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.

I'm a real supporter of marketers using stories in their efforts to capture the attention of consumers. It is going to become more of a differentiator - but will be thwarted as long as there are some companies who miss the power, intent and value of using stories. One prime example is this one that Rich...! spotted:

Tut, Tut!

Rich...! also referred to a significant post from Seth Godin on the role of stories in marketing:

Great stories make a promise. They promise fun, safety or a shortcut. The promise needs to be bold and audacious. It’s either exceptional or it’s not worth listening to.

Great stories are trusted. Trust is the scarcest resource we’ve got left. No one trusts anyone. People don’t trust the beautiful women ordering vodka at the corner bar (they’re getting paid by the liquor company). People don’t trust the spokespeople on commercials (who exactly is Rula Lenska?). And they certainly don’t trust the companies that make pharmaceuticals (Vioxx, apparently, can kill you). As a result, no marketer succeeds in telling a story unless he has earned the credibility to tell that story.

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I've been spending some time in the South African town Welkom (Vel-kom) working on a project with Sonja. Welkom is renowned for its traffic circles. Welkom is in fact the last bastion of traffic circles as a traffic management system in South Africa. There was uproar recently as Welkom installed its first traffic light. They are very proud of their traffic circles and take their associated identity as a town more seriously than their support of the local rugby side. This patriotism is embodied in a simple joke:

Q: How do you know if there is a Jo'burger in Welkom?

A: There are accidents at the traffic circles.

A traffic circle is a wonderful example of a organic, naturally-flowing system. The argument for traffic circles over traffic lights seems to make much sense. Check out the Magic Roundabout - there is apparently never congestion in Swindon as a result of this system.

 

It really isn't that often that you see Simon Cowell's jaw drop. But this is one of those priceless moments. Paul Potts embodies a wonderful underdog narrative. Enjoy - make sure your sound is turned up.

This is an anecdote that comes from a company I was doing some Talent Retention work with recently. When analysing some of the elements of the business that aided talent retention, a policy around a R&R Day (Rest & Recover Day) was listed, but fairly low down on the list of effective attractors.

The company, being project-based, wanted to allow staff to take some time off in lieu of weekends worked on projects. So, the powers-that-be instituted the R&R Day on the Monday following the weekend stint as a reward for extra effort put in. The original R&R Day was fraught with difficulty though as it was laden with strict criteria for when a R&R Day could be allowed. After much deliberation, consultation and frustration with heavy-laden criteria, the company decided on to apply only one criteria to the granting of an R&R Day ... it was to become the sole discretion of the Executive of the business unit.  read more »

I really like Noam Chomsky's work - but perhaps that's because I'm not an American citizen. He's known for his contribution to the field of theoretical linguistics, but is more widely known for his political activism, media criticism an blatant criticism of the US.

In a video interview he spoke of the disparate conditions impossed on mainstream and dissident opinion. As a dissident himself, I suppose he understands this better than most. And so, as Chomsky has written about terrorism, he shown how terrorism corresponds to power, that therefore the power powerful states are more involved with terrorism. The peak of this argument is that the US is the most powerful state and by argument, is involved in massive terrorism.  read more »