How Visual Communication Healed Our Professional Relationship
Results from our visual communication experiment with Orlagh O'Brien
It was about a year ago when I joined a virtual meeting with Orlagh O'Brien and her project team. I valued her skills, maturity, and adaptability from our previous projects. One of Orlagh's gifts is her ability to truly listen and capture what you have in mind in a visual way, creating a feedback loop that helps you realize, "Yes, that is exactly what I have in mind."
As a newly assigned delivery manager for that account—just a week into the role—I was still trying to figure out what was what. It was a high-visibility project with lots of pressure, and I needed to quickly understand the situation. I joined the virtual meeting with my new co-manager, who was quite a character, as we were still in the process of aligning our approaches.
As I clicked into that video call, I was genuinely nervous. The project was outside my core expertise, and I'd just discovered there were deadline issues. I needed to wear my manager hat well here, not my expert one.
The meeting started well but deteriorated as we progressed, with my co-manager descending into micromanaging. I could see Orlagh's expression changing on my screen as the collaborative energy visibly drained away. I witnessed the exact moment trust broke between us, but I couldn't fully comprehend why.
When Trust Is Broken
Our professional relationship remained strained after that meeting. Orlagh eventually left the project, and I later left the company, with the unresolved tension lingering in my mind as a professional failure.
A year later, while exploring visual thinking as an innovation tool, I thought of Orlagh, an expert in this area. Despite our history, her recent comment on my post encouraged me to reach out. I had an intuition: what if visual communication could help resolve our past disconnect? When I proposed this approach to address our tension, she embraced the idea immediately.
We planned a 90-minute Miro session to test whether visual thinking could help us reconnect, challenged not just by the methodology but by our emotional history.
Visual Communication as Bridge-Builder
Guided by Orlagh, we began by recapping our intentions: bring healing to the past disconnect and test how visual communication could help us do that. The atmosphere was cautious but hopeful as we prepared to revisit our challenging experience.
We decided to start with Orlagh's designed exercises and finish with mine as the closing one. For our warm-up, we selected animal avatars representing our project roles—Orlagh chose a goldfish while I selected a whale.
I explained choosing the whale—large, a bit clumsy with its own inertia but also protective, using its big body to shield the team from disruptions. As I spoke, something shifted; Orlagh seemed surprised, saying she hadn't realized how much I cared about the team. This metaphor expressed intentions that direct conversation couldn't.
Next, we created a timeline with weather images showing our feelings throughout the project, both marking the disconnect moment with blue stars. Remarkably, we placed our stars at exactly the same moment—no explanation needed. The playful metaphors revealed layers we wouldn't normally discuss, helping me see her perspective while my explanation of context created visible understanding in her.
Our third exercise used basic shapes to represent team structure and relationships, allowing me to explain power dynamics and differing interests in our operating contexts. This discussion of team personalities took us off track. Having used our planned 90 minutes, we agreed to extend by 30 minutes for a final exercise addressing the specific moment of disconnection.
Orlagh's exercises sparked extensive discussions between us about the context we both operated in, constraints and operating models that were imposed, and how these affected us and our work. All these conversations brought better understanding of each other and prepared us for the final moment of truth.
The Moment of Truth
For our final exercise, we each filled in a template with three concentric circles:
The inner circle was "My Experience"—our thoughts and feelings in that moment
The middle circle was "My Observations"—what we saw and heard from each other
The outer circle was "Context"—all those project pressures and external factors
This became the culminating moment where we laser-focused on that one fallout meeting. I struggled with my drawing skills—wishing we also had pre-existing visual elements to express myself more clearly like with Orlagh's exercises. This became the most powerful part of our session. It was uncomfortable, honest, and in the end, truly transformational.
The pivotal moment came when Orlagh explained how in that meeting she realized our stated intention didn't match reality. "I felt betrayed in that meeting," she said simply. Initially, she directed blame toward my co-manager. For a second, I felt a wave of relief—here was an escape path where I wouldn't have to take full responsibility.
But that wouldn't be fair to Orlagh or true to myself.
I lowered my voice and said, "I'm responsible for that. I allowed it to happen. I betrayed your trust." I found myself repeating the words as I processed the admission in my head. Something shifted in Orlagh's expression as I verbally acknowledged my role—a subtle opening, perhaps the first true reconnection since that disastrous meeting.
I recalled planning with my co-manager two agendas for that meeting: the official one everyone knew about, and a hidden one where we wanted to assess Orlagh's leadership and how her team could handle deadline problems.
That was the moment I dropped all my explanations and justifications for what was, clearly, an ill-advised decision. I knew I'd made a choice that ran against how I normally work with others—how I try to lead with transparency and honesty. I should have stayed true to my values. No pressing issue or desire to make a good impression justified compromising my integrity like that.
Looking at her face on the screen, I realized our experiment had worked—visual communication had created a path to reconnection that conventional approaches hadn't managed in a year of distance.
What We Discovered About Visual Communication
We both agreed visual communication enabled different kinds of sharing that don't naturally emerge in dialogue. The visual elements created distance, making it easier to discuss our experience as if it were a story rather than our own difficult reality.
We also noticed how each exercise revealed a different perspective:
The animal avatars showed our INSIDE view (how we saw ourselves)
The team shapes exercise revealed our OUTSIDE perspective (how we operated in the system)
The concentric circles exposed the BETWEEN US dimension (our direct interaction and its breakdown)
The exercises built a foundation of contextual understanding that enabled us to address our underlying tension. The concentric circles exercise finally allowed us to "take the bull by the horns." Separating feelings from observations created clarity that had been missing in our previous interactions.
When Visual Communication Works for Resolution (And When It Doesn't)
While this approach worked for us, important considerations for applying similar methods include:
Requires foundation of trust: This method worked because we knew each other well enough to be vulnerable. You can't simply instrumentalize this approach with just anyone—there needs to be some relationship foundation to build upon.
Timing matters: We approached this retrospectively after a year, with cooled emotions. Fresh tensions might require a neutral facilitator.
Freedom from constraints: No longer working together allowed us to speak freely without workplace politics or ongoing project concerns.
Skills and tools matter: Pre-existing visual elements were crucial, as limited drawing skills would have distracted from expressing thoughts and feelings clearly.
Despite these limitations, visual communication creates a unique space for addressing disconnects that verbal approaches can't resolve, externalizing the tension to enable both objective discussion and deeper emotional connection.
While the most powerful moment came through words—my acknowledgment of betraying trust—the visual journey created the conditions for that honesty. For innovation practitioners, this approach won't replace direct conversation but can create pathways that make those conversations finally productive.
— Yarmo Covich