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.

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. 

Have you ever left a brainstorming session feeling as if something held back the flow of ideas?

Where would you meet me if all I said was, "Meet me in Paris?" This seemingly simple question can unmask the intricate layers of group decision-making dynamics. Interestingly, most people would answer "The Eiffel Tower." But why?

In late 2019, the FasterCures team within Milken Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think focused on accelerating measurable progress on a path to a meaningful life, hired Lizard Brain for visual notetaking at their annual Future of Health Summit. FasterCures leads a network of patient organizations focused on advancing research into diseases that sometimes fly below the radar of the big pharma companies and the disease research industry.

Visual facilitation is making waves in various industries. Imagine transforming your meetings and workshops into dynamic, engaging sessions where everyone is on the same page. This blog will guide you through the benefits of visual facilitation and explain how it can be a game-changer for professionals in business, education, and team facilitation. Let's explore who can benefit the most from this approach and how it can revolutionize your next session.

Meetings often get a bad rap for being dull and unproductive. But what if we told you there’s a game-changing technique that can turn mundane gatherings into dynamic, collaborative experiences? Enter visual facilitation—a cutting-edge approach backed by science that significantly boosts engagement and drives impactful results.

Lizard Brain provides a dynamic and interactive visual facilitation approach that keeps teams engaged and energized. Experience working with tech startups and understanding the unique challenges of this industry.

With the world in a constant state of uncertainty, it is hard to find things we can control. How we spend and share time in class is something that can be shaped. Applying the HIIT formula to virtual classes is one way of finding our balance, focusing, and performing at our best with the tools and resources we have.

I want to introduce you to Sarah. She's a healthcare executive struggling to keep large meetings focused and productive. Sarah needs to find a way to ensure everyone is on the same page with complex policy discussions. Stakeholders often have difficulty retaining information from lengthy presentations.