Highlights from Control the Room Episode with David Sibbet: Graphic Recording vs. Graphic Facilitation
I hear it all the time. What’s the difference between graphic recording and graphic facilitation?
There’s a lot of industry debate about this term, but no one is more qualified to make this distinction than David Sibbet (The Grove), who is largely viewed as the originator of the field. Sibbet’s interview on the Control the Room podcast with Douglas Ferguson (Voltage Control) speaks to the value of visuals in their most basic form.
“You can’t do systems thinking without a visual. It’s either between your ears or explicit on the wall,” says Sibbet.
Watch the full episode or via your favorite podcast app and check out our top highlights below. 👇
You may also like our informational video “Understanding Visual Notetaking,” which goes further into the history and benefits of visual notetaking.
Highlights
A graphic recorder is a silent listener who creates an artifact, while a graphic facilitator builds charts with the group. The first is about creating an artifact saying “we did something.” The later is about getting the group involved in their own creation and using the marker as a democratic tool.
Rather than systems thinking, we should call it “big picture thinking.”
Always explain to a group why you are choosing a certain type of visual. People learn how to align themselves around a visual.
Graphics are a process not an artifact. Each graphic is like a yoga Asana, where the graphic tells you how to be and how to get a group to focus.
Learn how to accept corrections like a Christmas present. The secret sauce is knowing how to deal with first drafts not being right.
To be a great facilitator, maintain stubborn optimism and endless abundance.
Radical regeneration = what is it that people need most right now?
Graphic History Mapping is a sort of story composting. People only think about the organization from the lens of when they joined, and rarely consider what the organization is like for somebody new. Everybody’s version of the story starts to break down and you can craft a new story that is more inclusive.
To get started, have each person to sign in with when they joined the organization and allow them to talk about what it was like when they join the organization in cohorts. Start with milestone memories and events that everybody would know, aka “memory benchmarks.”
Check out courses on graphic facilitation and more on The Grove’s website, plus grab visual templates you can use online and in person in their visual toolkit.
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