Real change needs a shared vision.
Help your group shape It.
Change begins together, not in individuals' heads.
But what happens when you're face to face?
Visual Thinking for Facilitation and Collaboration
by Brandy Agerbeck, Loosetooth.com
"We keep having the same conversation over and over. We are going in circles."
"We're so heads-down in the weeds. Do we even know what success looks like?"
"We just talked for two hours. What do we actually have to show for it?"
"Everyone's focused on their own piece. Nobody's looking at the whole picture."
"I can see the solution so clearly in my head. I just can't get anyone else to see it."
We chalk these up as communication problems. But really, they're visibility problems.
Every person in that room has something vital to contribute. The trouble is it stays locked in their heads — where it can't be discussed, questioned, or built on together.
When teams don't share language and a common vision, they can't work toward the same goals.
You need to get everyone on the same page—literally.
If your people are struggling to see each other's POV, you are the kind of visual thinker I call a:
Conversation Shaper & Change Catalyzer
You are motivated by helping groups and individuals make positive change.
You're a person who loves process and getting people to work together towards a common goal. But we know that face time is hard to get and when we do so much that is said in the room, never leaves it.
Visual thinking takes what is ephemeral — the conversation in the room — and makes it tangible. Your people feel heard when they see their words. Once someone feels heard, they are better listeners to each other.
Because when thinking stays in people's heads, it competes. When it gets on the wall, it connects.
You'll find Conversation Shapers wherever a room full of people needs to become a team:
Facilitators
guiding complex discussions using visual tools to capture emerging insights, decisions, and breakthroughs
Change Management Consultants
mapping complex change initiatives, from strategic view to stakeholder impacts down to dates and details
Managers
making all employee voices visible to increase collaboration, navigate team dynamics, and improve processes
HR Business Partners
improving transparency and alignment around performance, culture, and organizational patterns
Career & Executive Coaches
helping clients identify challenges, chart learning pathways, and visualize progress
Counselors
tracking emotional patterns, support systems, and relationship dynamics
Therapists
using visual tools to help clients see patterns, track progress, and envision new possibilities
Social Workers
making complex family and community systems visible and facilitating difficult conversations
Mediators
giving conflicted parties a drawing to point to versus each other to shape workable solutions
Community Organizers
helping constituencies feel seen and heard, building coalitions, and navigating challenging political landscapes
Workshop Leaders
creating transformative learning experiences designed for whole humans and different kinds of minds
Working beyond words means:
Working as or hiring a graphic facilitator
Professionals dedicated to mapping out your conversation in real time, also called graphic recorders or scribes.
Organizing ideas on sticky notes
Get everyone's thinking out of their heads and onto the wall — fast.
Using visual models to guide group process
A strong model gives the group context and a sense of direction.
Using storyboards to understand behaviors
Map the human journey before designing the solution.
Mapping out big, complex projects and processes
Creating flowcharts, 'swim lanes' or other visual representations of your work.
Capturing ideas on flip charts
Stop filling up this conference room staple with words, words, words, and start shaping your meetings.
Whiteboarding
Using physical whiteboards, or virtual versions like Miro or Mural, to draw out complex ideas on a surface everyone can see at once.
Adding visual thinking tools to your group's process takes them from cross purposes to shared vision.
Your group is waiting.
Here's how to make their thinking visible and their progress unforgettable.
For Individuals
The Graphic Facilitator's Guide
Written from 16 years on the floor as a working graphic facilitator, this is the field guide I wish I had back in 1996.
Everything I know about using your listening, thinking, and drawing skills to make meaning for a room full of people.
This isn't theory. It's what actually works — for graphic facilitators and scribes, yes, but also for any facilitator, manager, or leader who wants their meetings to matter.
Buy the book
For working graphic recorders and graphic facilitators, these two online courses will save you years of trial and error:
Build the craft
Gold Star Graphic Facilitation
Designed to complement The Graphic Facilitator's Guide, this course is a by-my-side video apprenticeship deepening your listening, thinking, and drawing skills in the room.
Build the business
Graphic Facilitator Confidential
I poured everything I knew about selling this unique and misunderstood service into this online course, all about landing the business that gets you booked in the room.
Want a feel for the work first? These will do it.
For Organizations
Two-day, in-person workshop
First Rate Flipcharts
Currently the most underused tool in business, the conference room flipchart is the key to changing your organization's meeting culture forever.
I teach your team ten field-proven formats — repeatable structures that turn the flipchart into a focusing device, a participation engine, and a decision-making driver.
By the end of two days, your team has a shared visual vocabulary and process to walk out of every meeting with decisions, alignment, and momentum.
Designed for:
Includes hands-on practice in the workshop, applied to a real, upcoming meeting.
Make every meeting countGraphic Facilitation Services
Get Brandy in the Room.
Far beyond "the person who does that drawing thing," I am your thought partner who brings three decades of experience, and an overflowing toolbox of visual and tangible tools to bring out the best in your group.
Real-time visual synthesis of complex conversations or designing the exercises that get your whole team drawing and collaborating.
Strategic planning. Executive offsites. Annual conferences. Brainstorming sessions. The meetings where getting it right is non-negotiable.
Work with BrandyShare Visual Thinking for Facilitation + Collaboration:
Explore more visual thinking for life:
Personal Work + Productivity
Writing + Speaking
Mapping Complex Systems
Learning + Teaching
Facilitation + Collaboration
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