At a global science summit, a researcher presenting on fungal infections captured my attention with his slides: lively, colorful, visually dynamic in a way that presentations like this never are.
While I usually embrace staid words, numbers, and occasional chart that are typical on this time, I immediately suspected what he spontaneously confirmed after the session: he had discovered Nano Banana. He used it to lift his content into something that functioned as an engaging complement to his presentation rather than a transcript of it. The story he told with it had been transformed, earning the attention of the diverse audience in the room.
There is a reason visual communication works. It is not a preference. It is science.
By three to four months of age, before infants have spoken a word, they demonstrate adult-like organization of visual preferences: category-sensitive responses to faces and scenes. The visual cortex accounts for 20 to 30 percent of the cerebral cortex, more than any other sensory system. MIT researchers established that the brain can recognize a complete image in 13 milliseconds. We are visual before we are verbal. The brain was designed to see before it learned to read. I hope my accompanying image is a seasonally appropriate demonstration of this.
“Show, don’t tell” has two meanings. The first is about design.
The counsel I consistently share with teams and clients: well-crafted visualizations convey the smarts and strategy being presented, validating your expertise. A leader that can express a complex strategy in a single, well-designed visual has done the thinking. Pages of words are not evidence of rigor. Too often they are evidence that the strategy is not fully baked and the editing has not yet happened.
Visual communication is not the simplification of a complex idea. It is the proof that you have mastered it well enough to show it.
The second “show it” meaning is about conduct.
Every mission statement is a promise. Every published value is a commitment. The question is not whether the words are well-chosen. It is whether the organization’s actions hold them up.
The organizations that earn sustained trust in innovation do not describe their commitment to patients. They demonstrate it through the decisions they make when that commitment costs something. The gap between promise and result is not invisible to the people whose decisions you need. As the gap grows, skepticism expands with it.
What you say positions the organization. What you do defines it.
Both meanings compound. An organization that communicates with visual precision and delivers on its commitments with consistency builds something neither alone can achieve: a reputation for showing up, in the room and in the results.
Reach out if you would like to “Show, Don’t Tell” more often. And Happy Thanksgiving!
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Episode 7 of The Impact Imperative, “Show, Don’t Tell,” is live on the Engager Company blog. The full piece explores visual communication and organizational integrity as a single, compounding discipline.
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