Why Thinking Differently Makes Teams Stronger
"What exactly is the ROI of your workshop?"
A valid question
I was actually asked that question recently by a client. At first glance, what I do might seem like a photography workshop. But photography is just the tool. The real workshop is about behavior, and that deserves a concrete answer—not just a nice story.
In this article, I explain what actually happens during this workshop, why it works, and what benefits it brings to a team—including the cost analysis.
Why I Can Answer This Question
Before becoming a photographer, I spent more than 25 years leading teams and organizations. During those years, I saw the same pattern repeat itself time and again: the biggest delays were rarely caused by a lack of knowledge or commitment, but by people who assumed that a colleague saw things the same way they did.
That experience is exactly why I started teaching this workshop. Not as a photographer who just happens to know a thing or two about leadership, but as a leader who just happens to use photography as a tool to make visible something that normally remains invisible.
The Same Landscape, Different Photos
A real-world example.
A team stands in exactly the same spot in the Schoorl Dunes. Everyone is given the same assignment. After twenty minutes, we lay the photos side by side.
No two photos are alike. Not a single one. Even though everyone was looking at the same landscape.
That's when the real conversation begins.
Why did you notice this? Why were you walking that way? Why did you focus on the big picture, while you focused on the smallest detail? Why did this catch your eye, but not mine at all?
What This Reveals About Every Team
Suddenly, it becomes clear what happens at the office every day: everyone sees things through their own lens. And that’s exactly where most misunderstandings arise—not because people don’t want to work together, but because they assume that a colleague sees things the same way they do.
That insight—literally brought to life through twenty different photos of the same location—has a different impact than if you were to present it as a proposition in a team meeting. People see the evidence with their own eyes, in their own photos and those of their colleagues.
What participants say afterward
Afterward, I often hear comments like these:
"Now I finally understand why you always have different ideas."
"I never realized you paid so much attention to details."
"We've been working together for years, and yet today I learned something new about you."
That’s where it all starts: greater mutual understanding, better communication, more creative solutions, faster decision-making, and greater trust within the team.
And that in itself is a form of ROI, even if it doesn’t come with a euro sign. A team that understands each other better makes fewer mistakes due to miscommunication. A team that learns from one another finds solutions faster because more perspectives are brought to the table. A team that trusts one another spends less time monitoring, coordinating, and double-checking. That’s a return on investment—it’s just more visible in behavior than in a calculation.
ROI, in numbers
Soft benefits are no less valuable, but clients often want a number as well. We provide that, too.
Suppose that, thanks to better mutual understanding, a team of 12 employees each saves an average of just 10 minutes a day that would otherwise be lost to misunderstandings, duplicate work, or lack of clarity.
That's 2 hours a day—a team effort. Over 500 hours a year.
It’s not a spectacular promise. But it is a realistic example of what a small change in behavior can achieve, for the investment of just one day of training.
If you calculate that based on an employee’s average hourly rate, the value recovered quickly adds up to an amount that more than exceeds the investment in the workshop—often within the first year.
The conversation that really gets going over drinks
The workshop almost always ends with drinks or dinner. And it’s precisely there—with a drink in hand and the camera put away—that the most valuable insights emerge.
People who deal with each other professionally during the day suddenly find themselves talking openly about why they saw what they saw. That informal moment at the end is just as valuable as the assignment itself—it’s often the moment when a colleague feels truly heard by someone else for the first time in years.
The best comment I ever received was from a participant: "I thought I was coming here today to take pictures. I went home with a whole new way of seeing things."
And maybe that's exactly where good teamwork begins. Not by working harder, but by looking at things differently.
Is this something for your team?
This workshop is ideal for teams that want to look beyond the annual performance review. No dry theory, no PowerPoint presentation on communication—just an experience in which insights are made visible rather than merely explained.
Would you like to experience this with your team? Send us a message via the contact form, or email us at info@bakkmphotography.nl, and we’ll work with you to design a program that’s right for your team.
