my appreciation for self-direction and peer learning. My approach to working with organizations and fellow learners is deeply rooted in these experiences.

I, David, worked for many years with the Coro Center for Civic Leadership before starting my consulting firm, The Grove Consultants International, in 1977. Coro pioneered experience-based leadership development in its nine-month Fellowship in Public Affairs, now offered in six cities across the country. Many of The Grove's visual and other methods were seeded in that experience of helping Fellows learn from their own experiences.

Figure I.5

Colleagues from the Global Learning & Exchange Network worked extensively with David and Gisela in refining the core ideas in this book. The GLEN's purpose is to evolve methodologies of collaboration and change to better face the problems of our times. This network is supported by The Grove Consultants International. For more information about both check:

https://glen.grove.com

www.grove.com

This shared orientation to designing and facilitating empowering person- and client-centered approaches, along with her global perspectives and focus on human systems change led to Gisela joining The Grove as its VP of Global Learning. She and David launched a Designing & Leading Change Intensive at The Grove in 2014 to explore the integration of their fields of work. Response to this work resulted in them co-creating a Global Learning & Exchange Network (or The GLEN) with the help of a half-dozen colleagues and Grove consultants. Its purpose is to evolve methodologies of collaboration within and across organization, communities, and cultures to better face the problems of our times. Through eight on-line inquiries, or what we call Exchanges at The GLEN, we shared our emerging Seven Challenges of Change framework and tested it's depictions of the inner and outer challenges against the extensive experience of our colleagues.

Structure of the Book

In general, this book is oriented to the less experienced consultants in the beginning chapters, making the case for visualization, dialogue, and change working together and providing frameworks and explicit, practical examples of how to get started. As the book progresses we address the more subtle aspects of change, continuing with specific methods and tools.

The book is, itself, highly visual and designed to be scanned as well as read. We invite you to move between sections to find the parts that resonate with your current interests. But if you want to follow our main case (the UC Merced Vision & Change Alignment process) from beginning to end it is best to read the chapters sequentially.

SideStory I.1

SideStory Format

Throughout this book there are side stories that are formatted like this one, with a simple headline and a box of text.

These feature visual consultants, key concepts...