partum intelligendo

What do I do?

At a closed doors conference recently, I got asked many times, "Great title. But what do you do?"
The truth is that, although my title is Chief Storyteller, I've long since stopped working with people to tell better stories. Stories and narrative techniques are still part of the toolbox but only occasionally the end result.
I realise the question may be another consequence of the categorising instinct. The question behind the question is often "What box can I put you in?"
And our work doesn't fit in the standard boxes.
At heart it's about helping people see alternative ways of thinking about their world. Seeing other perspectives. Reaching real common understandings. Breaking out of entrained patterns.
Which still doesn't answer the question. I like that.
I spent a lot of time in narrate's early years with advisers insistent on boxing it up, usually around limited ideas of culture and communications. Yet in the last 18 months we've done projects around branding, leadership, HR, visioning and strategy.
Time to drop the boxes altogether...

Newton vs free will

From Scarlett Thomas' The End of Mr Y:

"Newtonian cause and effect suggested that someone wound the original clock and set it ticking, and that every single action in the universe could be predicted - if you had something powerful enough to do the prediction.  There's no free will in that world: a world where everything can potentially be known.  In that world, I'll get up in the morning and do what I have been programmed to do: as though all my actions are just computer-game dominoes, triggered by other computer-game dominoes.  It's what happens when you try to combine God and science.  It's narrative, pure and simple.  There's a beginning, a middle and an end. And the middle is only there because the beginning is; the end is only there because the middle is.  And in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

Take away that cause-and-effect narrative and you have the quantum world, disturbing enough in its own way, with all the possibilities of multiple universes and infinite probability.  But if you don't take it too seriously, and if you factor in evolution and economics, and everything else that's taken for granted in our world, then you have at least the illusion of free will."

The unintended consequences of presentation gifts

The dangers of facilitation

An interesting experience last week in one of my other identities as a school governor.  There's a debate going on regarding whether or not a Trust is formed in Mid-Beds under Samuel Whitbread Upper School and whether we join it or not.  So, mindful of wanting to understand different perspectives before I decide, I went along to an invited session to look at the realities of building a Trust.

I won't go into the details of much of the afternoon that I witnessed, but after presentations, the afternoon's facilitated invited us to break out into groups and carry out some exercises.  I've no doubt that they were thoughtfully designed but intentionally or not, they made it appear that what had been billed as a listening/sharing thoughts event was in fact pure sales.

The exercises were:

1.  On the red sheet, think about all the problems inherent in the current status quo for us, our schools and the pupils.  (The focus on the pupils was high in all the preceding presentations - something that worked heavily counter to the speakers' intentions.  Keep reminding us of our responsibilities to 5,400 children and we'll keep wondering whether we should entrust them to a new, unverified venture...)

2.  On the green sheet, think about all the opportunities and possibilities available if we join this potential Trust.

A classic sales process - ramp up the discomfort factor in people's present state, then sing the praises of the future state under your chosen result.  And even better, get them to do it for themselves, so that they own it.

If it wasn't intentional it was spectacularly naive and, once exposed (I had little option - there are moments when these things need to be said to facilitate a more honest, open discussion), served only to increase the distrust already in the room.

The facilitator, I accept, may have simply designed what he may have thought was a helpful tool to engage people in the Trust.  But coming from a public sector background and, presumably, not having a sales background meant he fell into the trap of confusing engagement with persuasion.

Happy New Year

to all my friends and colleagues celebrating now.

Patience that produces common sense

Last week, as part of a visioning/future planning exercise for local education, I ran a Future Backwards exercise with Year 4 - a group of 8-9 year-olds.  It reinforced the power of the exercise - but also that if you create the conditions for discussion, allow time for that to happen and wait for things to emerge, they will.

To the horror of some of the adults around (a visiting party of headteachers who couldn't help themselves but interrupt and offer inappropriate judgments until they were herded away), initial thoughts ranged from "a big swimming pool for the boys and a little one for the girls - and the boys one is filled with jelly" to "lady teachers with big boobies".  After a while it moved through "but that's too much play - we want to have some lessons" onto real, useful thoughts and concepts.

Much the same concern often crops up in other organisations, particularly those with faintly (or strongly) paternalistic views of their staff.  "We can't let them just talk about anything, they'll get so negative/unrealistic/etc"

Patience, a simple setup and permission to be negative/unrealistic will, in short order, create useful emergent ideas.

Upcoming business breakfast on communications

Melcrum business breakfast

Date: February 21st, 2008
Venue: Brewery, Chiswell Street, London EC1Y 4SD
Time: 8.15am-11.15am
Cost: FREE attendance (exclusive only to Hub members)

Presentations from:

Mike Love

Communications Director, Major Programmes Executive, BT
speaking on ‘Helping leaders be more authentic’

Melcrum’s research shows that contrary to popular belief among many practitioners, CEOs care passionately about internal communication and are quite clear about the benefits of being persuasive and effective communicators – that’s usually how they got to the top!

But they’re also aware that with trust in traditional authority figures dwindling, and widespread scepticism for anything that smacks of “spin”, now more than ever internal messages need to be delivered with authenticity and sincerity. How can communicators apply their coaching, drafting and crafting skills to help deliver messages that deliver on this growing internal demand for authenticity?

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Bill Quirke

Resident Hub expert,
Managing Director, Synopsis Communication Consulting Ltd.
speaking on ‘How can communicators mobilize management?’

The CEO is frequently viewed as the clear and recognizable figurehead of major multinationals. It’s hardly surprising then that professional communicators make use of the CEO whenever possible. However what many CEOs say they want is for their senior management to play their part, and to step up to their own communication responsibilities.   

Communicators have to engage their senior managers in the job of communicating, and coach and equip them to do it well.   

Drawing on Synopsis’ recent work with global leadership teams in AstraZeneca R&D, Bill Quirke will discuss how communicators can engage leaders in their roles, help them understand their impact, and coach them to be more effective.

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Tony Quinlan

Chief Storyteller, Narrate
speaking on ‘How to use narrative and stories to create effective engagement, feedback and change tools’

As narrative and stories become more effective tools in all forms of communication, Tony Quinlan, founder and Chief Storyteller of Narrate, demonstrates how they can be used to create effective engagement, feedback and change tools. With a dash of theory, some interactive exercises and plenty of practical examples, this will be a session to challenge your preconceptions about communication.

 

More information from coralie.thomson@melcrum.com

Change requires innovative, intelligent and energetic practitioners

How highly do you rate changing your organisation?

It's a topic that I've been thinking on recently because of what appears to be an increasing trend of making change/leadership/innovation teams the province of either short-term appointments or steady-as-she-goes staff.  Bright and challenging staff seem to be getting appointed to day-to-day operational roles.

While I think it's encouraging that organisations think this way, I'm deeply concerned about the quality of people in change teams particularly.  Every team works best with a balance of talents and skills - as the original Belbin model recognised, without boxing people into single roles.

Change and leadership - in current thinking - demand new ways of approaching problems, new ways of acting and the imagination and faith to try new techniques without being able to predict the final outcomes precisely.  While it's always good to have some detail people and some completer/finishers, the drive has to come from other types - innovators, intelligentsia, people willing to try new perspectives.

There are, of course, exceptions, but look at your change team (or yourself, if you're leading change).  How strong is the tendency to follow established processes?  To take calculated risks?  To be imaginative?  To keep your head down? To need to keep control over every element?

 

Technorati Tags: Culture change,risk

Gobsmacked

I've just been passed the details for Christvertising.  I'm still not sure whether it's real or satire.  The more I look at it, the more I lean to the latter, but...

As robust business models go, advertising and branding is full of smoke and mirrors, but you've got to admire anyone who openly says:

We skip the strategic deliverables.  We pass on the matrixes [sic], the payoffs and the metrics.  We ignore any viral functionality.  We focus on the ultimate end-user: God.

and

If God loves your brand, it will become stronger and more successful.  [...] the power of brand-targeted prayer.

Boxing up complex concepts

Tomorrow should see the publication of Melcrum's Practitioner's Guide to Employee Engagement - in which I've contributed the chapter on using stories and narrative.  It's been an interesting experience - having abandoned the attempt to fit a gallon into a pintpot early on, I aimed instead to convey the complexity (sic) and excitement of the issue and some hints of different approaches - only the readers can judge my success.

I also wanted to avoid too strong a focus on "storytelling" - as I say in the introduction to the chapter

Storytelling is a misnomer. It conjures up the image of a passive audience sitting listening to someone with the charismatic, persuasive power to entrance them. It revolves around a carefully-constructed story designed to carry you out of the day-to-day to somewhere else and change your thinking while you’re there.

What is on offer here is more powerful and more positive than that simplistic view. And while it involves storytelling throughout, some of the greatest opportunities for employee engagement lie in listening to stories, not telling.

The real power and opportunity for using stories in organisations is in listening to stories, helping others to create their own authentic stories and making sense of the stories told.

Even that, however, proved problematic.  One of the points that I focus on early in any change workshop or project is that employee engagement and culture change do not fit straightforward, 12-step projects.  And "best practice" varies - what works in one organisation will not produce the same (or, on occasion, even similar) results in another.

The editors - generous in their comments and advice - wanted something simple that anyone could pick up and put into practice.  For me, it felt like the Mullah Nasruddin story that Dave Snowden references here (about 2/3rds of the way down the post).  I've always liked it, but now see exactly how a propos it is.

In the field of communications, I've often felt we do ourselves disservices by dumbing down.  Sometimes we need to stretch to reach that bit further.  Stretch our minds in particular...

 

Technorati tags: melcrum, employee engagement, storytelling, dave snowden, internal communications