How Leadership Communication Skills Come to Life through Story Telling With Graphic Facilitation

Building Effective Leadership Communication Skills through Story Telling





I recently graphic recorded The Kraft Food’s Quest Leadership Development Program where the particular session’s focus building effective communication skills on leadership teams. Voice Pro, the company who facilitated the workshop for Kraft, focused on the importance of inspiring and capturing your audience’s (and employees’) attention to expertly convey messages and engage others.





Tell Me More about Effective Story Telling!





I can show you! First, so-and-so described the need for effective story telling in business environments; in short, to capture the attention span of a fast-moving culture and to bring back the ‘human element’ to communication in today’s business environment. Next, we covered aspects of what makes a great story; whether it’s the classic ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ or next week’s big Power Point client presentation. There are certain aspects that run throughout an attention-capturing, memorable, well-told story.





Building the Kraft Leaders of Tomorrow





It’s been a joy to support Kraft Foods’ innovative leadership development program, Kraft Quest and the up and coming Kraft Trek, for several years now. The program design and success is due to its insightful, experiential, and unconventional approach developed by external lead consultant for Culture Logic, Linda Pedelty, Kraft’s Associate Director of Organizational Development, Nicole Polarek, and Kraft’s Director of Training, Jason Dirks.


Is Graphic Facilitation Impactful? What my Kraft Client Contacts had to say on the Topic during an Interview with Harvard Business Review.


Kraft Foods has been utilizing graphic recording as a supporting framework for its leadership training program since 2005. "For me, the drawings are really a trigger," says Nicole Polarek, associate director of organizational development. "I can look at the picture and remember the conversation." Jason Dirks, Kraft’s director of training, says graphic recording keeps people interested and engaged on two levels. "You have this initial ‘wow’ factor while watching this person draw the image," Dirks says, and afterward people can study the depiction more closely. "The artists are able to capture a lot of depth."





How Does the Kraft Quest Leadership Program Fully Utilize Graphic Facilitation?





In so many ways! In addition to real time graphic recording during the sessions, we create a summary report post-event that includes the digitized charts, content transcription from the charts, key slides, and models that were presented during the sessions. We also create a Learning Journey Map that illustrates key concepts of soft-skill and leadership-skill development models that were presented through the yearlong program. The Learning Journey (summation) Map is then printed in a hardcover book form as a key memento from the program for each participants and is given to them upon graduation.





Stephanie Crowley is an expert when it comes to Graphic Facilitation, for more information please visit graphicfacilitationservices.com