BACK OF THE NAPKIN: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, THE

Corporate Report Wisconsin, Apr 2008 by Covert, Jack

THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam, Portfolio, 288 pages, $24.95, Hardcover

When one thinks of the skills needed to thrive in todays business environment, the ability to draw isn't usually high on the list. But, as Dan Roam persuasively suggests, visual thinking through the use of drawing is one of the most powerful tools for solving problems and selling ideas we have available to us. And selling ideas and problem solving, I think we can all agree, are essential to business success.

Human beings are born with an immense talent for processing images, and Roam insists - even if you don't believe you're a visual person - that so long as "you [are] able to walk in [a] room without falling down," you can use this talent to address any issue. The great thing about this book, though, is that it doesn't exhaust itself preaching the benefits of visual thinking. Roam states his case simply and effectively, and then moves on to giving you "tools and rules" to think visually, laying out the steps to take (Look, see, Imagine, Show) and "the six ways of seeing."

The six ways of seeing are: who/what, how much, where, when, how, and why. These six ways of seeing are going to affect each part of the visual thinking process, from identifying the issue, to developing an idea, to expressing a solution.

Roam discovered the power of all this after covering a presentation for a colleague at the last minute. He was asked en route to a large conference of education experts in England, to run his PowerPoint by the British team leader. He didn't have one. He wasn't even quite sure what it was he'd be talking about. When he found out it was about the role of the Internet in American education, a topic he didn't know much about, he grabbed a pen and the nearest napkin and began sketching out how to build a useful Web site for that audience and later recreated it on a white board, turning the meeting into an interactive exchange.

This book is full of great stories like the one above, and will show that you don't need to be a great artist to master the art of problem-solving - but it sure helps to draw it out anyway.

Jack Covert, president and founder of 800-CEO-READ, reviews some of the best business books. 800-CEO-READ, a division of Milwaukee-based Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, is a direct supplier of book-related resources nationwide, and specializes in identifying trends in the changing business market. For more reviews, visit 800ceoread.com.