Graphic Facilitation & Graphic Recording

I only have graphic recording to thank for it has made me starkly aware of my immediate surroundings in a session…the uncomfortable voice in a discussion, the unsure idea that raises its shaky finger, that roving eye and shifting of mindset.

I feel like Spiderman who can’t swing but has yet been handed out active Spidy senses. It was such a moment at a recent event where a leader was talking to his team, trying to shake ’em up to raise their awareness of the perils of remaining in status quo.

It was an act of coming together of minds, one trying to make others see what he sees…the interplay of One to many – Many to One!

Instead of jumping right into graphic recording the key messages of the talk as it played out, I decided to absorb the act from an altered vantage point…I physically moved back from the board to soak in the big picture to get the wide lens of the players, while letting the highlights of the leader’s talk weave a visual for me that I would then approach the board with.

My spidy senses were also catching another signal – the shifting of a body on the far right, an eye that was questioning me. I almost expected that move but not quite that soon…a complete give away of an eager facilitator; she sneaked up next to me and whispered “Are you scared of graphic recording the negative remarks being made by the leader to his team?”

Alas! It tore me off the story that was building in my mind’s eye…it was not the same anymore…I wish that I was not unempathetically cut short of my working…I wish I was left to being a graphic facilitator at that instance and not a graphic recorder.

But the damage was done, I replied “No, I am listening”…I let the graphic facilitator slip away and approached the board to graphic record.