Drawing it out

When in conversation, I often draw pictures and diagrams. These provide a way for me to capture the conversation and sometimes reflect a mental model I hear in the conversation. During a recent conversation, I drew a diagram with four overlapping circles - I have long been a fan of Venn diagrams. I had this sense of having captured the conversation and framed a question around my understanding based on the diagram. Luckily, another person on the call had also drawn a diagram - one that could not have looked more different from mine! After a moment of silence, we started to unpack the two pictures - leading to profound insights about our shared understanding and different perspectives. We both left the conversation with more clarity and connection.

It strikes me that there is a multitude of those moments every day - moments where my mental model and that of another don’t align. In medical school, much of our inquiry training was about extracting the information we needed to accurately diagnose and appropriately treat patients. We were taught to be astute investigators, not curious travellers.

I wonder how much of the sense of frustration and burnout in healthcare environments are moments where drawings don’t match. How much easier might our days be if we became more curious about the mental models of our patients, colleagues… and families? How might our relationships and care change?

How might curiousity support you in drawing unexpected possibilities?