Every leader I’m talking with right now is carrying some version of the same tension: the technology is moving faster than the org chart, the board wants proof faster than the culture can absorb it, and the budget cycle doesn’t care how long trust actually takes to build.
That’s not a failure of leadership. It’s a structural feature of change itself — and wise thinkers can shed helpful light on these types of overwhelming moments.
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Change is the essential nature of life, so we encounter it in ourselves, organizations, in communities and nature all around us. Whether slow or strange and unanticipated, life’s changes continue to confront us. It’s up to us to determine how we make sense of the changing moments and respond productively and creatively—essentially, to make a life that matters…
Read the full article, Becoming an Artist of Life in Uncertain Times, and access the illustrated essay on the Ken Hubbell and Associates website.
Working with the learning leaders at Bentonville’s Scott Family Amazeum, Ken Hubbell captured the collective learnings in a series of real-time visual storyboards generated by a diverse set of regional educators, social sector youth developers, and philanthropists who collaborated around the ideas of Remake Learning, led by Gregg Behr.
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Our ActionCraft work with leadership teams adds a lasting spark to accelerate the challenging work of creating real social impact. We craft strategic stories that transform the way people understand, remember, and act upon key ideas.
This summer, Ken Hubbell collaborated with several customers to produce colorful graphics they are using to elevate well-being and economic opportunity, and to accelerate digital modernization. It is fun to create big things with remarkable leaders who are scaling. Here’s a snapshot.
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Our ActionCraft work with leadership teams builds upon strategic drawings to capture the essential ideas and create a coherent framework from possibilities. This real-time feedback loop expands thinking by fusing fidelity to the messages or conversation with inspiring visual metaphors of the deeper, unstated potential. When we get it “right”, these experiences and images stand out as strategic stories that transform the way both planners and other partners understand and act upon the key ideas to produce impact. Often, these images are deployed as graphic roadmaps toward big goals.
In this portfolio summary, Ken Hubbell curated the Top Action Storyboards that, in each case, helped drive strategic action or positive downstream outcomes as teams used the graphics to communicate key messages (why “this” matters now), advance a consensus priority (how we’ll shape a congruent response), or generate deeper dialog with leaders (what this context means for us going forward?).
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When my innovative brother Gary Hubbell decided to reshape his impact consulting practice as leadership masterclasses, he invited me to create an entire visual library to give spark and shareability to the concepts and ideas.
I created a Reframe 2 Thrive logo and thirty ink and color drawings that provide the visual playbook for the Getting Big Stuff Done leadership series.
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Whether your team is enmeshed in ideation, strategy development, or action planning, you’ll be more productive if you can clarify and maintain focus on the Big Picture—the driving purpose and “why” of the work. Unfortunately, too few leaders can sustain the collective clarity on the big context that shapes the team’s priorities.
At ActionCraft Company, we help change-makers create a unified Big Picture and use it strategically to expand their impact. Session after session, we provide colorful, spunky drawings of the essential themes and the implications for generating lasting impact.
We are grateful to our steadfast client partners. In their honor, we are delighted to share a Big Picture Scrapbook loosely organized around a few common leadership themes. When you need to re-imagine and energize the meetings that matter, reach out to kenhubbell@kenhubbell.com.
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At ActionCraft Company, we help change-makers expand their impact and open doors through visual strategy and storytelling. We get to facilitate — using live mural drawings and digital graphics — inspiring and actionable strategy roadmaps produced by leadership teams, like Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation (HHSF) in Canada. For more than a decade, with my business partner (and brother) Gary Hubbell, we have helped guide and visualize the Foundation’s philanthropic strategy aimed at increasing widespread community health through an integrated blanket of care. Foundation CEO Pearl Veenema (below) has been a champion for expanding intentional leadership development and integrated strategy.
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At Ken Hubbell Consulting, we help leaders unlock fresh strategic insights that improve impact on the issues that matter most. We employ a unique mix of visual strategy tools and coaching to elevate the work of impactful leadership.
For several summers, Ken has been a visiting practitioner at Texas A&M’s Bush School — Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy. This year’s focus was on supporting leaders in finding strategic pivots to shape a better future, in sharing a convincing message of change despite the new uncertainties, and in redrawing their roadmaps for 2023 and beyond. Below, we summarize highlights from the leadership learning workshop.
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A day last week at the Art Institute of Chicago reawakened me. Sitting with my sketchbook in the space of great art—what Parker Palmer called “the vastness of great things, (1)” was a wonderful reminder that in order to settle out the noise and pressures of the day you need clear seeing and focus. Inspiration is always available; it takes intentional practice to re-perceive and unlock it.
At ActionCraft, we’re always using creativity in service of people seeking breakthroughs. Here’s to the art of “clear seeing—and doing.”
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