Case Studies
See how organizations have strengthened workplace culture through visual storytelling. Each case study describes what happened and explores why it worked.
Seeing Through One Another’s Lenses
A newly formed leadership team at a global company, spread across countries and time zones, gathered for several days of planning and strategy. Their leader knew that diving right into their agenda wasn’t the right first step. They needed to build relationships before they could build their business. Their investment in a team-building workshop focused on meaning and purpose paid dividends in trust and understanding.
What’s Gratitude Got to Do with Work?
A public university's student life division wanted colleagues across departments to build stronger, more trusting relationships—not through another mandatory mixer, but something more intentional. Forty-three staff members submitted more than 180 photographs in response to a single prompt: how do you experience and express gratitude? A half-day workshop incorporated visual storytelling in small groups. Participants reported that the experience deepened relationships more in a single morning than ordinary interactions had in the past.
A Recipe for Flourishing
The leadership team of a professional association recognized a need to invest in the next generation of their field. At the beginning and end of their two-year fellowship, the inaugural cohort participated in professional development retreats that incorporated photovoice activities. The process helped fellows and their mentors who were spread out over North America build and maintain relationships, process their experiences, and shape the experience of future cohorts. Subsequently, several participants even incorporated photovoice into their own work.
A mission-driven private foundation wanted to overhaul its pay philosophy but knew a standard survey wasn’t telling them enough. A photovoice initiative involving twenty employees from across every level of the organization spent five weeks in small groups, using photographs to talk about meaning, money, and fairness. They curated their experiences, needs, and hopes into an online art exhibit and held virtual town hall meetings to engage the rest of the organization. A set of guiding principles was distilled from their visual narratives, providing leaders with insights grounded in the lived experiences of their coworkers. The process grew into a pay philosophy and went a long way toward building a workplace culture where people feel included, visible, empowered, and connected.
The Value of Work
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Build a workplace culture where teams trust one another more deeply, employees communicate with greater understanding, and everyone collaborates more effectively across differences—that's a culture built through intention, not by accident.