(Image of the Iron Man statue in the 5th City community in Chicago)

I was reminded of the event below when teaching the course The Power of Image Change.  In the course, we talk about how underlying images of self and the world guide behaviour, that messages can change underlying images, and when underlying images change, behaviour changes. We also explore how metaphor and other ways of giving messages are often more effective than verbal messages. 

Years ago, ICA did lots of participatory events in communities, often one-day events where a range of community people came together for a festive community forum to create a community vision, articulate obstacles to the vision, and create strategies to address the obstacles.  (That process was an early use of what came to be the ToP Strategic Planning process.) In these events, a small group would volunteer to create a story, a song, and a symbol or logo for the community, reflecting the vision of the community.  Some incredible creative work came out of this exercise, and in many communities it continued to inspire community pride and spirit long after the event. 

A few years ago I was asked to work with a team in a school board. The members of this team were scattered throughout the system, and they had an image of themselves as lone wolves rather than a team.  The leadership identified that they needed to articulate a mission statement in order to focus their task within the system and bring them together as a team.  

We did a consensus workshop on their particular mission and purpose as a team, clustering all their individual ideas to create larger elements of their mission and purpose.  Then I broke the large group into three smaller groups to create three different results based on the core elements of the mission, the column titles from the workshop.   

One group wrote a paragraph from the core elements – a mission statement.

The second group took the core elements and created a light-hearted song, setting it to a simple well-known melody.

The third group created a logo for the group, using the core elements and turning them into graphic elements of the logo.   

Then each small group presented their results to the whole team.  Everybody was pleased with the mission statement as it drew together their insights into a succinct paragraph. 

The second group shared the song lyrics, and everyone sang the song.  It was fun, and triggered a lot of laughter. 

Finally the third group presented the logo.  The graphic of the logo held their vision of the team and its mission, and there was a gasp of recognition. 

The mission statement was printed and posted in their team space along with the logo.  The song probably was never sung again, but the laughter at singing it became a team memory. 

The very different ways of articulating their mission became messages that created a new image of the group as a collaborative team who supported each other even though they often worked alone. 

Where have you noted an underlying image that is blocking yourself, another person, or a team, where a metaphor could send a message that might unblock that image and make room for a releasing image?