I have a hypothesis. Most people limit the degree of success they can achieve because they like to get involved to fix problems or weaknesses, instead of trying to build on strength and success.

Olympians to world leading organizations get to the top of their game by having a focus on their strengths, or core capabilities. But these are the exceptions in our societies. I see the problem focus in many areas, from the way organizations do annual reviews, to how people develop change programs, and even how they respond to their children’s school reports.

Our corporate staff review system is very similar to those I have seen in other companies. Everyone has some set of commitments that define the expectation of them for the year and some profile that identifies their degree of competence in the skills necessary to do their jobs. Other than when people try to play political games, if you achieve the commitment or have reached the top of the scale for a specific skill, relative to what is required for the job, then the conversation is over and there is a tick in the box. If you have failed on the commitment, or there is a gap in the skill then the conversation is all about improvement and how to fix the problem. This same perspective has filtered down to our personal choices. In many cases if a parent sees their child get a top mark in one subject and a poor one in another they will spend less time working out how to grow on the strength than they do on how to fix the weakness.

When we want to make change happen it can be far more effective to focus on the strength than on the weakness. Just consider the difference between focusing on the things we do wrong compared to focusing on doing what we want for the future. A common approach when setting an organization’s strategy is to define the future vision then clearly show the gap to get there. If that future vision and the work to fill the gap is based on examples of how to do well then it is easier for others to copy the example. If it is based on a list of problems then all people have is the list of things to change.

Let’s put these two thoughts together. Change is easier when you can show the way by example of building on strengths, rather than trying to fix weaknesses.

How does this relate to visual stories ?

My recommendation is to consider i

magining the future state and describe what you would see should the change have happened. Use the visual story to describe how the world, situation and your relationship to it will have changed. You can then drill into the specifics to identify the tangible signs, helping the audience identify the future state and be able to place themselves in it to see what it would feel like. From this they can then identify the key points to focus on to make the change happen.