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several years ago I was renting a
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workshop for a group of high-level
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Hollywood visual effects producers and
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the goal of the workshop was to identify
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breakthroughs in their production
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pipeline and I started by asking the
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question pick any pressing problem and
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that's when Kyle put up his hand and
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said my problem is I just don't have
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enough money at the end of the month
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right what this is a technology workshop
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we're dealing with Renderman and you
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know all kinds of crazy stuff but in the
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spirit of creative collaboration I sided
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that's the problem that we would tackle
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for him so I work with teams around the
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world to help them solve their complex
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problem and for the past 30 years I've
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studied how individuals teams and
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organizations have created breakthroughs
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in their industries and along the way
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I've built a variety of software tools
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that have led to dazzling movies and
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better products smarter cars and even
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greener buildings and what I've noticed
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and what I've learned about these
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amazing creative teams is that they go
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through distinct steps to cut through
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complexity and bias and arrive at
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magnificent solutions so what I thought
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I would do is apply these steps to
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Kyle's financial problem so let me show
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you what happened step one first I asked
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Kyle to to set a stage a physical place
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for him to display and to contain his
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problem and he simply taped off a
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portion of the wall that he was working
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on step to populate I had Kyle Phyllis
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stage with data and he transferred ideas
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out of his head and onto the wall in no
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particular order but it turns out there
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was an order can you see it without
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realizing it kyle produced a giant
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funnel with lots of stuff on the top
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draining to just about nothing at the
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bottom and this was significant because
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it was Kyle's mental and emotional model
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of his internal experience and that was
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exactly his problem
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Kyle's financial
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model just an empty down to nothing
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step3
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arranged I asked Kyle to arrange his
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notes with the largest expenses at the
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top and the smallest at the bottom and
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he simply rearranged them to see how his
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expenses stacked up
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then I asked Kyle the following question
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I asked him to if he could arrange his
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notes according to how much control he
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had over each expense no control move it
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to the left complete control move it to
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the right so this took longer because
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Kyle was getting to his deeper issue he
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sorted it through and after a couple of
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minutes what emerged was another picture
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of Kyle's mental model of money and this
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new diagram showed where he was stuck
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all those big expenses so this actually
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displayed Kyle's what is state there it
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was a representation of his current
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reality step for shoes I strike that I
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asked Kyle to select which expenses he
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could get more control over so it took
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him a while to do this he's gonna scan
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the stage and and then finally he made
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his move and it was his coffee expenses
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right never everyone in the room groan
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however something shifted in Kyle a
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moment later he stood a little taller he
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breathed a little bit more into himself
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and then he moved one of his really big
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expenses I think it was a car expense
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and then other expenses followed so Kyle
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was moving from what is to what could be
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in in many ways he seemed to be kind of
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running this I guess kind of a deep
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simulation of his experience and her
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relationship with with money it kind of
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gave him some some freedom step 5
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execute I asked how to summarize the
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actions that he will commit to and so he
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figured it out and he selected three
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steps three things that he will do a
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simple plan that he will execute on and
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commit to okay so what just actually
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happened when did Kyle do so Kyle took
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five big steps to get untangled he
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applied a simple powerful and
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honestly scalable principle that is at
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the heart of all creative collaboration
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and that is this make ideas visible
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teams that make their ideas visible our
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better problem solvers actually a lot
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better problem solving they tend to
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build a shared understanding of the real
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issues they tend to explore and shape a
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wider range of creative options and
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perhaps most importantly they align mo
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cohesively on a path forward so these
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five steps created space for Kyle to see
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his challenge and apply tools to to work
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through it
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so it kind of seems to me that these
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steps are actually universal because
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they can be used by individuals by small
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groups by even large groups to a kind of
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a vast range of problems so let me
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explain to you why they work think of a
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stage as a physical space that creates
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mental space for thinking so stages can
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take many forms they can be large sheets
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of paper they can be a wall they can be
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an even an entire room we need stages
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because we can't keep everything inside
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of our heads even though we believe that
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we can neuroscientists tell us that
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making information visible offloads the
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cognitive cost of managing it inside of
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your brain they also tell us that we can
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order management order of magnitude more
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information when we put it into physical
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space so this allows groups to create a
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shared visual memory and by the way
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small computer screens they never do
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this
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populate was have a space you need to
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populate it and convert your intangible
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ideas the stuff floating around in your
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head into tangible persistent moveable
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data objects so physically writing
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doodling drawing you know it actually
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activates much more of our brain than
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just writing or talking by itself now
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these data objects sticky notes create a
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marketplace of ideas where everyone's
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point of view is made visible and this
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creates richer environments better
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conversations and tends to create
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clearer options be following it now once
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you've populated your space what do you
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do with it well what you can do with
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arrange is to physically move them into
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meaningful patterns the more accurately
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you can represent a situation the
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clearer the picture actually becomes
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there's about twenty or thirty
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fundamental patterns that are commonly
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used to organize information you can
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kind of think of this as an alphabet for
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visual communication or sense making
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these diagrams what they do is they
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allow us to map the underlying structure
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and patterns and trade-offs and dynamics
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of a situation now finding the right
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pattern really helps you kind of paint a
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clearer picture of what is hmm so these
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patterns can show everything from the
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flow of money the flow of risk the flow
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of fear it's really worthwhile
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understanding these because it gives you
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superpowers to understand situations
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making choice is the is incredibly
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powerful act of seeing something that is
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not immediately apparent now making
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group choice visible as you're seeing
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here increases a groups intelligence and
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its integrity because it allows people
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to see various options the next and
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final step is execution it's making a
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plan and committing to it it's got to be
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really simple visually because
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complexity is the enemy of X of
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execution you put your execution plan in
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the simplest fewest possible steps so
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you know it seems obvious but without a
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clear plan and a commitment to it
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nothing happens if you want to solve a
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problem build a stage populate
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with accurate useful information arrange
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that into an accurate what is state
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decide what your what could be state is
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and then select the action plan moving
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forward these simple steps can be pretty
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much applied to I think almost any
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situation and if you want to guide
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yourself or your team from unresolved
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issues to a clear path forward from
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terrible meetings to great meetings that
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are productive from mediocre
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problem-solving to world-class 21st
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century problems super problem solvers
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this is the process that gets you there
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I'm really amazed to see how this
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practice can be can have an app just an
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amazing transformative effect on the
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people and just about everyone within it
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I've seen it applied in a vast range of
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organizational it tends to be a lot more
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fun it for businesses it allows you to
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identify and capture new value for
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students it allows you to map and create
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better richer models of your subjects so
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far I haven't found a subject that I
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haven't been able to visualize and
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sometimes the visualizations well
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they're kind of big and kind of long 2 3
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4 500 feet long because that's the
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complexity and the nuance that's needed
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to be able to visualize a problem I
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believe you can't draw out a problem
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chances are you just not fully defined
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it yet so on my mission to help
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organizations and individuals become
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better problem solvers and better
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innovators I've created an open-source
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site called make ideas visible calm
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super easy to find and you'll find tools
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and techniques and use the letters and
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all kinds of good stuff why do this well
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it seems to me that we live in a world
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of problems and problems are becoming
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thicker and harder and surrounding us
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more and our success depends on our
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ability to identify the right problems
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to work collaboratively with others and
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then to create magnificent brilliant
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solutions according to the World
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Economic Forum of the top skills that
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are going to be required for the year
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2020 the most important one the top one
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is complex problem solving and
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techniques such as making your ideas
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visible design thinking and so many
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others as an immensely powerful tool to
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your problem-solving arsenal so a few
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years after the workshop I was at a
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trade show and I happen to bump into
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Kyle again and we chatted about the
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future of computer graphics and he said
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you know from time to time I still think
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about that giant wall board and the
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sticky notes and it really opened my
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eyes and he was about to turn away and
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then he said oh yeah one other thing I
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now have more than enough money at the
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end of the month thank you so much
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[Applause]
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[Applause]
