In my opinion, Dan Roam is among the most innovative business thinkers now publishing books and articles that can help almost anyone think more clearly, make better decisions, and communicate with greater impact. His previously published works offer abundant evidence of his highly developed skills. In The Back of the Napkin (2008), he explains how to solve problems and sell ideas with pictures; in Unfolding the Napkin (2009), he introduces a hands-on method for solving complex problems with simple pictures; in Blah Blah Blah (2011), he explains what to do when words don’t work; and now in Show and Tell: How Everybody Can Make Extraordinary Presentations, was published by Portfolio/The Penguin Group (April 2014).

Here is a brief excerpt from an article written by Roam and featured in The Guardian/US (July 12, 2008). This article provides an excellent introduction to all four books of his and includes an exercise that can be of incalculable value to any anyone who has a problem to solve, a question to answer, or an opportunity to pursue. To read the complete article, check out others, and learn more about The Guardian/US, please click here.

Photo: David Levene

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To help people overcome this lack of confidence, I break the entire “visual thinking” process down into four discrete steps: looking, seeing, imagining, and showing. Each step makes demands on a different part of our innate visual abilities, and each step plays an important role in learning to take in the big picture.

Most important of all, once we realise how good we already are at visually processing the world around us, we realise that drawing itself is only a small part of visual thinking, and it comes at the very end of the process, not at the beginning.

Nothing is more engaging to a live audience than seeing a picture created in real time. It really is pure magic. Partly that’s because when we see the problem and solution drawn out for us, we mentally participate in the process and “get” what we’re seeing. Even more importantly, a picture drawn by hand is not perfect, and its imperfections invite commentary and discussion, rather than the arguments about minute details that usually accompany a “finished” diagram. In fact, because a more polished picture looks “done”, it is more likely to shut down discussion than stimulate it.

Like anything, becoming confident enough to start drawing in a business meeting or presentation takes practice.

Next time you face a business challenge, try this on your own:

1. Draw a small circle in the middle of a page and label it “my business” (or “me”).

2. Now, off to one side, draw a larger second circle, and call it “my customers.”

3. Draw an arrow between the circles, and label it “my sales channel.”

4. Add a few words describing that channel: is it “good”, “needs improvement”, “solid”, “stretched”, etc.

5. On the other side of the “my customer” circle, draw a third circle and call it “my competitor.”

6. Is this circle bigger than yours? Is it closer to your customers, or further away? Think about what you’re starting to see here in the relationships of these circles, and note down any thoughts that occur.

7. Draw an arrow between “competitor” and “customer” and describe that channel.

We’ve just started, and already our minds are starting to seeing sizes, relationships, and interactions that would have been invisible if we hadn’t started drawing. Keep going and see what emerges. Within seconds we’ll begin to come up with ideas that we wouldn’t have had if we’d just been talking. We can’t help it: all we’re doing is feeding our brains the chance to do what they love – solve problems with pictures.

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Here is a direct link to the complete interview.

To learn more about Dan and his work, please click here.