How My 30-Second Napkin Sketch Solved
a Client’s Multimillion-Dollar Problem
Sitting in a San Antonio bar in 1967 with entrepreneur (and soon-to-be CEO) Herb Kelleher, Texas businessman Rollin King grabbed a now-legendary cocktail napkin and sketched out a simple triangle while posing this question: What if we were to create a local airline that connected these three cities (San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston)? With that simple sketch the idea for Southwest Airlines was born.
(By the way, this classic story is often told by author Dan Roam, who is one of the thoughtleaders most responsible for putting the business application of napkin sketching “on the map,” such as in his groundbreaking book The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.)
Keeping this classic Southwest Airlines example in mind, the next time you are trying to generate ideas, brainstorm a solution, or convey a complex idea to someone, instead of just trying to explain it verbally, why not use a cocktail napkin—or a piece of paper, or a flipchart, or whiteboard, or tablet—to sketch it out?
Even if you think you can’t draw, it’s not about your artistic ability…it’s about your ability to visually represent your idea for the purpose of getting it out of your head and into someone else’s.
Early in my executive coaching career, one of my new coaching clients—a regional vice president of sales at a global pharmaceuticals company—was wrestling with a costly, complex, and incredibly challenging business dilemma that had been keeping him up at night for months.
In my first coaching session with him, I helped to solve this problem in less than ten minutes—simply by means of a 30-second napkin sketch.
It’s not that I’m so brilliant—in fact, to be completely honest, I didn’t really, fully understand all the complexities of his situation (in this instance, that ignorance probably worked to my advantage)—and my drawing skills are elementary at best. And yet my amateurish and rudimentary sketch helped save the day.
Here’s how:
In one of the smaller European countries for which he was responsible, this sales VP had two regional sales directors reporting to him: the director of the western region, and the director of the eastern region.
The guy who ran the west was very senior and highly experienced, but near retirement and not all that ambitious. The guy who ran the east was young, hungry, energetic, and looking for a challenge. The problem, though, was that the east was a more mature, settled market with little growth opportunity; so the newer guy felt handcuffed and frustrated. The northwestern part of the country was where all the potential action was. But the guy who ran the west was nearing retirement and not interested, energized, motivated, aggressive, or willing enough to do what it would take to conquer that untapped sales territory.
So, what was my client to do? Neither of these regional directors was interested in relocating. And, for logistical reasons, constant travel was a costly and ineffective option. My client was stuck, with absolutely no idea what to do. He had two unhappy employees on his hands, and he was losing thousands of dollars in potential business with each passing day.
Just to make sure I understood the problem correctly, I sketched out my perception of the situation simply by drawing an oval (representing the country) with a vertical line splitting it down the middle, separating it into east and west.
Instinctively I said, “This may be a stupid idea, and I’m sure you’ve already thought of it, but what would happen if you did this…?”
At which point (and maybe you’ve figured it out by now as it’s so obvious it’s almost embarrassing) I drew a line across the country and said, “What if, instead of east and west, you were to redivide the two regional markets into north and south?”
Problem solved. A solution that was so simple and obvious after the fact was imperceptible to my client…until he saw it drawn out on paper. Only then were we both able to see the multimillion-dollar solution right before our very eyes.
But here’s the question: Why didn’t he see the solution earlier, before I did? He was the expert, and a super-smart guy. It was probably because he was so caught up in the sales figures, and the personalities involved, and the conflict, and the pressures, and the complexities of the situation. He was too mired in the details, and too close to “see the forest for the trees.” And it wasn’t until we were able to get a fresh set of eyes on the problem and take the proverbial “thirty thousand-foot view” of the situation that the solution became crystal clear.
I was able to see a solution that he couldn’t because, as per the classic Zen saying that I picked up from author Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen, and The Naked Presenter): “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
Or, as George Bernard Shaw once said, “No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.” But it did not become obvious until I sketched it out.
Of course, napkin sketching and figuring things out on the “back of an envelope” have been around for ages, and the idea of drawing things out goes back millennia, to caveman days, even before the written word was invented. But it’s only in recent years that the concepts of visual thinking, visual communication, napkin sketching, whiteboarding, etc., have really taken off as practical, recognized, and learnable business skills suitable not just for artists, but for anyone and everyone.
Think about these questions: How would you explain your job using a napkin sketch? If you had to, could you draw a picture that would simplify the complexity of your company’s business model to a potential customer or investor? Or illustrate a step-by-step process to train a new employee? On a job interview, would you be able to visually tell the story of your career history (the who, what, when, where, why, and how) in a visual and compelling way?
If so, you just might find that a picture truly is worth a thousand words…or, as in the Southwest Airlines example, many millions of dollars.
In Review
The Big Lesson: In the future, when trying to communicate in a situation wherein words alone may not do the trick, think about how you can leverage the power of drawing—both to conceptualize your idea, and as an effective way of communicating it to others.
The Big Question: What’s a challenge you are currently facing that might benefit from your “sketching it out”?
Your Big Insight:
Your Big Action: