The visual elements in a workplace have a profound effect on its employees. Most organizations, however, do not recognize the power of design, art, sculpture, and graphics to create the vibrancy and energy that can drive productivity and innovation. Seeing Is Believing explains how to use these elements to improve communications, connect individual tasks to organizational goals, and greatly enhance employee commitment and job satisfaction. It shows how the system of Visual Management:* replaces "information overload" with information sharing and effective workflow* translates critical requirements into visual stimuli that cannot be ignored* resonates particularly well with "the MTV generation"* enhances the way customers, other stakeholders, and the public relate to the organizationSeeing Is Believing shows how organizations of all types are adopting VM and lays out a roadmap for successful implementation.

The Visual Factory: Building Participation Through Shared Information by Greif Michel

A powerful idea poorly presented
Seeing Is Believing describes visual management, a "system that reinforces tried-and-true management principles and techniques through the use of fine arts techniques." That is, the book explains why and how one should use visual artifacts to communicate the organization's vision, mission, and values (and gain employee support of the aforementioned), create a customer-focused environment, communicate performance goals and progress, and provide a rewarding work environment for employees, among other things. Examples of visual management include bulletin boards, posters, art works, and war rooms (entire rooms devoted to such displays). The arrangement of furniture in the workplace and the general décor also play into visual management. The first three chapters of the book are concerned with defining visual management, explaining why it is important, and where it came from. If you ask me, the chapters could have been condensed into one. Chapter two spends an unnecessary amount of time trying to convince the reader that we have become an increasingly visual society (duh!), citing examples such as computer interfaces and the video displays on cell phones. One particularly amusing example involves comparing classic movies with the movies of today. The authors maintain that while classic movies used a "careful and often time-consuming process of detailed character development", today's movies rely on fast-paced and complex special effects to tell the story and develop the characters. Personally, I would argue the majority of movies today involve no character development whatsoever (and that's why good movies are few and far between nowadays). The authors then go on to claim that this visually-oriented technology boom has forced us to become visual learners, as if learning visually is a new phenomenon (I guess the authors are not familiar with Howard Gardner's research around multiple intelligences and learning styles). After suffering through the first three chapters, the reader is finally presented with some actual examples of visual management in practice via several brief case studies. Again, the writing is less than scholarly. No data is presented to back up any of the conclusions presented. For example, the authors claim that the visuals at a particular manufacturing plant "help to reinforce success and foster a sense of pride among the employees", but provide no qualitative or quantitative data to support this claim. Chapters five and six provide a roadmap for becoming a visual management organization. The six-phase process (plan, frame, create, focus, detail, and renew) is discussed in detail and along with some examples. The final chapter helps the reader assess if visual management is right for his/her organization. Although I believe visual management tactics make sense and are worth any manager's attention, I feel this book does a poor job of getting the message across. With the exception of a handful of citations throughout the book, the authors fail to share the research that informed their writing.