aiden choles

This TEDGlobal video is one of the most poignant talks I've ever viewed. It is by Chimamanda Adichie, an African novelist, who shares some experiences of how encountering a single story of a person, people or country framed the way she viewed them.

Her point is that being exposed to a single story is very dangerous, and that we've got to open ourselves up to "balanced stories" in order to really get a grasp on the world around us.

If you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with "secondly". Start the story with the arrows of the Native American Indians and not with the arrival of the British and you have an entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African states and not with the colonial creation of the African State and you have an entirely different story.

As I have written before, the heart of narrative therapy is about helping a client identify the "dominant story" they have of their own life, and to create awareness of the "alternative stories" that are present and, if given some prominence, open a doorway to healing and intentional living.

Again, Adichie resonates with this:

Power is not only the ability to tell a single story about a person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.

The single story creates stereotypes. The problem with single stories is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.

The power of the single story is it's ability to deceive. But I also believe the danger of buying into a single story of a person, an organisation, an idea or a country is that it limits the range of possibilities we see on the horizon.

Nassim Taleb, in his book The Black Swan, is well known for his critique of narrative. The problem of narrative, for Taleb, is how it distracts us from seeing the range of possibilities out there ... and hence when an event takes place that was outside of the realm of possibility allowed by a particular narrative, it has catastrophic results.

I heard an American say shortly after 9-11 that he did not believe it was possible for the US to be attacked on home soil.

If this belief was widespread, which I suspect it was, it had developed over time into what Adichie would call a "single story". Taleb would call it a "narrative". Others may call is a discourse. What ever it was, it allowed people to buy into a dominant view point that left the possible alternatives at bay.

A client recently challenged Sonja and I about our use of narrative in light of Taleb's critique. I really do agree with Taleb - he highlights the danger of single stories, much the same as Adichie does.

Rather, our viewpoint is around the power of mass narrative. A single story is limiting in seeing the possibilities out there, but capturing mass narrative opens up our eyes to what is possible, especially from a scenario planning perspective.

The issue for me is how we choose to expose ourselves to stories.

We can live life absorbing the stories our families tell us, that the media presents us with, or we can choose to intentionally scan for more "balanced" stories.

In the end, it is up to our own choice to scan for stories that balance out the single stories we get faced with. The down side is that it is much more of a cognitive and emotional load listening to alternative stories. Sadly, it is much easier to buy into a single story of an organisation, a person or an ethnicity.

Here's my argument: we need to move from methods of measuring organisation culture that are staitc, towards methods that allow for dynamic assessment. This argument comes out of experiences where static approaches have failed to provide relevant information during the life-cycle of a change management project.

When embarking on an organisatinal intervention project, one can normally anticipate the inclusion of a "discovery" phase as the first of the project. This is where an "as-is" assessment/audit of the context in which the intervention needs to take place is captured. While this important step is often dealt with as a mere step in the process  read more »

One of the anecdotes I'll tell in support of using narrative techniques within the organisational culture realm is this one, gathered from an anecdote circle in the banking sector:

A client relationship manager needed to meet face-to-face with a client regarding a query on his account. This client had a reputation in the business for being grumpy, insolent and very volatile. Knowing this, she asked her manager to accompany her into the meeting ... for backup. During the course of the meeting, for some reason, the client got so angry that he stood up and lifted his arm to hit the employee. Fortunately, her manager was quick enough to intercept his strike and held his arm at bay. The CEO of the business heard about this incident and invoked a restraining order against the client - he could remain a client of the bank, but he was never to set foot again on the premesis.

Now, you draw a parallel between this story and the often-found statement on a company's Our Values poster: We care for our staff. Which one says more? The statement, or the story? Which one provides context for the value? The statement, or the story? Pretty clear, isn't it?

And so, when punting the use of narrative in organisations I'll often say how narratives are high in context ...  read more »

Hands up those who have gone through a really solid exit interview process when leaving a company. Just what I thought ... very few of us have experienced a thorough, meaningful exit interview. Instead, many exit interviews are a mere "tick the box in the personnel file" formality rather than an opportunity to gain a rich perspective based on the anecdotes employees have to tell about the organisation.  read more »

If there was a space in which narrative is used that both Left and Right-Wing practitioners of narrative techniques come together in a face-off, it is the Leadership context. It is also in this space that the most misrepresentation and misunderstanding of narrative techniques (and their purposes) has taken place. From my perspective, I have seen three uses of narrative techniques for Leaders:  read more »

If there was a professional field that would understand the power of stories and use them effectively, it would be the Communications Field. Alas, this is not the case. As an off-shoot of my post on Narrative in the Marketing Context, using narrative in the communications field takes its rationale from the argument that to capture a readers/listeners attention, one needs to use stories. This rationale is applied in various communications contexts:

• Speech writing
• Newsletters
• Websites
• Brochures
• Press Releases

A brief look over some examples of the communication outputs listed above will reveal that the field is more "fact reporting" driven than "storytelling" infused. Case in point: I was an audience member at an event where Cynthia Carroll (the newly appointed Anglo American plc CE) presented the opening address. I was eager to hear her speak ...  read more »

Original post published on Cognitive Edge Guest Blog.

I sometimes wonder if business leaders know what they’re missing out on by not embracing narrative techniques within their businesses. I remember facilitating an Anecdote Circle that drove this point home for me (which also caught the business by surprise a little). It was the first time this business had engaged in a narrative process when dealing with a problem. The issue at hand was a particularly bad run of resignations that had gutted the business of talented individuals during the course of a 12 month period.

When asked how I would approach the problem, I suggested that a narrative enquiry, in the form of an Anecdote Circle, be used to elicit narratives on the problem.  read more »

Research has shown that we make sense of our world through the use of narrative processing. Psychologically we process what happens in our world in sequential narrative segments – these structured sequences of imagery are the most natural way we know to describe and ascribe meaning to that which gets our attention.

Perhaps the key then to capturing attention lies in the extent to which our message or brand connects with a person’s understanding of themselves – their own narrative. In this age of abundance the key to capturing people’s attention and in engaging them with your brand, one needs to understand the role of narrative and how the role of narrative marketing creates self-brand connections.  read more »

It took me two attempts to pass my drivers license when I was 18. Then, barely three months since I had been driving legally, I received five traffic fines in the post. Five! The thought struck: what kind of fool fails his first attempt at getting a license and then wraps up five fines in 3 months of driving? Clearly, it was a fool who was a terrible driver! My confidence dropped as the implications of my road hazard status sunk in. And this was happening just when I was meant to be enjoying the freedom of the open road ...  read more »

Walking into a lift the other day, I was greeted by one of those people who cannot bear the overwhelming silence of a group of people in a confined space. I had barely pressed my floor number when she shot a question at me, "What do you do?!" Trying to regain the precarious balance of a pile of booklets in my arms, I just looked at her. I knew this moment would come. I had spoken about it before. I had even encouraged others to develop it. Now, it had actually happened! In the metallic flash of the greasy, finger-printed, closing lift doors, I had experienced a phenomenon move from the hypothetical to the real. It was ... the Elevator Statement.

Fortunately for me, she got out at the next floor (does one floor up or down qualify as enough time for an Elevator Pitch?), shortly after I had spluttered out some garbled answer that clearly left her dazed and confused. That spaced-out, glazed look people get in their eyes is one that I'm becoming quite accustomed to as I've explained the narrative work I do. Now, it may already be too late in this post to redeem myself from the intuitive question emerging in your head, "Have you wondered if that look is a result of how badly you communicate what you do?" Well, sure. While I may not be an uber-salesman, I know damn well that I'm a strong communicator (most of the time) who on an average day can capture what I do in some fairly logical sentences.  read more »