“We want something that no one has ever seen before!” When Jennifer from Vasion Software called to ask us to graphic record their upcoming tech demos, she presented an interesting challenge. We had talked about the difference between graphic recording on paper versus digitally using an iPad, and she was leaning towards digital, but then she said, “We want to be cutting edge.”

In 2024, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids reached out to Lizard Brain for help. They had never developed an organization-wide strategic plan. In their experience, strategic plans were “long documents a few people write and nobody reads.” Strategic plans were “shelfware:” expensive to produce and of questionable usefulness. 

Change is a big part of life, especially in business. Sometimes it can feel like flying blind. But don't worry: John Kotter has 8 steps to help prepare for and manage change.

At Lizard Brain, we bring both the Task World and the Human World into all of our work. We love strategic planning and operations planning and action lists and getting things done, but we ALSO love building trusting relationships among the people we serve. Because it doesn’t matter how smart an idea is if no one listens to it.

I once got called in at the last minute to co-facilitate a meeting. The consultant who set up the meeting told me what little he knew. This was the first time his client’s leadership team was meeting in person. They had worked together virtually for the last six months or so. They wanted to get together to do a little light strategic planning and agree on their initiatives and goals for the coming year. Easy peasy….

Multidirectional management matters. The farther you go in your career, being your best self with your boss, team, suppliers, providers, and colleagues matters more to your success than technical skills.

An Inspiration Board is a powerful tool to energize your design thinking workshops and team-building offsites. It's quick and easy to set up and incredibly effective at fostering creativity and team bonding.

Unless you have a deep admiration for the management philosophy of the Enron corporation, you’d probably agree that collaborative team environments are valuable assets in any organization. At Lizard Brain, we partner with organizations to intentionally design and develop high-performing teams and collaborative environments.

Unless you have a deep admiration for the management philosophy of the Enron corporation, you’d probably agree that collaborative team environments are valuable assets in any organization. At Lizard Brain, we partner with organizations to intentionally design and develop high-performing teams and collaborative environments.

Navigating the challenges of modern meetings often involves choosing between in-person, virtual, or hybrid meetings. Hybrid meetings, where some participants gather in a room and others join virtually, seem like a flexible solution, but they come with huge drawbacks. At Lizard Brain, we universally discourage the people we work with from using hybrid meetings.

At Lizard Brain, we believe in the transformative power of visual and experiential methods in group decision-making. But beneath the charts and sticky notes, there’s a deeper element at the heart of successful collaboration: the genuine presence of each participant, fostered through psychological safety and diversity. 

I’ll just say it. Presentations aren’t effective for communication. 

Vilifying PowerPoint is nothing new. But if no one likes sitting through a presentation where the speaker reads every single word on the slide, why on this green earth do we keep doing it? It’s monotonous, ineffective, and insulting to the intelligence of the participants.

Dealing with facilitation ambiguity is a skill that every team leader, CEO, coach, or HR professional can benefit from mastering. By asking the right questions, you can navigate uncertainty with confidence and keep your group focused on achieving their goals.

“OK, we all know why we’re here and what we’re supposed to be doing, so let’s get to it!” If anyone kicks off a meeting saying this, you can bet the meeting will go off the rails. It presumes and assumes a heck of a lot. But worse, it entirely fails to set up the meeting in such a way that participants know…

It can be tough for team members who live in the day-to-day reality of their work to easily articulate their organization's core purpose. As a remedy, some companies use elevator pitches

 “The only way to learn how to write and draw is by writing and drawing … to persist in the face of continual rejection requires a deep love of the work itself, and learning that lesson kept me from ever taking Calvin and Hobbes for granted when the strip took off years later.”

--Bill Watterson

Visual learning isn't just a trend; it's a powerful tool that can transform your organization. By integrating visuals into your workflow, you can improve problem-solving, boost retention, and streamline processes. For CEOs, business leaders, non-profits, and educators, mastering visual learning can be the key to unlocking your team's full potential.

Someone asked me once, “Can you facilitate without markers?” “Sure,” I said. “But don’t ask me to facilitate without questions.” Questions are the most powerful tool consultants, coaches, and facilitators have to move groups. Period.

There’s a temptation to jam as much content and activity into an agenda as possible, to demonstrate that “we’re being productive.” But really meaningful group work happens in the spaces and discussion between the prompts and presentations and prescribed activities. There’s something inherently awkward about saying, “We’ve created a structured activity for you to be as innovative and inspired as possible!” So how do you create space for those flashes of inspiration without overprescribing and smothering the spark of creativity? How do you bottle group lighting?

“The most important thing teams do is make decisions. And yet, few teams are explicit about HOW those decisions get made.” - Joe Gerstandt, diversity and inclusion expert.