Scribbling your way to success

Wed, Mar 16th 2016, 12:35 PM

If you think that that bored team member is simply defacing your meeting agenda, then think again. In her book 'The Doodle Revolution' Sunni Brown claims that some of the world's most creative people such as Einstein, Edison and JFK were all doodlers; adding that this is not just random gibberish, but a tool that can enhance creativity.

The author claims that doodling involves looking beyond mere words and numbers to achieve creative insights that have led to numerous breakthroughs in science, technology, medicine, architecture, literature, and art. The evidence is compelling and seemingly to prove the point Brown was named as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business and the 10 Most Creative People on Twitter. As a visual thinking expert, the author has developed a guide for applying simple visual language to any challenge, what we know as doodling, to innovate, solve problems and enhance cognitive performance. So pay attention!

To achieve this Brown guides us through the 'Infodoodle' -- the tight integration of words, numbers, images, and shapes that can distil higher-level thinking from documents or a group conversation. Doodling helps this information be better understood by becoming a visual display and the author claims that you can:

oDoodle any concept or system.

oShift habitual thinking to get cognitive breakthroughs rather than relying on representing problems using 26 letters.

oTransform boring text into displays that can engage any audience.

oTap into several learning styles at the same time (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile) to enhance performance; simply by doodling. To help demonstrate this there are activities and games to guide the reader through a developmental process of visual literacy (or doodles to you and me) to achieve higher retention and improved decision-making. This transformation of information into a rich, immersive representation can be achieved using anything from sticky notes, whiteboards, digital tablets or notebooks. The result is that this infodoodling process clarifies thinking to help you better understand, remember, innovate or solve any challenge.

So it seems that the bored looking team member is actually doodling to enhance their creativity, communication and collaboration skills, all for the benefit of your business. For anyone in a management role with a lot of critical thinking tasks that require out-of-the-box solutions, you should be more grateful.

o "The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the Power to Think Differently" by Sunni Brown and published by Portfolio Penguin.

Keith Appleton

Keith Appleton JP, BA (Hons), N.Dip.M, MInstLM has extensive experience within an academic, managerial and strategic leadership role.  He is a member of the UK Institute of Leadership & Management and can be contacted at KeithAppleton@Hotmail.co.uk.

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