I have two distinct passions that I am fortunate and blessed to explore and share with the world. For the last 20 years, I have helped leadership teams disseminate strategy, evolve culture, and develop their leadership capability. Concurrently for the last 14 years, I have directed, produced, shot and edited independent films. These two worlds seemed separate and distinct to me for many years, and because of my own limited paradigm, I operated contentedly in these two creative silos.  It is only the last few years that I have discovered the unique power of the medium of the moving image as a powerful business communication tool.

Using video as a tool for training is certainly nothing new. Animation and video make an otherwise dry PowerPoint presentation more dynamic. Leaders of large, global organizations use streaming video to make company-wide announcements, bringing a personal immediacy to a strategic communication. What I believe to be sorely under-utilized in the business arena is the power of cinema—the marriage of sound and the moving image—to transport the viewer to another place, reaching not only their mind, but also their heart and soul.

I witnessed the power of cinema first-hand a few months ago at the Annual Leadership Retreat of one of my clients. This particular client is in the process of rebranding themselves as a pioneer in a new market space, and the senior leadership team, and more specifically the marketing team, was ready to share the new direction and the new brand promise with their top managers. They did this in a brilliant way…they used the tools of cinema to lure the top 150 leaders to the emotional core of the new brand, through imagery, music, and narration. It was effectively group hypnosis. The combination of these artistic elements put these leaders into a meditative state. The audience was feeling the powerful effect of this new brand, taking it in at a deep level.

I know this happened because I documented the event on video. You can see each and every one of these men and women were in a different world…they had been transported to another emotional place. My job was to document this seminal leadership event and share an overview to the rest of the organization. What I set out to do was create a 15 minute “event documentary” that would put the viewer—likely someone who worked on the warehouse floor or on the sales desk—in that room for the three days. Watching the documentary was unprecedented access for non-salaried employees—people that are closest to the customer, but far from the world of their executives.

According to one of the company’s Directors, the impact of sharing the documentary was powerful. “It gave people a ‘peek behind the curtain’ on what happens at leadership events, how strategies are formed and communicated, and how our leadership interact with one another. Compared to a SharePoint posting, or a memo, the video ensured that EVERYONE in the organization received the message, but most importantly, had the opportunity to ask questions about what was happening within the company. This is a format you simply cannot achieve with the written word.”

The documentary showed so much more than talking heads giving presentations. It showed the experience of people in the audience were having. It showed leaders poking fun at themselves (at a night-time spoof of America’s Got Talent). It showed the passion that their leaders have for the business. It communicated culture and values in explicit and implicit ways.

And it should not be lost for you senior executives out there…showing your people that you can poke fun at yourself is a powerful message. This particular client, a highly

successful private and family-run business, had set a professional and no-nonsense tone for 75 years. The first time the executive team poked fun at themselves at a large leadership event, it was a shock to the system.Most notably in a 5-minute cinematic video—a spoof of Star Trek, with the executives portraying the crew of the Starship Enterprise—with the intent of teeing up the topic of Strategic IT in a fun way. But the strongest message sent was “This company is changing and we are open to new ideas!”

So consider this the next time you need to communicate an important message to your organization, to your team, or to your customer—a cinematic message can reach the audience in a multitude of ways: visceral, intellectual and emotional. It will stick in the conscious and subconscious in ways that memos and talking heads cannot.

In my own work with clients, which is ultimately about creating learning organizations, helping leaders show up as their best selves, and raising the consciousness of the organizations I serve, I encourage leaders to utilize cinema as a powerful tool—harness the power of cinema when you need to reach the “whole person.” Organizations are highly preoccupied today with raising employee engagement. There is no better way to engage the work force than with a cinematic message.