This was drawn by a cross-functional task team in a high tech company where distrust was a big problem.  Projects were way behind deadline, blame had eroded working relationships and a dangerous apathy drained employees of enthusiasm.  The first two meetings with this group were frustrating – either no one was willing to speak or they flipped into a blaming tirade against management.  Yet, when the group abandoned language and turned to image and metaphor, they could suddenly see several sides at the same time.  Everyone laid their cards on the table.
The whole group combined their individual maps to create this picture.  The CEO is sitting on a throne on top of a mountain with his hands firmly placed over his ears.  The factory is way off to one side.  It looks like slave’s quarters.  Administrative offices are at the base of the mountain filled with “carpet people” (some groups didn’t have carpet in their office) leaning back with their feet propped up on their desks.  On an island far away was a fort that housed the design engineers.  Sentries were posted to keep everyone else out (and to keep engineers silly enough to want to fraternize, in). One lone HR person floats on a raft midway between the mainland and the island, without oars, vainly attempting to bring the groups together.
Obviously it required a facilitated process to handle these “dangerous truths,” but the power of these visual representations broke down barriers and opened the eyes of those who had refused to see the problems.  You should have seen the face of the CEO when he saw this drawing! The metaphors shot right past his usual defenses of being angry or self-righteous and he just stood there, slack-jawed, taking it in.  In a split second he saw what they saw and understood their point of view whereas months of discussions, mountains of reports and even the most articulate anonymous emails had not done the trick.  The people who drew the pictures got an eyeful too.  Their frustrations and anger seemed to drain into the pictures and leave them better prepared to look for solutions.  They could see how they contributed to the problems as well.
The drawing exercise was a tiny piece of a larger process but it was a catalyst, nonetheless.  They saw things they didn’t see before – and it changed them.  The CEO started listening, the engineers dismantled their fort (parts of it, anyway) and the factory and the main office began to communicate more.  Once exposed, blame either makes it’s point or gets cancelled out by the bigger picture.  In the silence, many people don’t realize their “oppressors” feel like victims, too.

This picture was drawn by an employee of a large bureaucratic organization.  When she lifted it up, there was a hush of recognition in the group.   She said “This is me in the vice.  But it could be any of us, really.  We are all taking turns.  All of these people are just waiting their turn.  When we aren’t on the block getting screwed, we are helping turn the ropes and screwing each other.”   The emotional content of this picture is powerful.  Whereas, this group had verbally described their problem as having too much work and not enough support, this picture shows more of the story.  It reveals how the group was contributing to their own misery by how they treated each other.

Other drawings dealt with more typical good guy/bad guy themes.  One showed a garden (one manager was a sun, the other a cloud).  Another person drew a boat splitting down the middle as the two divisions rowed in different directions.   One side was happy the other sad.  Yet, all it takes is one deep thinker in a group.  Given a chance to effectively share how they see things, one perceptive soul can transform the rest.  This woman held a mirror up to the group that revealed a view they were missing.  It revealed that their problems weren’t necessarily all being caused by those big bad senior managers!  Those big bad senior managers might have provided the vice, but it was the people in the room that were turning the screws on each other!
I could have preached cooperation for days on end, but they needed to see if for themselves.  Once they saw their own contributions to the stress, they were no longer powerless victims.  It was too bad (and very telling) that both directors were “no show’s” that day.  A dialogue about dangerous truths only benefits the people in the room.   But their progress proves that a group can make real improvements even without leadership buy-in.  Reports to date show complaints from the field are down, formal grievances are down, and people are taking more responsibility to solve their own problems.