Open-ended questions and visual images are two really fast ways to introduce new stimulus into a conversation and open the door to new perspectives, new ideas and new insights.

 

The Conversations Sparker Cards™ use both. Of the 70 cards in the deck about 30% feature questions, the rest are visual images like the ones on the left. Use just the questions, just the images or mix them up and see what happens. 

 

I just drew a random question: "Whats the priority?" and a random image: a view through window panes to a tree in soft focus. 

 

What jumps out at me in this moment is how the window panes break up the background image and obscure the whole – the message here is to shift my focus from the individual details and re-focus on the big picture.  WOW. I didn't really know what I would get – and this was perfect.  It really is that easy to access a new perspective or insight using tools like this.