I walked into the room planning to draw a simple exercise.

Basic prioritization task. Put your most important initiatives inside the circle, everything else outside.

Clear instructions. Straightforward concept. This was a smart, capable, and experienced group.

And it was a major struggle.

Every single thing they had going at the moment stayed 100% and squarely inside the circle.

Projects competing with each other. Initiatives requiring the same resources. Priorities that kind of weren’t priorities at all.

Stepping to look back at this (now very crowded) circle, the problem was pretty obvious: they couldn’t take anything off the plate.

They couldn’t do subtraction.

And even with this, again, very obvious visual, they were still struggling to see the issue.

Too Close to See

Teams embedded in their own problems develop a kind of blindness. It all comes from a great place, mind you.

Every project feels essential because they’ve invested time in it.

Every initiative seems urgent because they’ve been living with the pressure.

Every priority appears justified because they understand all of the history behind it.

When you’re inside the problem, EVERYTHING looks like a priority.

Teams and organizations fall into this trap all of the time. They’ve been living with competing demands so long they’ve stopped seeing they might be competing with themselves.

They accept redundancies as normal. Navigate conflicts instead of resolving them. Protect stuff that should have been axed months ago.

And when that’s the case, you don’t need better planning. You need the 10,000 foot view.

It’s where an outsider drawing and sketching this new perspective is a completely new way see what’s actually happening.

There’s natural discomfort in removing things.

In many organizations, especially government, taking something away feels risky.

People worry about losing programs, funding, or resources they’ve worked hard to secure.

This scarcity mindset makes subtraction feel dangerous, even when it’s exactly what’s needed for clarity.

Design Thinking as Distance

Design thinking is pretty powerful. Not as another workshop framework, but as a way to create the distance teams need to see clearly.

If you don’t understand what got you to the now, you can’t design a what-then.

Most organizations jump straight to future state planning.

Where do we want to go?

What should we build next?

How do we get there even faster?

But they skip the hardest part: honestly assessing their current reality. Understanding what thinking and decisions created their present situation.

Design thinking forces that reflection. It creates space between problem and solution. Between where you are and where you want to go.

This isn’t a quick fix. Real design thinking often requires 4, 5, or even 6 workshops to do successfully. It’s never a two-day, one-and-done solution. It’s a series that builds understanding over time.

The challenge is that many organizations spend all day talking about the work but leave little time to actually do it.

Everything you want to happen speeds up when you get still first.

That space is where clarity lives. And clarity is where real change becomes possible.

The View from Outside

When I’m drawing during these sessions, I’m not just capturing what people say. I’m capturing what they reveal.

The idea graveyard where good initiatives go to die. The competing priorities no one wants to acknowledge. The patterns of confusion everyone’s learned to navigate.

Sometimes teams need someone who isn’t invested in any particular outcome.

Someone who can look at their circle exercise and say, “This isn’t working because you’re trying to do everything.”

In effective workshops, you come together at the circle to see the big picture, then break out into smaller groups to work on specific pieces. But when everything stays inside that circle, there’s nowhere to break out to.

Visual work creates that necessary distance. It turns abstract problems into concrete pictures you can point to and discuss.

And then you go beyond discussion. And you get discourse that pulls out the uncomfortable truth that lead to the outcomes you want.

Creating Your Own Distance

You might need to create some distance from your own situation.

Step back from the urgent and ask:

What thinking got us here?

What assumptions are we protecting?

What would have to be true for our current approach to actually work?

What would someone who’s never seen this problem before notice first?

Sometimes getting to that 10,000-foot view means reducing the size of your thinking group.

Who in your organization gets paid to think versus complete tasks? The people who can create strategy need space separate from those executing day-to-day operations.

Your first attempt at this kind of thinking will feel messy. You might even feel uncomfortable with what you discover. But as with any skill, you get better with practice.

The beginning is always the hardest part.

Find ways to get that 10,000-foot view of your own challenges. Whether it’s visual mapping, honest reflection, or bringing in fresh eyes.

Because if you can’t take anything off your plate, you’re not prioritizing. You’re just collecting.

And that circle will keep getting more crowded until someone finally draws what everyone can see.

Grateful you are here

Wade

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