Master Symbols: A Visual Insight Field Guide

March 13, 2019

KEVIN WHEELER

Strategic advisor, Consultant, Futurist, Global speaker, Entrepreneur

W

e are delighted to share some deep communication insights with our Future of Talent community, based on the new book Master Symbols: A Visual Insight Field Guide by FOT co-founder Eileen Clegg.

As many of you know, Eileen was one of the early pioneers of live visual communication creating murals on the fly during meetings and conferences. She has been visual facilitating our FoT retreats since they began in 2005.

 

Through her practice — and extensive academic research — Eileen has discovered how and why specific symbols can capture the hearts as well as minds of people.

This knowledge can provide a sharp edge in communication edge for talent leaders who have purpose. Certain symbols work to communicate resonant, complex ideas. They convey meaning to the subconscious — as long as the message has integrity.

Though you are unlikely to be creating murals, you should be able to create a quick sketch that conveys a concept, or flip chart notes that capture a group’s ideas, or a quick online doodle that will get your point across during a phone conference.

You do not need to be an artist to use symbols in simple but powerful ways. You simply place a word or two in an easily-drawn symbol that resonates with the concept.

For example:

  • Your team’s goal sits inside a sun
  • Unspoken issues appear underground
  • New ideas appear in a cloud

 

Eileen Clegg, illustrating at a recent Future of Talent Retreat

Eileen’s book explains how cultures globally “speak” the same language of shape. You will find that simple drawings can have complex meaning that crosses all geographies, if you understand the basic symbols.

This works for leaders who aren’t hung up on perfectionism and can show their vulnerability. It takes courage to draw live — and people appreciate that.

We hope Eileen’s ideas will support your talent initiatives!

Eileen has generously offered a $4.00 discount for FOT subscribers.

Use this code: fotsave4 when you checkout from the store on Eileen’s website. Safe and secure ordering.

You can order Eileen’s book by clicking the button below.

 

Want to know when new articles get published?
Subscribe to our Newsletter.

Kevin Wheeler

Kevin Wheeler

FOUNDER, PRESIDENT

Kevin Wheeler Founder and Chairman the Future of Talent Institute. Kevin started FOTI in 2004 out of his passionate belief that organizations need a more powerful and thoughtful architecture for talent than they have. After a 25 year career in corporate America serving as the Senior Vice President for Staffing and Workforce Development at the Charles Schwab Corporation, the Vice President of Human Resources for Alphatec Electronics, Inc. in Thailand, and in a variety of human resources roles at National Semiconductor Corporation, Kevin has firsthand knowledge of the need for better strategies and approaches to finding, developing and retaining people.

Today, Kevin is a globally known speaker, author, teacher and consultant in human capital acquisition and development, as well as in corporate education. He is the author of numerous articles on human resource development, career development, recruiting, and on establishing corporate universities. He is a frequent speaker at conferences. He writes a weekly Internet column on recruiting and staffing, which can be found at www.ere.net, and he and Eileen have written a book on corporate universities, The Corporate University Workbook: Launching the 21st Century Learning Organization. He serves as adjunct faculty at San Jose State University, the University of San Francisco and on the business faculty at San Francisco State University.

Traditional Recruiting Metrics Are Useless

Traditional Recruiting Metrics Are Useless

HR Futurist Kevin Wheeler laments the poor efficacy of recruiting metrics to solve real problems for recruiters. Kevin explains how traditional recruiting metrics are transactional or only define the past. Kevin implores the need for leading or predictive metrics that could help recruiting organizations answer critical questions. Kevin outlines a better approach that includes concepts like pipelines, trust, and predictive analytics.

read more
Six Recruitment Trends for 2019

Six Recruitment Trends for 2019

Future of Talent Institute co-founder Kevin Wheeler offers his vision for 2019 and the six trends he sees defining the year. Kevin calls 2019 the “year of adjustment and recalibration.” He explains this in relationship to how technology has defined us thus far this century, and our ability to both adapt and adopt processes to better understand our power over advanced technology tools like artificial intelligence.

read more
The Promise and Peril of a Gig Economy

The Promise and Peril of a Gig Economy

Talent and OD consultant Marc Porter explores the pros and cons of the growing segment of the US workforce, the gig worker. He outlines how the gig economy impacts companies and the gig workers themselves, detailing benefits and detriments. And Marc details how current economic conditions make it harder to join or remain in the gig economy, and how these perils reflect greater societal issues.

read more

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This