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Part I - Stories & Business
Part II - Stories & OD

HIGHLIGHTS-PART II
Group Jazz Online Chat with Terrence Gargiulo - June 17-30

Telling >
As a part of training sessions on communication, facilitation, team building and conflict transformation. Sometimes I simply tell a story to illustrate a point and sometimes we work within the characters, storyline, etc... to explore an org issue. Also, I tell in my training of others who wish to incorporate story into their management, leadership and facilitation practices.  

Crafting >
As part of whole systems, participatory planning and problem- solving (in conjunction with Open Space Technology), as part of more traditional strategic planning efforts (vision, mission, and values) and as a part of knowledge dissemination efforts (what's our story(ies), who needs to know it, and what are they most interested in knowing?).  

Evoking:
In ideal circumstances, during all of the above and, additionally, in the form of story circles around team, capacity and culture building. The circle is the thing, IMHO.  Sometimes the work has had more of an Appreciative Inquiry flavor, at other times more like Dialogue or Wisdom Council or Leadership Circles.  

Hoping to hear from others!  

Best,
glory

Examples:
Scenario story-telling create alternate future environments around critical uncertainties (potential breakpoints) in which an organizations can test and refine its strategy.  Thus minimizing risk across a range of possible futures, and quickly maximizing the creation of new areas for knowledge inquiry.  Scenarios are customized to context - a focal issue if they are to be credible and useful.  

2. Insights driven from consumer stories, and composites thereof. These are often very powerful.... The web has also driven more interest in usability, experience design, ethnography, etc. These are stories - insights are reported back.  

However, while the stories - legends that already exist in the organization are important, how do we know there is a vitality to the stories.  What is the role of the leader in story-telling?  How important is story-telling to accelerating learning?  Then there is also the unofficial story or rumor!  Sometimes the rumor mill is more powerful!

How do we know there is vitality to (organizational stories)? - And what is the role of the leader in storytelling?  

Is it important to know there is vitality to a story? Do we always know the impact we have on others? Reflect back on some of your best teachers. Were you always able to know how those teaching you were effecting you at the time?...  

I was a competitive fencer. When I think back on some of the coaches I have had over the years I did not realize how they were helping me to hone my technical skills, perception, and mind. Suddenly I would be in a competition. Perhaps it was a close match - a situation would require me to actualize all the time and effort spent in practice in a flash of a moment.  

How about parents? It would be nice to be able to sit down and go through a litany of all the things we have learned from them - a sort of "End of Parenting Statement" - to let them know how they have molded us through their thoughts, words, and actions...but alas we do not have this luxury.  

We do not have to know a story has vitality. A great number of stories have little to no vitality. It's hard to know which one will hit the mark. We should not be after the single magic bullet.  

Telling stories for more than entertainment purposes requires tremendous powers of observations. We have to be willing to spend more time listening and watching than telling. Set a story in motion and let it take it's natural course. One teller does not create story vitality - lots of listeners who suddenly feel themselves drawn to a wonderful web of personal associations and connections is what gives a story life.  

A story lives in its rich set of associations not in its single telling or in isolation. Sherazade did not tell just one tale did she?

A couple thoughts come to mind in response to your posts...  

What do you mean specifically by 'vitality'? I am proceeding below with an assumption that we mean 'aliveness' or 'energy'.  

IMO, if it's still being told in the org, then it's vital somehow. This is true of both desirable and 'undesirable' stories (rumor mill). In fact, the discrepancy between the intended story and the one(s) that are told 'round the water-coolers speaks to the diagnostic power of stories in orgs - highlighting the gap between who we say we are and what we really are. This tension is critical - when we become aware of it, then our natural pull toward the vision is activated.  Also, the counter-stories provide glimmers as to what needs to be done to move in the intended direction.  

I do agree with you, Terrence, that the energy of a story arises from its internal/personal associations and its spread or nodes of told connection amongst staff. I also agree that there is no reliable way to predict its impact. However, its impact can be observed and tracked and this provides precious info about an org.  

Leaders who carefully watch and consider and then tell a story that is both rich in association and heart do set the ball in motion. Stories allow the issues to emerge... I wonder if the issues weren't already there to begin with, perhaps merely submerged? That's the thing about stories... they are like a buffer - what people get out of them reflects their personal internal state. They act as a container for what already exists and they offer a way to transform the current state.  

I also think that stories are very important to accelerated learning because they engage the learner on multiple levels simultaneously... that engagement is critical.  

I must stop now... other responsibilities are calling.  

Best,
glory

I was doing some work with a company around change management. Two companies were going through a painful merger process. There was a lot of "us" vs. "them". People glared at one another across a table and communication between two departments trying to merge their business processes, practices, and resources was particularly bad. The change process had it's obvious measures of 1). reduction of unnecessary business processes and systems, 2). simplification of retained processes, 3). reorganized job responsibilities, 4). time spent in cross training activities, etc... However in all of this what the management team used to measure the change process was stories. They knew the ice and mistrust was breaking down when they heard stories about how one employee offered to come in early to share his knowledge with another one, and how another employee offered to share a resource with his new counterpart (saving the company immediately $8000 and potentially a lot more further down the road) on a new project.  

These stories were shared between employees and disseminated through the management ranks. These are the "grassroots" maps burrowing deep through the tunnels of intricate organizational relationships and communications.  

Tip: When I write an executive summary for a report or business case I also lead off with a story. Bullets and text are used to support and highlight all of the information encoded in the stories.  

Good leaders will have a rich index of stories (experiences/observations/anecdotes) to draw from. The mark of a good leader is one who finds the right story to tell at the right time - or as I have asserted in early comments - elicits a story from others. Leaders will use stories not only to answer questions but to uncover new ones.

Would you be able to give us some examples of stories Bill and David used to guide employees behavior?  

Are there others of you that may have similar examples of stories leaders used to "guide employees behavior?"

As soon as I read the first couple of paragraphs in one browser window, the storytelling metaphor I was reading about in a second browser window popped into my head. In my view, this is an example of how corporate storytelling weaves its way into a culture. This is storytelling used to "guide national consumer behavior."

Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

"Patriots don't buy SUVs. General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, said this in a speech I heard him give a few months ago. He made a direct connection between the United States' current situation and the amount of oil we consume.

Drivers have been sold into a freeway arms race of size, weight, and power, and the automobile industry has become remarkably efficient at churning out what are essentially bigger and more refined implementations of a machine-age architecture that hasn't changed substantially in at least 50 years. To top it off, despite incredible advances in engineering, average new-vehicle fuel economy is the worst it's been in 20 years."

What do you think Terrence? Is that what's going on here?

"storytelling used to 'guide national consumer behavior.'"  

Marketers have long understood how to plant a quick and simple story association in our minds and let it guide our buying behavior and perceptions. This could also arguably be an example of stories being used as weapons. A single word, or short phrases can trigger a whole series of stories and associations and thereby affect us consciously, and unconsciously in all sorts of ways.  

We do not need to tell a flown blown story to use stories. This is a very important dynamic of stories that is easy to overlook. Examined from this perspective we can begin to see how stories are fundamental to how we think, learn, and communicate.  

This same principle can be applied in more positive ways.  

Can some folks out there provide some examples of how story triggers or story "plants" have catalyzed positive perceptions and behaviors in organizations?  

Can folks imagine how they might use a story association to positively impact a particular organization or even industry?

Sweatshops in Asia and Nike reflect a new generation of stories and concerns.  However, if we look into our schools we see our children learning about the environment, sustainability, etc from an early age.  Effective story-nurturing in organizations requires open rather than closed systems.  I.e. bring in the customers, suppliers, other stakeholders and then shake them all up.  

Similarly, youth's interaction with chat, instant messaging (Europe / Japan) on phones create a new transparency and immediacy to their stories.  Music, TV show's etc.  What's "cool" - is part of the story telling ethic. Thus perhaps the org lesson is a requirement for more visual, more role-playing, more interactive and collaborative sessions.  I'm still to see many organizations embrace new systems (like chat) or redesign environments to more effectively nurture corporate stories.  Sometimes a simple change - I joined a coffee company.  The head office was sterile, their reception area lacked any coffee paraphernalia.  In the first week I installed a full espresso bar, and retrained the receptionists.  Within two weeks no guest entered into our environment without the hospitality or conversations related to coffee.  

In another organization --- a chicken processor.  When a bird fell off the chain it was not always handled with care, hygiene, etc... It may have ended up on your plate.  By changing the focus from processing to "creating great meals" we brought the experience and delight in the product to life.  Plant management also improved.  

In organizations I've found the most effective "plant method" is one that nurtures.  The "Team Brief" supports by providing (typically monthly) the opportunity to begin a top - roll-out message to everyone in co within 24 hours.  Organized around four areas, Performance, Plans, People & Policy, it is easily supplemented with stories, recognition, memorability.  Feedback and questions are collected.

One thing has become especially clear over the years.  If any person or group is prevented from telling their story, they cannot really hear the stories of others.  Being heard is being recognized as important, as being seen, as being valued by the group or community.  The longer a story is suppressed or ignored, the more urgently its holders need to tell it.  And the more this urgent need is unfulfilled, the more angrily they are apt to reject the stories of others.  

In the last 25 years, we have come as a society to a place where many institutions and organizations have made a special effort to hear the stories of women, people of color, and other historically disempowered groups.  All too often, these stories are resisted, rejected, and minimal zed by those the storytellers hope to educate.  I've seen the tendency in myself, as a white man, that I have a hard time hearing unless I get a chance to be known, to speak my truth.  This is one of the great lessons of storytelling as a vehicle of change, that the storytelling needs to be reciprocal, if we are to be successful in building a team, organization, or society that combines the best talents of all its members.  

Besides, it's a lot more fun when we really share the intimacy that comes from trading the vital spirit of our lives through our stories.  

Stories enable us to enter new frames of reference, hold multiple points of views, and become compassionately present. I do not think of compassion as suspending our point of view. Hearing stories deepens and broadens our perspective. From the complex intersections of perspectives we emerge with a decision. Our behaviors do not have to be passively swept along by unconscious story filters coloring our view of the world.  

Stories require active listening - that's tough - we have to engage our imaginations to listen actively to one another.  

I am always amazed when I work with help desk or customer service centers. One of the things I always do is 1). take the customer service people to meet the people they support. Its amazing to watch how people's attitudes change when simple short stories are exchanged as people talk about the pictures of relatives in their office and knick knacks representing their interests and hobbies; 2). equally important - I take the people who rely on the customer service center to meet the people they speak with on the phone and the same magic occurs...So simple - yet so powerful. It's a wonderful example of how stories are used all the time and we are not even aware of it.  

Can anyone share some anecdotes of active listening?  

How about some anecdotes exploring reciprocal story telling?

Each Friday morning, I distribute a Multicultural and Religious Holidays newsletter - a task which I have just completed. The weekly newsletter identifies religious holidays (anecdotes ?) coming up in the next month. Managers and executives can use the calendar in their planning, ensuring that they know about and respect the events that are important to the workers in their groups or organizations.

We use Sheena Singh's Multicultural Calendar as a data source for the newsletter. Many organizations use the calendar and the newsletter as a way of sensitizing employees to each other's "stories".... those events in their cultures which have been preserved over time and are regularly celebrated with food, drink, parties, rituals, and stories which are passed on from generation to generation.

This type of shared storytelling is a very effective way for the leaders in an organization to encourage and openly demonstrate their support for workplace diversity.

PS: I accidentally invented a new word in the first sentence of this posting. I made a typo and typed "anecdate" instead of anecdote... Maybe this is a useful new word to reflect stories which repeat on the same date every year... :-) Every family, group of friends, work team could produce a special calendar of its own anecdates!! Even the production of the calendar could be done on a special day every year for the group by the members of the group??

Can you recount any reactions of anecdotes of people reactions to the calendar?  

This was terrific example - let's try to get some other ones.  

SAMPLES from Eric's Multicultural & Religious Holiday Newsletter:  

July 30, 2002
============
Oh-harai-taisai (Grand Purification Ceremony) - Shinto Japanese worshippers walk through a large ring of woven grass and reeds that are placed at the entrance of the shrines, as an act of inner purification for sins and offenses committed during the first half of the year.  

Tanabata - Japan
...or the Vega Star Festival is celebrated on the 7th day of the 7th moon.  According to legend, the weaver-princess star Vega fell in love with herdboy star Altair.  They were allowed to meet once a year when the Vega and Altair constellations draw near and the lovers meet over a bridge made by a flock of birds.

the guide to good behavior/values stories  

-can anyone help extend this typology?

Forgive my backtracking - I confess it takes me some time to respond, online, to the depth and richness you offer...  

Posts 3:10-12) ('guide national consumer behavior') from Eric,  Terrence and Stuart got me to thinking that the critical piece is about deepening our connections between things... creating new associations. For example, SUV=unethical oil consumption=weakening of America=patriotism. Conscious consumerism as a political response to corporate globalization. This is difficult to craft. In fact, I think 'craft' is an inadequate descriptor for the process.  

From my experience, these new associations spring from our passion - unfortunately, often borne of suffering. This is often about grief work - because we are not adept at using our lived experience as instruction. It often takes pain before we'll look again with new eyes. The stories spring from our subjective experience. In this way, the work is more shamanic than scientific. Let me tell you a story I lived about this...  

I was recently working with a group of Executive Directors from a variety of addictions services agencies at a provincial meeting. They ran the gamut from small, private, rural community crisis houses through to major departments in huge hospital conglomerates. They were gathered over the course of a weekend to explore 'Strength Through Collaboration' - a mandated move and one which they have wrestled to make somehow their own. We offered two story-based courses - Seeing Community as a System and Story Circle. Both were well attended.  

In Seeing Systems, the group explored systems' stories through poetry, questions, conversation, and graphic representation. They made new connections and strengthened existing ones, in thought, partnerships, strategy, and services - and within each group the central guiding metaphor was the issue they felt the most pained over. In one case it had to do with the client's whole story being attended to; in another, it was about political action based in frustration; in another it was immense grief over the loss of an entire people's way of life and culture. Equally, I imagine that the 'crafter' of 'Heavy Metal' had his/her own experience of pain - or was touched by someone else's'.  

In the Story Circle - I introduced us, offered the theme 'spirit of collaboration', shared the guidelines for being in circle, offered a feather as a talking item, told a story, placed the feather in the centre of the circle, invited them to speak, and waited... Slowly they began to pour out tales of grief - personal, client, professional, systemic and of healing magic - odd occurrences, people who changed their lives, knowing and wisdom, peace. They need to tell their pain, hear that of others and share how they've come through. A young fellow, who wasn't registered but stumbled across us and reluctantly decided to stay because of a lovely young woman, pulled me aside after, looked deeply into my eyes and said, 'I thought you were nuts. Thanks for gently peeling away my machismo. I can't believe how good it felt to tell my story and hear theirs.' The lovely young woman mentioned previously has since rung the office - asking for support as she's using story circles with both her clients and her staff. :-)  

Jumping forward now to 3:17) and Chris's request for a typology - I offer the ones we use at Avalon...
Past/Present/Future
Inspiration, Teaching, Creation, Universal Law, Warning/Prophetic.  

We also use the following from "The Power of Narrative: Using Narratives for Organizational Success"
Real/Unreal (factual accounts to fantasies - not the same as true/untrue)
Fragmentary/Comprehensive (from remarks to histories)
Familiar/Novel (always entertaining though)
Individual/Whole Systems
Designed/Emergent  

Here are a few thoughts, flowing from the fact that there is a basic problem in telling future stories. It isn't a new discovery but may have been temporarily mislaid. The ancient Greek prophetess, Cassandra, discovered what Carly Fiorina is discovering at Hewlett Packard about future stories: no one believes them. The consequences for Cassandra were grim. Her city was sacked and the people sold into slavery. One hopes for a better fate for Carly and her people. Time will tell.  

The same problem with future stories also affects planning scenarios in organizations: no one believes them! No matter how carefully the scenarios are prepared, you pick up tomorrow's newspaper and you find that something unexpected has happened that shows that the scenario as conceived cannot possibly happen that way. You find that even the team who prepared the scenarios doesn't believe them.  

So what do you do? Leaders and planners would seem to need future stories in order to lead people into the future. What you see if you look closely is that there's actually a trick in telling effective stories about the future, that has been practiced by the great leaders.  

How do you tell stories about the future? Basically, you don't. In practice, you mainly tell true stories about the past and the present, and then offer a simple hook, or peg, or star on which to hang the future.
Winston Churchill: "We will fight them on the beaches."
Martin Luther King: "I have a dream".
The detail is somewhat lacking, to put it mildly, but it doesn't matter. The listeners fill in the blanks, showing how to get from here to there. The stories that the listeners create in their own minds are always richer and fuller and more enticing than anything that the storyteller could conjure up, and moreover, the stories are constantly updated to take into account breaking news.  

My sense is that there's a lesson for Carly and her people in all this if they want to avoid Cassandra's fate.

I have had this sort of experience on many occasions and believe it to be very important. I was working with a group of women entrepreneurs last fall - very diverse group, including several participants that were relatively new to Canada. They met in story circles to explore how they could be more successful in their businesses... many ideas came forward and the most touching comment, for me, was when a woman from Iran shared that these experiences were the first time she was ever given permission to speak openly of her experience, feelings, and dreams. She had been seen and heard for the first time! After which, she became a great support and catalyst for the stories of others...  

Stephen, great to 'hear' you here! With regard to your post3:19) (above), I'm wondering if there is a difference between story work in the large corporate orgs and that in smaller orgs and/or non-profits...  

I do agree that those 'pegs' are great - allowing staff to fill in the blanks. On the other hand, I've also done more detailed strategic planning with story - and it was believed. In fact, the plans were made whilst also building a culture of constant change and adaptation - these are our plans and we EXPECT them to be thwarted. This is our process for ongoing revision. This case comes from a national non-profit that is endeavoring to have a 'living' plan. Perhaps not specifically what you were referring to in scenario planning... but somewhat similar. In this case and others, the whole org (stakeholders included) have a level of faith that people make good on their plans and they are also used to frequent unpredictable shifts in their external environment (mainly funding changes).  

In my experience, the larger corporate orgs have more difficulty in 'believing' given the detached nature of their structure, multiple examples of not 'walking the talk, and a history of disappointment with regard to vision.  More complex and uncertain = more fear = more cynicism. Maybe the problem is that we're still looking for the final, right answer when, in truth, we only have signposts along the way... For many of my clients, the issue has become more 'Does this move us in a desirable direction?', 'Is this in line with who we are and want to become?', rather than 'Is this completely do-able?'.  

Best,
glory

Thanks for your great posts! You may be correct... And some orgs must plan, in order to receive their funding, etc...  

Also, orgs update their stories all the time (as do individuals)... sometimes telling the 'real' story that's unfolding, sometimes factoring in changes, sometimes reinforcing a 'stuck' storyline over and over again...
Perhaps the difference here is in the goal - my example above is of an org whose aim is to keep the story 'alive' - they aspire to be a continuously adapting, learning org and to build a culture and processes that support this! Not about selling a truth, more like an expression of intent and a way of being...  

Another thought, wasn't it Cassandra's warning stories that weren't believed...? It sounds as though the tables have been turned - and it's now the 'possibility' stories that are suspect!  

I am interested in how it is that the 'pegs' are more believable than the more fleshed out stories. I wonder if this has to do with telling resonant past and present stories...? Ones that employees recognize and ones that include their multiple voices - also it seems that the leader who shares the 'peg(s)' must be highly credible in order for these stories to have an impact. Is this the case, in your experience?  

Best,
glory  

I wonder... How many of you would jump on a 747 with a pilot that had never trained in a flight simulator?  We know that pilots train in simulators on the ground to better prepare themselves for eventualities and challenges that many never happen.  They also train for landings at airports that will appear on their schedules in the future.  Unfortunately few teams have the opportunity provided by the flight simulator.  

I tend to think of scenarios as a flight simulator for management.  Framed well they are hypothesis of alternate environments in which our decisions may have to play out.  They do not represent the future story of the company.  By windtunnelling (or testing) current strategies against a range of alternate scenarios an organization improves its potential to minimize risk.  Scenarios need to be customized to context if they are to be useful.  

Scenarios as a form of story-telling work because they are framed around critical uncertainties (simplistic example - boom or bust economy).  By building scenarios around uncertainty we are 1)opening and focusing minds on what is both important to the issue at hand and uncertain as to outcome.  2)critical uncertainties are more likely to take us to the edge of chaos where new ideas, solutions etc are most likely to emerge.  3)Scenarios must be plausible, therefore drilling down to changes in the systemic underpinnings is important to building understanding and retaining credibility. In this form they provide story telling and structure that not only helps to minimize risk about the decisions we must make today, but they are used to accelerate learning.  When we accept that Planning is learning, (not extrapolation) then we also embrace that it may be the only way to sustainable competitive advantage.  

As an organization (like the pilot) reacts to new inputs, better questions are what sustains success.  The future is inherently unpredictable. Yet with very little effort we can bring in stories from the outside - so we think better inside the box.  In a networked world --- connectivity is driving this.  If you are a cellular carrier you better be thinking about swarms, if you are a health provider, genetic testing is already here.  If you are a cotton producer, perhaps you should look at goat silk.  From time to time an organization should look at everything, a "ruthless curiosity" is healthy.  If stories and hypothesis get you to where you can really "listen" then success in the marketplace is much more viable.  Scenarios are just one tool for getting us  

I agree Stephen with your comment to find a star to peg future stories.  I've always felt that the 1 to 2 word strategic intent was the right way to go.  They work when stretch is involved. Effective leaders also cut the time for delivery.  A yet they are also fallible.  Years ago Motorola - Wireless World (It led them to Iridium!) Motorola was so focused on their story they didn't pay attention to the Nokia's etc of the world.  More recently Motorola has use "Intelligence Everywhere"  For my two cents another example of introverted disaster.  There is no benefit for "us" in this.  Many of the early ad campaigns were close to I spy.  

So what are the thoughts about stories that create momentum across customers, employees, bus partners, shareholders, other stakeholders etc. Is it true that most orgs fail to build synergy in their story-telling channels?

IMO, Stuart, most orgs don't know what synergy is, and consider story-telling to be a waste of time that should be used for "real" work.  I think there is a huge ignorance factor at work here, the bottom line of which is...the bottom line.  

Managers and executives have become so myopically focused on the bottom line, they have forgotten all of the "intangibles" that don't show up as line-items on the balance sheet.  Yet these "intangibles" are significant value creators or destroyers.  Thus ignored and unmanaged, "intangibles" frequently account for "surprises" in business.  (The lion doesn't go away when the ostrich sticks his head in the sand.)  

To get the bottom-liners with the program, it will take an economic model that demonstrates the typical impact of failure to recognize and manage intangibles.  The person or group who devises this model and uses it to sell intangibles-management services will make big money (too bad that can't be me <grin>) as well as do a significant service to business by treating one of the worst symptoms of organizational autism.  

As for synergy -- when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, synergy is at work.  You won't find it on a balance sheet anywhere; it is the ultimate intangible.  When an organization has a working synergy, it accomplishes miracles.  An organization lacking synergy may accomplish its goals in a one-to-one ratio, but is dull and lifeless, and any losses incurred will be slow to be regained.  In the worst-case scenario, an organization that has a broken synergy, nothing anyone does works, and no matter how well-funded or how great its market share is, the organization is already dead.  How many managers know how to diagnose the symptoms of a failure of synergy, let alone how to recognize an opportunity to create synergy?  

I have stories for these, but no time to post them now.  I will do so ASAP.

Thank you to Stephen Denning for all his insights. Lots of rich food for thought that rings true to me.  

If you go back and read Stephen's 3.19 posting you will notice storytelling as communication in action. Can someone reread 3.19 and point out all the ways in which Stephen's message exemplifies the power of story?  

Reflecting back on my day with Luis we shared a fluid journey of conversation. Nine and half hours disappeared in a flash. It was a story dialogue. We weaved our way through a myriad of thoughts, concepts, and feelings through mutual storytelling.  

It's amazing to realize that our memory banks are weak. Using the metaphor of a computer, I am convinced I operate with less than 8 megabytes of memory. Lucky for me I believe our minds work more like a Massive Parallel Processing Computers vs., Symmetric Parallel Processing one.  

note: Symmetric Parallel Processing (SMP) has more than one Central Processing Unit (CPU) - silicon chip per machine that shares one common bank of memory Random Access Memory (RAM) vs. Massive Parallel Processing (MPP) - which has more than one processor but each processor has its own dedicated bank of memory  

Each story becomes its own mini processor with an instant bank of memory attached to it. Let me give you an example. As I was driving down the road yesterday I realized how much I had forgotten about the Boston area. I moved a year and half ago from Boston to California. Parts of the road and it's landmarks that had been so familiar to me and a part of my daily life were strange. Each one became a trigger. Each one was an invitation to search for an association. As I entertained these associations a flood of memories in the form of story vignettes emerged. The stories became mini processors in my MPP (Massive Parallel Processing) mind. All of these stories working in parallel created a tapestry of thoughts, cognitions, insights, feelings, and yes even contradictions.  

My point - stories are how the mind works.  

Stories are not the next latest and greatest management consulting trend to set the world on fire. If we are to use stories we must be students of conversation, communication, learning, and thinking. We do not need to sell companies on stories we simply need to be more vigilant about modeling story communication and excelling at strengthening others ability to leverage an innate capability. Furthermore, there is no need to even speak of it as storytelling.  

We hang our professional hats on storytelling because this is a way of differentiating what we do. And for some companies it becomes a way of embracing new organizational initiatives aimed at improving communication, knowledge sharing, change management, instructional design, etc... All of that is okay and even necessary but we mustn't lose track of why stories work.  

In the infamous words of Nike - we need to Just Do It...

great stuff... thanks to Keith and Stuart for 'under managed intangibles', Stephen for 'future pegs', and Terrence for 'we mustn't lose track of why stories work'.  

As an old Gestaltist, I won't pass up an opportunity to talk about synergy...
Stephen - Bravo! I'm so glad there are people like yourself who can speak, in concrete ways, to this phenomenon.  

In working with story, from a 1+1=3 perspective, I have also seen how expression of a diversity of storied interpretations, and the richness of feeling and beauty they offer, creates synergy. Yes, we must reach back into our history and extend our now - perhaps a typology based on time? We must also explore one based on space, I think - internal and external - openness of mind/heart and field.  

Herein lies the acceleration of learning, IMO. My ideas in all this are that:
~ The linear exploration of time, in stories, must be complimented with one concerning space (which equals increased diversity).
~ This primarily concerns making room for as many story interpretations as possible - of oneself and of others/external reality.
~ As Kit said in another thread, people need to have their stories heard before they'll take on new ones.
~ Effectiveness of outward action/behavior is directly correlated to the degree of internal integration of the offered future interpretation.
~ Individuals and the system will 'choose' in unpredictable ways, and
~ You can endeavor to nurture a culture that responds in ways that seem to support survival, growth, and transformation. There is a way to 'be' in this that is both the journey and the result.  

For example, with my psych students I often tell the story of 'projection' - an internal film, a beam of light, a screen, and voila!  This mirrors the concept of psychological projection... we have something inside that we don't see. Automatically, it generates energy (although what internally disturbs us enough to do this is a mysterious pattern that can never be predicted with certainty) which seeks out a screen to illuminate onto. Whenever we are annoyed or awed etc... (disturbed in some way), we are projecting an internal state onto an external screen. The screen may take the image fittingly and, yet, the learning is in trying on the projection.  

Next we play with story and characters. What sort of person consistently annoys you? How and when are you that very way? What does being 'that way' mean to you, historically and right now? We similarly explore positive projections. In a few minutes, they achieve new perspective on themselves and others AND they rarely forget what 'projection' is about - usually those that do resisted the exercise, for whatever reason.  

We open some space for new stories to emerge - then synergy occurs. Sometimes I think of this as creating 'safe emergencies'. The expression and exploration of one's own story, and those of others, IS the process by which we develop the capacity to live with uncertainty, etc...  

The system synergizes when it is off balance and stretches back to balance- including and transcending. Chaos and order, chaos and order... It is about my story and your story and the thing created when our stories come together. This isn't only something that happens to us - as passive victims of our environment - it is also something we participate in - consciously or unconsciously.  

No guarantees - to be sure. Still, the story of evolution has not been 'survival of the fittest' but rather 'connect and cooperate' - at least that's the tale I'm betting on, or perhaps the only one I want to live!?  

The co-intelligence created by reciprocal story sharing (dialogue, councils, leadership circles, the conversing company, continuous learning orgs, appreciative inquiry, etc...) is a cognitive, affective and conative vehicle for synergy.  

I sincerely thank you for pushing my thinking. I hope it is of some value to one of you out there in Chautauqua e-land!  

Best,
glory

Think for a moment: How would you differentiate between these two words?  

Take a boiler room. Imagine pipes and valves all over the place. There are lots of working parts - a tremendous amount of differentiation but its next to impossible to see how all these parts integrate with one another.  

Now look at your body. Does it have lots of different parts? But what makes it different from the boiler room?  

The body is complex. There is lots of differentiation but beautiful integration and communication between all the parts. Even on the level of a cell - all the organelles - work in concert with one another.  

For stories to be effective - in whatever way we employ them - there needs to be both differentiation and integration.  

We are adept at creating complex organizations but very poor at integrating all of the parts. How can we envision stories helping us achieve better integration?  

Inevitably, organizations will require loosely coupled integration. Stephen's great description of "animated" vs. "inanimate" is very useful in helping us understand the dynamism required by organizations.  

We can try this analogy - organizations are like hardware (occasionally we add, upgrade, or reconfigure it) stories are like software (middleware) that helps us integrate all of the parts and allows them to interoperate with one another).

Scenario Planning departments (from 60's/70's) have given the genre a bad name - seldom asking the question "how could we be wrong".  Now we seem to be at a point where scenarios, story-telling, and conversation has never been more important, and yet major mgmt consultancies use the techniques but fail to use the descriptors. Instead they emphasize innovation, serious play, breakpoints.  

I've never seen scenarios as four highly articulated stories of the organization. I think I posted earlier they are alternate environments in which your decisions may play out.)  

There are different schools of thought as to whether the organization should be in the scenario frame. I believe organizations that put themselves in the scenarios defeat the purpose.  The point is to suspend your disbelief -- encourage time for reflection -- internalizing new insights.  In this way they enable a strategy discussion set in today's world framed around what must we change in order to be successful regardless of what one or parts of these scenarios might unfold.  

Successful programs are involved in the creation of new options.  It is the stories / insights / actions for today that come from great sessions that are important.  

Said another way.  Imagine an organization with four players.  Each has a different view of the future.  Each extrapolates out taking different paths.  Simply put, the four players can either fight over who is right or listen and learn from each others insights so they collectively make better decisions today. Increased awareness will also enable an improvement in responsiveness. It is an iterative process.  It is also continuous.  

Humanistic strategy development and stories clearly go together.  For many organizations the problem traces to strategy being point in time events, rather than an ongoing conversation.  Many in this conversation will have faced the group who wants to do a two-day offsite --- they did their strategy for the year.......... We should look to the other vehicles that stimulate and maintain the sharing of organizational stories -- by the minute, hour day, month, year.....  

Some of the words here are great-- animated, integrated, connective, collaborative.....  

Perhaps we should expand this conversation to include autopoiesis, and how it relates to how we internalize stories. Does not an autopoietic model of communication involve players that actively "scan" around them?  Their radar antennas tuned to look for patterns.  For example in a party doesn't the topics of conversation emerge in a random way? They bubble up in the space between chaos and order.  

It seems the challenge for the story-telling facilitators is to create the environment that is giving us what we need rather than trying to impose order.  Sending and receiving presents a mechanistic and hierarchical form of communication.  Perhaps exactly the type of model we are trying to break down.  I think it is why the present rather than the future has been emphasized.  

By listening to stories of the past and present we can identify the interests and build resonance. Then we can begin to tune communications and questions to reflect the self interests of the systems.  A Scenario colleague of mine says "We need to find the difference that makes the difference". That may just be another way of describing their current reality. The story that emerges and enables the living system to progress.  

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