Alan feels visualisation helped humanise the project. “From my perspective, we needed to illustrate people’s feelings, to put some empathy in there. The poster captured our “why” – we are in the medical profession to care for the patient.”
Alan first came across bikablo® at one of the workshops, where he saw our Melbourne trainer John Hibble scribe. It looked impressive, and Alan wanted to give it a go. “I believe you need to keep yourself challenged in different areas. I love learning new things.”
The tagline “everyone can draw” really appealed. A visual person, Alan always felt he lacked skills to express his ideas on paper.
Alan attended two-day Bikablo® Fundamentals course in October 2018. He absolutely loved it and wanted to continue practicing but felt life got in the way. No longer feeling confident, Alan saw Visual Friends’ ad for a new, online Visual Coaching program and jumped right in.
“The benefits of the Visual Coaching program were fantastic, it gave me a lot of confidence. I’d usually spend hours trying to perfect my work, but the program taught me to be more spontaneous and trust myself. I’m not making a Mona Lisa here. It’s about capturing key messages, not creating a work of art.”
Alan found the small group of six a perfect size and the Slack channel a great way to share and learn from each other. “The program challenged us and kept us accountable.”
Alan’s five-meter poster was the result of this newly found confidence. He couldn’t be more pleased.
Alan is very passionate about his work, a big part of which is transforming hospitals into more human places. Under his management, his workplace is the second hospital in Australia to introduce a la cart room service for patients, where meals are individually cooked to order. He feels fortunate to be in a position to make a difference and happy these new skills help facilitate this.
“I’m lucky to be employed in a person-centric workplace. Our customers, the patients are right outside of our offices. It’s all about constantly improving the service we can provide, what experience we can change to actually make a positive difference to people. I want to continue to practice my skills as a part of my role. I plan to use it to visualise the strategic purpose and vision within my departments, so my team is able to be reminded of our direction every time they pass by.”
Alan is still adamant that he’s not good at drawing.
“I still maintain that I cannot draw, but what I can do is use basic shapes to create a visual. By choosing basic shapes and putting them together I can represent what I’m trying to say rather than replicate it.”