Visual Storytelling to Accelerate Change
Challenge
Following a period of intensive planning and decision-making to merge two distinct organizations and their operations, an airline client faced challenges in conveying complex and detailed information to a broad and diverse audience. Without effectively fostering team understanding and adoption of the upcoming changes, there would be risks to achieving hiring objectives and business goals for the newly combined organization.
Approach
“I didn’t know we needed this until I saw it with my own eyes!”
Working with client leaders across several functions, the Forum Solutions team prioritized which information was most critical and urgent and clarified the target audiences. With this prioritization and target audiences identified, the team then created several visual-based tools: a timeline of critical milestones, swim lane diagrams to illustrate the change impact across teams, and infographics to deliver important data through easy-to-remember illustrations.
Armed with new visual tools, we identified several effective methods for distributing information throughout the organization, targeting areas where impacted audiences were most likely to engage. We decided on a blended strategy that included email and SharePoint delivery, physical signs and posters, as well as displays on public information boards and screens. Finally, the team established a recurring cadence for reviewing and updating artifacts as business conditions continued to evolve.
Results
As client leaders began to leverage visual storytelling methods and artifacts, they noted an increase in team understanding of critical goals and improvements to employee perception of leadership communication. Anchoring a diverse set of business functions around a shared set of accessible visuals also unlocked new collaborations between team leaders, increasing the identification of dependencies and opportunities for synergies across the organization.
Forum Solutions is a management consulting company dedicated to crafting and delivering transformational outcomes for our clients, our colleagues, and our community. With our help, clients become more agile, resilient, and connected, bringing great ideas to fruition with brilliant results. From start-ups to the Fortune 50, business leaders rely on Forum Solutions to help them form and realize their strategies. Our company is a certified Woman Owned Business that believes in developing and growing our colleagues, company, and region in a socially conscious way.