Practical Genius by Gina Amaro Rudan, Kevin Carroll
Authors: Gina Amaro Rudan, Kevin Carroll
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have an empty word bank, begin identifying the words and phrases you own by grabbing a few of your favorite periodicals and highlighting the words that move you, excite you, or just scream, “Yes, that’s me!” Write each of those words or phrases on an index card, and spread them out on a table. Move them around, change the order, try to find the hierarchy of meaning to you. Collect those words into the start of a vocabulary log (or a vocablog!) that you can continue to tweak, refine, and add to.
The Illustrations
The illustrations in your story are the visual bits and pieces that reinforce, educate, entertain, and otherwise help to make your story compelling.
I’m a proud, card-carrying member of the visualization movement. My favorite places in corporate America today are conference rooms where graffiti covers the walls, illustrating the brainstorming, strategic planning, and complex problem solving that happen when smart people are in that room. In this setting, visual note takers “transcribe” the dialogue to provide another dimension of meaning to the participants. I am in awe of the people who are able to make this visual leap because I have seen the power it has to transform the way people think about their work.
GINA RUDAN
GINA, SELF-PORTRAIT
GINA, SELF-PORTRAIT
I’m not an artist, nor are most of the executives and managers I work with. But the tools of art are tremendously valuable in the process of developing, refining, and ultimately illustrating our stories. I keep sketch pads, charcoal pencils, and big fat erasers always at the ready. Having the gear isn’t going to turn me from a wordy person into an artsy person. But it does remind me of the necessity to illustrate my thinking while I work, and over time it has helped me develop a visual habit and sensibility that are tremendous assets. I have become an avidcollector of colors and shapes, photographs and symbols, diagrams and icons. My illustrations are unique to me, but I am endlessly inspired and energized by the illustration of genius I see all around me every day.
David Sibbet is a visual visionary, a founding partner of Grove Consultants International and the author of Visual Meetings. David says that if thinking and visualizing is a process, the simplest thing you can do is keep a visual journal to force yourself to try to apply a graphic to breakthrough ideas you have while you work. Though this seemed like a baby step to me (and a painful one at that, for someone who’s not an artist), he convinced me that over time I would be able to go back to my journals and see patterns in my illustrations that would allow me to gauge my growth spurts or identify where I was stuck. Damn, was he right.
PLAYBOOK
Self-Portrait
Sketch a six-box grid on a big piece of poster paper. Each box represents an ingredient of your practical genius—your passions, values, and creative abilities and your strengths, skills, and expertise. In each box, place images or symbols or swatches of color or any other visuals you think represent your unique genius in this area. This is an exercise that should take place over time. When the boxes are full (and you won’t be able to stop adding to them, BTW), you will be looking at a self-portrait of your practical genius that will astonish and inspire you.
THE ART OF STORYTELLING
My grandmother Jovita is one of the greatest storytellers I have ever known. Part of her magic is in the way she draws you into the intimacy of her stories, which are often about when she was a young girl growing up in Puerto Rico. This is a woman who was never allowed to go to school and still cannot read or write. Yet she is a natural wordsmith and can take me from shock to laughter to tears in a single stroke. It is also the cadence of her delivery that makes it work.
There are three things she does when she tells a story that I learned from her. First, take your audience someplace else. Get them to use their imaginations to go on your
The Illustrations
The illustrations in your story are the visual bits and pieces that reinforce, educate, entertain, and otherwise help to make your story compelling.
I’m a proud, card-carrying member of the visualization movement. My favorite places in corporate America today are conference rooms where graffiti covers the walls, illustrating the brainstorming, strategic planning, and complex problem solving that happen when smart people are in that room. In this setting, visual note takers “transcribe” the dialogue to provide another dimension of meaning to the participants. I am in awe of the people who are able to make this visual leap because I have seen the power it has to transform the way people think about their work.
GINA RUDAN
GINA, SELF-PORTRAIT
GINA, SELF-PORTRAIT
I’m not an artist, nor are most of the executives and managers I work with. But the tools of art are tremendously valuable in the process of developing, refining, and ultimately illustrating our stories. I keep sketch pads, charcoal pencils, and big fat erasers always at the ready. Having the gear isn’t going to turn me from a wordy person into an artsy person. But it does remind me of the necessity to illustrate my thinking while I work, and over time it has helped me develop a visual habit and sensibility that are tremendous assets. I have become an avidcollector of colors and shapes, photographs and symbols, diagrams and icons. My illustrations are unique to me, but I am endlessly inspired and energized by the illustration of genius I see all around me every day.
David Sibbet is a visual visionary, a founding partner of Grove Consultants International and the author of Visual Meetings. David says that if thinking and visualizing is a process, the simplest thing you can do is keep a visual journal to force yourself to try to apply a graphic to breakthrough ideas you have while you work. Though this seemed like a baby step to me (and a painful one at that, for someone who’s not an artist), he convinced me that over time I would be able to go back to my journals and see patterns in my illustrations that would allow me to gauge my growth spurts or identify where I was stuck. Damn, was he right.
PLAYBOOK
Self-Portrait
Sketch a six-box grid on a big piece of poster paper. Each box represents an ingredient of your practical genius—your passions, values, and creative abilities and your strengths, skills, and expertise. In each box, place images or symbols or swatches of color or any other visuals you think represent your unique genius in this area. This is an exercise that should take place over time. When the boxes are full (and you won’t be able to stop adding to them, BTW), you will be looking at a self-portrait of your practical genius that will astonish and inspire you.
THE ART OF STORYTELLING
My grandmother Jovita is one of the greatest storytellers I have ever known. Part of her magic is in the way she draws you into the intimacy of her stories, which are often about when she was a young girl growing up in Puerto Rico. This is a woman who was never allowed to go to school and still cannot read or write. Yet she is a natural wordsmith and can take me from shock to laughter to tears in a single stroke. It is also the cadence of her delivery that makes it work.
There are three things she does when she tells a story that I learned from her. First, take your audience someplace else. Get them to use their imaginations to go on your
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