Workshops, Trainings, Keynotes

Our single-session workshops introduce the Visual Thinking Strategies methodology through experiential learning, help each participant gain self-awareness, teach immediately applicable communication techniques drawn from VTS, and bridge the experience to your work context.

We customize for specific roles, i.e., executive leaders, a cross-functional UX team, a talent development department, a product team. These workshops typically run 3-5 hours.

All single-session workshops include:

• Small-group breakouts guided by VTS experts, who give individualized feedback and build peer rapport and connection.

• VTS facilitation practice once by every participant with feedback, reflection and goal-setting.

• Art experiences, then application of VTS directly to your work materials.

• Integration with other frameworks/concepts key to your organizational learning goals
  (i.e., psychological safety, leadership, comfort with ambiguity, diversity of thinking and metacognition, and more).

We can scale single-session workshops for hundreds of participants over time.

VTS workshop impact and ROI is greatest when the learning is delivered in small chunks over time to allow cognitive growth, gestation, application, and reflection.

Our longitudinal sessions range, depending on design and learning goals—i.e., two half days spread three weeks apart, four two-hour sessions over six months. We co-design with you.

The fundamental components of a longitudinal workshop are:

• Every participant gains skills by practicing VTS facilitation at least twice, including on something they bring from their own workflow. We work in small groups with expert VTS guides.

• We integrate key frameworks/language to meet larger organizational learning goals, i.e., psychological safety, innovative and strategic thinking, facilitative leadership, comfort with ambiguity, metacognition).

• Participants gain self-awareness, receive individualized feedback, build peer community, and apply what they’re learning back in the flow of work.

Multi-session workshops can be scaled to reach hundreds of participants, which helps the strategies become a shared language across a department or company, building a culture of curiosity, rigor, and innovative thinking and integrating the method more deeply within larger arcs of workflow.

These 90-minute workshops help participants explore topics related to a healthy, productive workplace and learn a few communication techniques to improve connection and productivity.

Examples of workshop themes:

• Giving and Receiving Feedback

• Curiosity and Cognition: Thinking Together at Work

• What is Psychological Safety?

• Reframing Design Critique

• Facilitative Leadership

These workshops include:

• Brief presentations on research related to the topic at hand.

• An expertly guided VTS discussion about both art and materials relevant to the topic (e.g., a definition of psychological safety or an outtake from a real feedback discussion).

• Reflection into how the VTS facilitator’s way of holding conversation connects to the topic and the organization’s culture and habits.

• Pairs breakouts, we reflect on practices related to the topic.

• Take-it-forward communication techniques to apply immediately back at work.

These are not facilitation training sessions.

We deliver custom experiences for C-suite and senior executives to meet specific needs, individuals, and contexts. They have included:

• Deepening communication, understanding, vulnerability, and self-awareness within C-suite teams.

• Using VTS to explore materials of import (pipelines, data sets, strategic plans, charters, products, values statements, and more) to spur metacognition and self-awareness within high-achieving, high-impact leaders with very little time.

• Special locations such as museums, private collections, or other sites as relevant.

• Curating selections of art for VTS exploration to set or deepen organizational goals, i.e.:

  • Enhancing understanding of end-user experiences, such as art elucidating patient experiences for a global manufacturer of healthcare equipment.

  • Deepening mutual understanding and communication, such as selecting global contemporary art for a newly forming, international team with varying degrees of longevity.

Hailey has delivered C-suite experiences and workshops for Fortune 500 companies, family businesses, and global law and consulting firms. She also works regularly with CMOs from global companies through the Institute for Real Growth. Contact us for more information.

Dabney Hailey gives keynotes and presentations that are inspirational, informative, and interactive. She always leads a discussion about an artwork, regardless of how large the group, to deeply engage audiences.

Hailey designs each presentation for the specific audience using relevant research and frameworks on cognition, leadership, team dynamics, innovation, empathic communication, and more.

90 to 120-minute versions can include options like pairs breakouts with Listening to Understand exercises using artworks an/or additional expertly guided VTS discussions about business or healthcare stimuli.

Read more about Dabney. She has spoken at SXSW EDU, IAA, Innovation Leader’s Impact conferences, HRLF, UXPA, FRED Forum, the Institute for Real Growth, and for many private leadership gatherings and conferences, including at the C-suite level for clients like Mondelez, Stada, and Morgan Lewis.

Learning to guide VTS discussions fluidly and effectively is a journey that requires practice, expert coaching, and peer group reflection. Our courses get you there.

Here are three ways to more deeply learn all aspects of this powerful methodology and how to apply its techniques and discussion within your workflow.

Open Enrollment: The VTS@Work® Program, an open-enrollment course for professionals from all fields to learn and gain certification as VTS facilitators. Co-founded by Dabney Hailey, Corinne Zimmermann, and Philip Yenawine.

Custom: We also customize the VTS@Work® Program for in-house learning at your organization, scheduling at your convenience and integrating materials and moments from your work into the flow of the course. Reach out to learn more about minimum enrollment and course length.

Harvard Medical School CME: If you are a healthcare professional or in a related field, you may want to enroll in the continuing medical education (CME) course, Training Our Eyes, Minds, and Hearts: Visual Thinking Strategies for Healthcare Professionals, which emerged from the VTS@Work® Program and is co-directed by Dabney Hailey and Corinne Zimmermann with Joel Katz, MD.