WEBVTT 00:00:03.250 --> 00:00:06.490 Hi, Sarah, and welcome to Think Visual with Shapeshifters. 00:00:07.330 --> 00:00:11.929 This is our first online recording. And I'm really 00:00:11.929 --> 00:00:13.890 grateful that you're here with me today. Thank 00:00:13.890 --> 00:00:17.129 you for taking the time. Deanna and I, we've 00:00:17.129 --> 00:00:21.210 been running Think Visual for most of 2024. And 00:00:21.210 --> 00:00:23.570 to kick off 2025, we thought we'd do something 00:00:23.570 --> 00:00:26.589 a little bit different and go online. So this 00:00:26.589 --> 00:00:29.769 is our first one. You're our first speaker. Wish 00:00:29.769 --> 00:00:36.259 us luck. I'm excited to be here. Excellent. Okay, 00:00:36.340 --> 00:00:40.679 to kick things off, who is Sarah Stokes? How 00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:43.600 did you get to where you are today? And what's 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:47.280 your story? Well, that could be a very long answer. 00:00:47.399 --> 00:00:50.179 I'll try and focus it on design and some of the 00:00:50.179 --> 00:00:56.109 things that underpin my thinking. I'm from the 00:00:56.109 --> 00:00:59.450 UK. I grew up there, and I went to university 00:00:59.450 --> 00:01:01.770 there. I've been in Australia for 20 years, but 00:01:01.770 --> 00:01:04.010 between then and now, a fair bit has happened. 00:01:05.189 --> 00:01:09.189 So I got into design when I was working at a 00:01:09.189 --> 00:01:13.310 theatre company in the West End. We owned 10 00:01:13.310 --> 00:01:16.170 theatres, and I'd heard about this internet thing, 00:01:16.170 --> 00:01:20.010 and I said to the CEO, I can make you a website. 00:01:20.719 --> 00:01:23.980 And I had no idea what I was doing. So I ended 00:01:23.980 --> 00:01:27.500 up being the web mistress, the designer, the 00:01:27.500 --> 00:01:31.180 information architect, the marketer. And it was 00:01:31.180 --> 00:01:33.060 a very steep learning curve. But we delivered 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:38.640 a website in three months. And from there, I 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:40.640 did a master's in interactive multimedia, because 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:43.299 I thought I had to back up the bullshit, if I 00:01:43.299 --> 00:01:46.739 may say that. And then from there, I ended up 00:01:46.739 --> 00:01:49.379 working various different areas in entertainment, 00:01:49.579 --> 00:01:53.420 other theater and ticketing companies, Sky Television, 00:01:53.700 --> 00:01:55.879 when a remote could have been the interactive 00:01:55.879 --> 00:01:58.579 TV part of things where you could order pizzas 00:01:58.579 --> 00:02:01.859 through your TV and tickets. So I worked on that. 00:02:02.260 --> 00:02:04.739 I worked in financial services for quite a long 00:02:04.739 --> 00:02:08.300 time as well. And more recently in Australia, 00:02:08.879 --> 00:02:13.860 banking, retail, market research, property. And 00:02:13.860 --> 00:02:16.560 now I'm working in tech at Atlassian. So I've 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:18.780 gone through all the levels of design, from even 00:02:18.780 --> 00:02:20.919 coding right through to kind of service design 00:02:20.919 --> 00:02:24.599 and organizational design. Underpinning all of 00:02:24.599 --> 00:02:27.020 it, though, I would say, is like a human -centeredness. 00:02:27.599 --> 00:02:31.520 So I also did archaeology for work experience 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:34.460 as a teenager. And so just understanding where 00:02:34.460 --> 00:02:36.460 humans are and how they live and how they thrive 00:02:36.460 --> 00:02:42.400 or didn't. is quite interesting. And so from 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:45.860 archeology, human -centered in the past, to human 00:02:45.860 --> 00:02:49.080 -centered design, and now kind of person -centered 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:54.539 leadership is where I'm at. Wow. You sound like 00:02:54.539 --> 00:02:59.259 such a curious and go -get -em kind of person. 00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:02.900 Can you tell me a little bit about this? You 00:03:02.900 --> 00:03:05.860 seem like just as an observation, you have this 00:03:05.860 --> 00:03:09.539 real great just do it attitude. Can you just 00:03:09.539 --> 00:03:12.199 expand a little bit on how did you get that way 00:03:12.199 --> 00:03:17.340 and what's behind that? Whether I like it or 00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:20.400 not, I'm driven. I'm quite ambitious and it doesn't 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:22.759 feel like it's comfortable. It's like that's 00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:25.120 just who I am and I've got an inner drive and 00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:28.400 I think I'm fiercely independent and I always 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:32.340 want to be doing well. And I want to keep learning. 00:03:33.539 --> 00:03:35.740 So it's that inner drive. I'm not sure where 00:03:35.740 --> 00:03:38.099 it comes from. I'm the bottom end of six kids. 00:03:38.159 --> 00:03:40.560 Maybe I was oppressed by my older siblings. I 00:03:40.560 --> 00:03:42.439 don't know what a psychologist would have to 00:03:42.439 --> 00:03:46.000 say about it. But I think being brought up in 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:49.539 that kind of chaos makes you independent and 00:03:49.539 --> 00:03:55.539 self -possessed, I would say. Wow. Another question. 00:03:56.340 --> 00:04:01.030 How do you use visuals in your work and in your 00:04:01.030 --> 00:04:05.229 life. It strikes me as, you know, your independence, 00:04:06.349 --> 00:04:09.250 your approach to things seems super creative, 00:04:09.629 --> 00:04:13.569 but specifically on visuals, what role do they 00:04:13.569 --> 00:04:17.389 play in your work and life? So before sketchnoting 00:04:17.389 --> 00:04:21.829 was a thing, I've always been a doodler. I've 00:04:21.829 --> 00:04:24.509 always liked to draw. It helps me think, it helps 00:04:24.509 --> 00:04:28.240 me concentrate. And so people would always remark 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:31.740 on me. I'd say, excuse me, I need to do this 00:04:31.740 --> 00:04:35.019 to concentrate. And I knew that from an early 00:04:35.019 --> 00:04:40.040 age at work. So people know that of me. And then 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:45.560 I also think visually. So if I'm thinking about 00:04:45.560 --> 00:04:47.879 a concept, it will end up being an analogy. And 00:04:47.879 --> 00:04:50.329 I'll end up saying it's like, We're going from 00:04:50.329 --> 00:04:53.790 and to something, so what's between us? Or we're 00:04:53.790 --> 00:04:56.009 on a journey together, or we're feeling a bit 00:04:56.009 --> 00:04:59.930 at sea, so it's that concept of using visual 00:04:59.930 --> 00:05:02.970 language, which then helps us, helps me actually 00:05:02.970 --> 00:05:05.370 create visuals to align people. I think the other 00:05:05.370 --> 00:05:09.649 thing is, I love frameworks and models, so when 00:05:09.649 --> 00:05:12.410 I worked in finance and we had consultants come 00:05:12.410 --> 00:05:13.910 in and they'd have all these fancy frameworks, 00:05:14.089 --> 00:05:15.740 I'd be like, wow. Wow, look at that pyramid. 00:05:15.899 --> 00:05:17.639 That's an amazing quadrant. And they had all 00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:19.600 these things. And over the years, I've actually 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:22.300 collected them all. And I've got this dodgy -looking 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:24.680 keynote presentation with all these frameworks 00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:27.740 in that I find incredibly useful as inspiration. 00:05:28.199 --> 00:05:32.259 But what they all speak to is externalizing a 00:05:32.259 --> 00:05:34.399 problem by using visuals to create alignment. 00:05:36.120 --> 00:05:41.300 You're a great verbal communicator. When you 00:05:41.300 --> 00:05:46.670 use visuals, Do you see that it improves communication 00:05:46.670 --> 00:05:49.149 or, you know, what is your observation actually 00:05:49.149 --> 00:05:53.329 of what it does to your communication? I think, 00:05:54.170 --> 00:05:56.110 I wouldn't say it necessarily improves my communication. 00:05:56.149 --> 00:05:58.389 I think it improves the collective communication. 00:05:59.310 --> 00:06:05.329 So it does actually improve, actually I'll go 00:06:05.329 --> 00:06:07.529 back on that. I've actually done an exercise 00:06:07.529 --> 00:06:11.689 before for myself by drawing a particular framework. 00:06:11.930 --> 00:06:13.750 when I was doing some self -coaching, and it 00:06:13.750 --> 00:06:15.870 actually helped me achieve an understanding of 00:06:15.870 --> 00:06:18.290 where I needed to focus. So visualization can 00:06:18.290 --> 00:06:22.189 actually help yourself as a tool as well, depending 00:06:22.189 --> 00:06:26.209 on what frameworks you use. So yes, I think it's 00:06:26.209 --> 00:06:28.649 the visuals plus the thinking behind it and then 00:06:28.649 --> 00:06:31.470 the purpose of it. And knowing when you've run 00:06:31.470 --> 00:06:33.490 out, when it's run its course. So you might have 00:06:33.490 --> 00:06:35.569 an analogy and suddenly it breaks. So you go, 00:06:35.730 --> 00:06:38.529 OK, we can't continue this. We need to find something 00:06:38.529 --> 00:06:43.459 different. Can you expand a little bit on the 00:06:43.459 --> 00:06:46.779 collective communication part? So what do visuals 00:06:46.779 --> 00:06:50.800 do for collective communication? Well, I think, 00:06:51.259 --> 00:06:54.399 as I said before, I think it externalizes. So 00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:57.040 we've all seen diagrams of a thought bubble with 00:06:57.040 --> 00:06:58.980 a triangle in one and a square in the other, 00:06:59.060 --> 00:07:00.660 where people think they're thinking the same, 00:07:00.759 --> 00:07:06.420 but they're not. People are talking in concepts 00:07:06.420 --> 00:07:08.759 that's abstract. So if you have a visual, even 00:07:08.759 --> 00:07:11.620 though it may be an analogy or a metaphor, it's 00:07:11.620 --> 00:07:15.220 making something concrete. So you can say, for 00:07:15.220 --> 00:07:17.000 example, we're going from something and to something. 00:07:17.060 --> 00:07:19.420 You can have two cliffs and a bridge over it. 00:07:19.779 --> 00:07:22.500 That's the future. This is the past. What are 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:24.079 we leaving behind? What are we taking with us? 00:07:24.100 --> 00:07:26.199 People can engage with that. And it becomes more 00:07:26.199 --> 00:07:28.680 of a story. And you can talk about the journey 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:30.620 over the bridge and what needs to happen first. 00:07:30.980 --> 00:07:33.550 And so all of a sudden, You're covering several 00:07:33.550 --> 00:07:38.230 concepts at once that make people think more 00:07:38.230 --> 00:07:44.790 openly and maybe less territorially or self -centred. 00:07:45.170 --> 00:07:50.689 I think it makes us more collective. In this 00:07:50.689 --> 00:07:53.430 kind of rich diversity of work that you've been 00:07:53.430 --> 00:07:58.870 involved with, do you have any influences? They 00:07:58.870 --> 00:08:02.759 might be people or things or... movements or 00:08:02.759 --> 00:08:04.939 ideas, do you have any? And what might they be? 00:08:05.579 --> 00:08:09.540 Well, I come from a bit of an artistic family. 00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:13.980 My sister, older sister, she does art workshops, 00:08:14.060 --> 00:08:16.800 but she used to run a ceramics design company 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:22.100 and also architectural design. I've got three 00:08:22.100 --> 00:08:24.660 sisters and my mum, they all do sketching and 00:08:24.660 --> 00:08:27.699 drawing. So I think we've always had art in our 00:08:27.699 --> 00:08:32.769 blood. I also studied the history of art from 00:08:32.769 --> 00:08:35.610 Impressionism to Surrealism. I'm quite attracted 00:08:35.610 --> 00:08:40.330 to the Dada movement. I also think a bit of humour, 00:08:40.769 --> 00:08:44.350 so Surrealism as well. So I think that's just 00:08:44.350 --> 00:08:49.870 been part of my DNA. And another question. Why 00:08:49.870 --> 00:08:53.769 should people use visual thinking? Does it help? 00:08:55.950 --> 00:08:59.509 I think if you are somebody who works with other 00:08:59.509 --> 00:09:03.710 people, and you're kicking something off, it's 00:09:03.710 --> 00:09:06.830 a great time to use it because, again, it externalises 00:09:06.830 --> 00:09:09.129 that thinking, gets everyone on the same page. 00:09:09.889 --> 00:09:14.049 If you're struggling in conversation, it can 00:09:14.049 --> 00:09:17.190 get you over a hump. Because you can say, rather 00:09:17.190 --> 00:09:19.450 than, oh, it looks like we're dealing with a 00:09:19.450 --> 00:09:21.629 terrible situation, it might be... Do you remember 00:09:21.629 --> 00:09:24.649 that time when Homer Simpson designed a car and 00:09:24.649 --> 00:09:26.669 it was like a Frankenstein car and had bits all 00:09:26.669 --> 00:09:28.809 over the place? Well, it feels like that's what's 00:09:28.809 --> 00:09:31.289 happening now. Perhaps if we had a vision of 00:09:31.289 --> 00:09:33.850 what the car would be, it would end up being 00:09:33.850 --> 00:09:36.009 like Homer Simpson car. And then you can draw 00:09:36.009 --> 00:09:39.129 a picture of a car. And that kind of gets everyone 00:09:39.129 --> 00:09:42.649 thinking about the problem rather than something 00:09:42.649 --> 00:09:50.440 else. I love your reference to Homer. And the 00:09:50.440 --> 00:09:54.620 Homer Simpson car is a bit of a classic. Actually, 00:09:54.700 --> 00:09:56.860 could you mind telling us a little bit about 00:09:56.860 --> 00:10:01.240 some of the metaphors and the frameworks that 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:04.620 you'll kind of discuss on the day? And how would 00:10:04.620 --> 00:10:07.240 people actually be able to make use of it themselves? 00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:11.639 Cool. Well, so as people come into the room, 00:10:11.960 --> 00:10:15.309 so spoiler alert for those coming in. I'm going 00:10:15.309 --> 00:10:17.190 to put some pictures on the wall like a hammer 00:10:17.190 --> 00:10:23.129 and a nail, a swan, an iceberg, a coin with two 00:10:23.129 --> 00:10:25.690 sides. And you see a picture and instantly you 00:10:25.690 --> 00:10:29.230 can relate to what we're talking about. So I 00:10:29.230 --> 00:10:31.750 think that's like a stimulus to understand that 00:10:31.750 --> 00:10:35.169 we can use visuals to very quickly convey a message 00:10:35.169 --> 00:10:38.529 or a thought experiment. So that's the kind of 00:10:38.529 --> 00:10:40.250 the metaphorical side of things. When it comes 00:10:40.250 --> 00:10:42.509 to frameworks, I could just draw two lines. That's 00:10:42.509 --> 00:10:45.379 a quadrant. That could be effort impact. It could 00:10:45.379 --> 00:10:48.059 be love it, hate it, want to do it, don't want 00:10:48.059 --> 00:10:51.340 to do it for coaching. You've got the iceberg 00:10:51.340 --> 00:10:55.399 model. So that can be behavior, or it can be 00:10:55.399 --> 00:10:58.840 the UI, UX, and all the technology beneath it. 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:02.580 Then we've got things like the pyramid. So we've 00:11:02.580 --> 00:11:04.440 got Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but that can 00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:06.759 be all sorts of different things, pyramid shape. 00:11:08.100 --> 00:11:11.620 So these are shapes that are very simply drawn 00:11:11.620 --> 00:11:15.240 that suddenly align people on concepts. I'm sure 00:11:15.240 --> 00:11:16.960 there's a few, yeah, there's bend diagrams, one 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:20.000 of my favorite things. And then there's two circles 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:22.399 next to each other, which is comfort zone and 00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:25.840 where you grow and things like that. So we'll 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:29.139 be sharing some of those. And then in terms of, 00:11:30.019 --> 00:11:33.080 I'll talk a bit about why models and metaphors, 00:11:33.100 --> 00:11:34.740 which I've kind of covered a bit today, but I 00:11:34.740 --> 00:11:36.580 won't go into it too much now. But what I think 00:11:36.580 --> 00:11:39.159 we'll do with people there is in pairs, we'll 00:11:39.159 --> 00:11:42.629 go, what's it like? So. It could be your job, 00:11:42.809 --> 00:11:47.669 your current challenge, your pet at home. So 00:11:47.669 --> 00:11:49.289 that kind of thing. And you can say, well, my 00:11:49.289 --> 00:11:54.450 job, I feel like I'm treading water. My dog is 00:11:54.450 --> 00:11:58.029 like a bull in a china shop. But you have to 00:11:58.029 --> 00:11:59.909 draw that thing. And you share with the other 00:11:59.909 --> 00:12:01.970 person. Perhaps you could extend the metaphor. 00:12:02.409 --> 00:12:04.289 We'll share back and look at each other's pictures 00:12:04.289 --> 00:12:07.029 and see. Maybe sharing just the picture, having 00:12:07.029 --> 00:12:09.230 a guess at how they're going at their challenge. 00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:13.039 And that's kind of putting it into practice straight 00:12:13.039 --> 00:12:15.620 away. And then I think the idea I want people 00:12:15.620 --> 00:12:17.679 to walk away with is you actually already have 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:20.659 a toolkit of all these shapes. But it's just 00:12:20.659 --> 00:12:22.940 having them together in a toolkit means that 00:12:22.940 --> 00:12:25.019 you're already on a running start next time you're 00:12:25.019 --> 00:12:27.759 going to a difficult meeting or you're thinking 00:12:27.759 --> 00:12:30.480 and you want to have some inspiration. That's 00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:37.919 amazing. Okay. Lastly, where can people find 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:42.019 you? Because... I'm sure people will be interested 00:12:42.019 --> 00:12:45.559 in who Sarah Stokes is. So where can people see 00:12:45.559 --> 00:12:48.320 some of your work or get in touch with you? Where's 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:51.820 the best place? Well, you could find me on LinkedIn. 00:12:52.299 --> 00:12:54.440 You could probably Google me and see some of 00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:58.379 my talks I've done. So Sarah Stokes Sydney Design. 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:03.259 I've done talks on empathy and design, leadership, 00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:06.179 wisdom and things like that. I also have a website 00:13:06.179 --> 00:13:10.730 sarastokescoaching .com. So see you there. Fantastic. 00:13:11.169 --> 00:13:13.990 We'll be sure to include those in the show notes, 00:13:14.210 --> 00:13:16.169 but thank you very much, Sarah.