Graphical Approaches to Get ‘Unstuck’ and Gain Insights for Coaching in Higher Education

Coaching conversations in Higher Education can sometimes reach a point where progress feels limited, ideas become circular, or it’s difficult for individuals to articulate what’s really going on. This session explores how simple graphical approaches can help people get “unstuck” by making their thinking visible and opening up new perspectives. Drawing from the principles in Graphical Facilitation: Enabling Conversation and Learning Through Images, we will look at how visual tools can prompt reflection, highlight patterns, and reveal insights that are harder to access through dialogue alone. Dr Curie Scott An educator, coach and consultant with over 20 years’ experience supporting researchers, educators and leaders. Curie specialises in helping people through reflective, visual and embodied coaching approaches, building on her background in medicine, education and her PhD on drawing for cognition. The use of ‘simple’ graphical tools unlock insight and make conversations more human, memorable and transformative. She is currently at the University of Southampton integrating Prosper, a career development resource that helps researchers thrive within and beyond academia. She writes prolifically on drawing for thinking, embodiment and social learning. Her books, including Graphical Facilitation, are about bringing research into the everyday to improve life. Dr Steve Hutchinson A dynamic coach, developer, consultant, facilitator and author – Steve specialises in Leadership, Personal Impact and Organisational Effectiveness. He began as an academic (zoology) and then led development programmes at the Universities of York (UK) and Leeds (UK). He now owns a development company and works internationally in the research, education and public sectors. As a trainer he spent years doodling on whiteboards before realising that this approach could facilitate coaching conversations. Whether live, with pen and paper or virtually through Zoom and AI, he uses graphical approaches in much of his developmental practice. For what it’s worth, he can’t draw.