Landebahnen der Zukunft

Ein Tag mit Otto Scharmer. Ausbrechen aus der Matrix. Gekrümmte Räume begehbar machen und neue Erfahrungsräume schaffen. Achtsam erkunden, was da ist. Immer von innen, nach außen. Vom Ich zum Du. In die Zukunft hineinstarrren bringt nichts. Wir müssen den Blick umwenden. Und vergegenwärtigen, wo wir stehen und worauf wir stehen.

Visual Recording by Markus Engelberger, www.creativetribe.at

Das Jetzt von der Zukunft her erleben, kann man, indem man Skulpturen baut oder theatralische Räume öffnet. Man kann es aber auch, indem man das Zuhören kultiviert, die Aufmerksamkeitsfähigkeit vertieft und die vom wabernden Mehrheitsdiskurs verschütteten Momente narrativ freilegt und solange verdichtet, bis sie zu leuchten beginnen. Landebahnen der Zukunft erzählend entwirft, die dem Lärm rundherum eine Stille entgegensetzen, die unüberhörbar ist.
 

Die Alchemie des Augenblicks

Wo PRESENCING und RE-AUTHORING sich treffen, entstehen gemeinsame Denk- und Erfahrungsräume jenseits von Angst, Argwohn, Missgunst und Ignoranz. Das Nadelör der Zukunft ist unsere emotionale Intelligenz, wenn Systemisches und Persönliches ineinanderfließen. Wenn es uns gelingt, das vorschnelle Bewerten anzuhalten und selbstversunken in die Sache einzutauchen, um daraus einen Boden zu kultivieren, auf dem neue Werte blühen. 

Große Theorien sind mit Vorsicht zu genießen, weil sie sich gern abschotten vom Fluss des Lebens zugunsten theoretischer Konsistenz. Anders die "Theorie U" - sie vertraut auf das werdende Selbst als einziges Werkzeug, worauf wir uns verlassen können. Wer systemisch wirksam werden will, kann auf das sich dynamisch konstruierende Subjekt nicht verzichten. Weil durch die individuellen Bruchstellen das Licht dringt, das in die Zukunft weist. Die U-Labs, die Otto Scharmer begründet, stellen die Athenische Schule vom Kopf auf die Füße:

"Let no one enter who cannot see that the issues outside are a mirror of the issues inside ..."

Wholing and Healing in Re-Authoring Futures

In a famous proverb, it is said that the winner writes history. And throughout history, the battles over the right and official interpretation of the history of countries, communities and organizations can be observed. It is a battle about the right and wrong interpretation of what actually happened. And the same can be said about the future.

Working with organizations and communities in transformation, this questioning and exploration of our interpretations of past and future is essential. Working with stories in this context is a powerful means to dismantle our own assumptions of past and future and mine our experiences, the moments we lived through, for alternative interpretations – as these interpretations might not be our own, or exclude important elements. It is about creating a story that we can own.

Used and Disowned pasts & futures

...narratives are coded as visual images, as symbols, as stereotypes, and as performances of behavior so ritualized that we may be unaware of the narratives we implicitly accept and enact. Julien Rappaport

Thinking about this transformation, two concepts inspired me lately: In his work, futurist Sohail Inayatullah makes a useful distinction between „used“ and „disowned“ futures.

„Used“ futures are those ideas about the future that we have taken from somewhere else an made our own. These images and ideas might take the form of taken-for-granted beliefs, informing what we think is possible or impossible in the future. But more importantly, they are not our own. They derive from powerful discourses, from significant others or grand narratives that are taken as truth. Examples can be found in society, organizations and individuals.

Are we making our career decisions on our own terms or are we living into the dreams of our parents? Do developing countries merely adapt a vision from western modernity and take them as their desired future? Are organizations bound to the path laid out in the past by a powerful founder, or are they ready to adapt and change their path?

„Disowned“ futures are the flip-side of our envisioning of the future. Every image and vision sheds light on something and casts shadow on something else. When we form an image of the future we commit to it; we own it. At the same time, we „disown“ alternative views, alternative possibilities. To put it more emphatically: disowned futures are the alternative futures that we do not want to see. The alternatives, that we are consciously or unconsciously suppressing.

Yet, these disowned futures often contain the keys to further development and the seeds for a better and more wholesome transformation.

Negating them makes them stronger, as the negation always carries the negated with it. There is no use in running away from disowned futures – and pasts.

There is no future without past – against the tabula rasa

The distinction made by Sohail Inayatullah is not only valid for the future, but also for the past. And indeed: thinking about transforming our images of the future, often entails a conscious and active engagement with our past. Contrary to the view that dominated western modernity, we cannot simple create a tabula rasa and start completely new.

The future is not, in a fundamental sense, a clear break with the past, but a transformation of the patterns of the past. We cannot wipe the slate clean.

Re-Authoring Futures therefore also contains a paradox: in order to re-write the future, we need to engage with the past. Not only because that if we disown elements of our past they will come back to haunt us, but because our experiences of the past are the very material that we can use to create our futures. The moments we remember form the backdrop on which every new vision of the future is emerging.

Through looking at the things we just use from others or that we do not own, we develop the freedom to re-interprete, re-assemble and re-construct new futures.

Wholing and Healing

This is one of the central tenets of the dynamics described in different words in the practices developed to support organizations, communities and individuals in transformation.

Healing and wholing in working with stories

An excerpt from the 2017
key note by Mary Alice Arthur

From a narrative point of view, it refers to one of the „uses“ of story described by Mary Alice Arthur in her key note at BEYOND STORYTELLING 2017. Besides „Sensemaking“ and „Influencing“ she emphasizes the power of stories to support our „Wholing and Healing“.

For me, the term wholing was a new one. In the context of disowned pasts and future, it refers to the acknowledgement and integration of disowned stories. What are the stories that we haven´t acknowledged; that we haven´t accepted as our own?

Being with these suppressed stories, inviting them into our conversation is a key to transformation. This is not an easy thing to do, often painful and not without conflict. Yet, if we don´t do it, we might finding ourselves living into the same stories over and over again.

———

Dive Deeper:

• Sohail Inayatullah will hold a key note and a masterclass at BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018.
• Katarina Veselko will hold a workshop on „Owning your Stories“
• Mary Alice Arthur will hold a workshop on „StoryActivism“
• Chené Swart will talk about re-authoring practices

Mapping the Field – Interview with Joe Lambert

Joe Lambert is internationally renowned in being the founder and pioneer in Digital Storytelling in the 90's in the USA. Since then he spread the word of the power of Digital Storytelling throughout the entire world. His books, "Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community" and "Seven Stages: Story and the Human Experience" give a deep insight into finding the own story and creating its artefact with digital media. His work is highly appreciated in political and social communities.

In this video, Joe Lambert talks about what "Re-Authoring Futures" means for him and in his professional work.

He is Keynote Speaker at the conference and will talk about the power of SPECULATIVE DIGITAL STORYTELLING for finding and re-inventing the narrations around the identities of individuals, communities and societies.

The Place of Imagination

It was in the year 1991, when Michael White* was interviewed by Andrew Wood, a Chief Social Worker of the “Child & Adolescent Mental Health Centre” in Bedford, Australia. In this interview he not only talks about how narrative questioning is subverting the normative fixations of the dominant discourse, he also introduces the concept of re-authoring in the therapeutic context.

Those questions that encourage people** to map the influence of the problems in their lives I interpreted as deconstructive – these questions serve to deconstruct the dominant and impoverishing stories that persons are living by. And those questions that invite people** to map their influence in the ‚life’ of the problem I interpreted as reconstructing, or re-authoring."

When Michael White is talking about re-authoring he is not referring to a technique close to re-framing, but instead points out that this process is putting any expert knowledge about change in brackets and engages all involved people “actively in the meaning-making as the primary authors of these alternative stories.”

That this is more than a variation of systemic thinking becomes clear when the dialogue is alluding to the work of Gaston Bachelard and his distinctions in the fields of imagination, specially his conception of images that are not re-presenting or reflecting what has happened, but images that are in a certain way constitutive or generative and are as such able to transform our lives. The peculiar quality of such images is that they are not future-oriented like one would expect, but reverberations of neglected experiences from the past. Experiences, which normally wouldn’t be remembered but suddenly ‘light-up’ and contribute to alternative storylines.

We talk about something between generation and resurrection, between inventing and discovering. And this is what we are doing when we re-author ourselves and the possible futures we are inscribed.

-----------------------
* Michael White: Re-Authoring Lives. Interviews & Essays.
** we refer to "people" instead of the original "family members"

Navigating in the Sea of Change

It was Douglas McGregor (The Human Side of Enterprise) from the MIT who distinguished two types of managers according to the way they are treating employees. Type 1 thinks that employess are lazy by nature und try to avoid labor whenever and whereever it is possible (Theory X). Type 2 thinks that employees are, by nature, ambitious and motivated to take over responsibility (Theory Y).

But it was not this distinction which made him famous. It was his insight, that it is not about the decision if "Theory X" or "Theory Y" is true and that both theories are right at the same time.

50 years later Frederic Laloux resamples this piece of thought to restory what we think about organizations.

If you view people with mistrust (Theory X) and subject them to all sorts of controls, rules, and punishments, they will try to game the system, and you will feel your thinking is validated. Meet people with practices based on trust, and they will return your trust with responsible behaviour. … At the core, this comes down to the fundamental spiritual truth that we reap what we saw: fear breads fear and trust breads trust.“ Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations, s.109

The consequences for classical (micro-)management approaches are shattering. Because the control and reporting system produces exactly the circumstances to which it considers itself to be the response. In this downward leading spiral even the classical opposition between process and culture becomes obsolete. Who still believes that in change-processes one has to carefully seperate artifically enacted wellness-events from the clinical implementation of prefabricated processes, is ignoring the fact that day-to-day interactions are always meshing hard and and soft factors, so that culture can be a nut too hard to crack.

In this new approach (based on Ken Wilbers integral theory) change is not anymore a hierarchical act of volition but a dynamic balancing of four closely correlated dimensions: individually 1) the taken-for-granted beliefs (invisible) and 2) the behaviour (visible), and collectively 3) the cultural dimension (invisible, soft) and 4) the structures and processes (visible, hard).

Worth the mention that the affectation follows usually a certain chronology: The assumption of a leader that 1) people are motivated by money and recognition is accompanied 4) by appropriate objectives and incentives (bonuses), which results 2) in a competitive and ego-centric behaviour as a 3) determining pattern for the corporate culture.  

At the same time this model is a showcase of systemic inter-dependency - underlining that any change in one of these four dimensions affects all the others.

What does this mean for the Re-Authoring-Process within organizations?

That you can - in T-group like protected spaces - reflect belief systems and cultural patterns and re-author personal stories and identity constructions, as long as you don't have linear implementation processes in mind and are aware of the structural forces which are at work outside the seminar rooms.

Hierarchical structures with non-hierarchical cultures – it’s easy to see the two together like oil and water. That is why leaders in these companies insist that culture needs constant attention and continuous investment. In a hierarchical structure that gives managers power over their subordinates, a constant investment of energy is required to keep managers from using that power in hierarchical ways. … (whereas) culture in self-managing structures is both less necessary and more impactful than in traditional organizations. Less necessary because culture is not needed to overcome the troubles brought about by hierarchy. And more impactful, for the same reason.“ Laloux (2014, s.228f)

Less necessary and more impactful. That sounds great and reflects the opaque moment of dialectics. Because culture is both a vehicle and the fuel it needs, but not the end. You will not find company culture on the vision boards presented by change managers. Because culture is what happens every day. It is how we construct meaning treating each other. It is made by the way people interact and what they consider worth telling.

Against this background we should abandon the metaphor of the organization as a ship - where the managers gather around the steering wheel while the employees are working below deck. That is last centuries thinking. Let us better imagine a boat, a rowing boat, a coxless eight. You can see it? We are rowing and steering at the same time.

---

Photo by Antonio Lainez on Unsplash

Our Workshop Radar. To navigate through Hamburg

Heidelberg lies in the past and is still very present. Hamburg is coming up and also vividly challenging my presence and my thoughts. I see people around me trying to map the field of what we call "Re-Authoring Futures" - our conceptional lighthouse facing the ocean of narrative reconnaissances. And the more I listen to them, the more I am convinced that it is all about "learning to be a Jazz musician", as Michael White, the wonderful and truely inspiring Australian family therapist once noted while he was riding his bycicle. The maps he was creating were just a tool to set out to uncharted territory - mapping the unmapped.

Anyway I provide you with this map to show you the field our workshops this year are going to explore. Not to mention the shining keynotes and the in-depth masterclasses.

It is just a line-up converted to a map and it will never compete with the reality of being there and joining us. So get your Early Bird Tickets NOW!

Thinking and unmapping the landscapes of my consciousness, I stumpled upon the mission statement of a blog experiment called ZENARIO. I wrote it down about five years ago, and now when the BEYOND STORYTELLING PROJECT is bulging the sails of this vessel I cannot withhold it from you any longer:

"We have learned to focus on personal deficits in ways that speak of failure rather than accomplishment, that produce social hierarchies (experts who often appear to know more about people’s lives than they do themselves), and that erode our sense of communal interdependence and common purpose. The project is based on the belief that the success of money and benchmark driven organizations has become its limitation: because the old organizational model based on the tools of control has no answer to human hopes, values, interests, and needs. On the other hand organizations are forced to dump these tools and empower their employees in order to stay innovative, agile and productive in complex environments. Machines produce sameness. Human systems like organizations create diversity. The narrative approach helps to co-construct unity in diversity. An ambitious project.“

Mapping the Field – Interview with Mary Alice Arthur

Joanna Sell did a wonderful interview with Mary Alice Arthur on BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018. Mary Alice shares her thoughts on what Re-Authoring and working with stories mean for her. A beautiful call to connect and create the field for new and better stories to emerge.

Joanna Sell talks to Mary Alice Arthur about re-authoring futures from Mary Alice Arthur on Vimeo.

Mary Alice Arthur held a powerful key note at BEYOND STORYTELLING 2017. Her harvest of our first conference on the 6 uses of story is a wonderful entry point for everyone interested in working with stories. Check out part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Mapping the Field – Interview with Chené Swart

Chené Swart has been working with Re-Authoring Practices for years. Her book, "Re-Authoring the World" introduces re-authoring practices into the work with organizations and communities. In this video, she talks about what this means for her and why it is important right now. At BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018 she will host a workshop together with Griet Bouwen and Marianne Schapmans. She will also hold a key note.

The power of Story-Work

It was back in 2015 when a group of us, as experts in the area of narrative work, decided to share our wisdom on how we work with stories in organizations and also to join our forces to support the creation of a global storytelling community. We thought that the appropriate vehicles for this would be the publication of a book and an annual conference, where participants could also share their own work with stories. The book would cover the impact of stories in a range of almost all attributes of an organization’s life and growth like change, leadership, learning, culture, community building, etc. Both the book and the conference have been brought to the world in 2017 and have been given the name “Beyond Storytelling”.

Since then, a lot happened in our lives and to our planet. The rising of dichotomies, more uncertainty, pressing personal and systemic struggles and much more. At the same time, the idea of telling your authentic story was taking more space, especially in the organizational parlance as an antidote to deal with the above-mentioned challenges. This led to the overuse and sometimes to the abuse of the term “storytelling”, especially in specific corporate functions like sales and marketing.

However, still, a core question remains valid: How stories could become an elixir that ignites individual and systemic transformation? How could we leverage the magic power that stories carry so that lingering effects could emerge towards a greater good?

There are many examples where working with stories beyond storytelling becomes the magic wand that illuminates the individual/organizational/societal field of change and initiates a re-authoring process for a desired future. Here are just a few of them that I use to work with:

1.) Stories as polarity resolutions. If we imagine a terribly crazy world with a lot of negative disruption as one pole, then the opposite pole may be a human configuration of conscious visionaries that are rising and collectively work for a better world. When one pole seems to dominate our present and future, building on the other pole may bring a required balance. This is what Otto Scharmer and the Presencing Institute are currently doing with the HuffPost collaboration project, on "Transforming Capitalism".

Or approaching a hot polarity by bringing in your personal story it may open a space for a middle ground discussion to emerge, which may make meaning for both poles’ supporters. This is what Brené Brown tries to do when she shares her childhood family-hunting tradition story as a mean to talk about responsible gun ownership in the US. This is also what the Social Project “Stories for Europe” offers by inviting all the voices and individual stories to be listened, ranging from favoring the European idea to the realm of Euroscepticism.

When someone tries to eliminate or devaluate the stories that identify the one pole, a substantial resistance is provoked and stretches the polarity to its edges. It is like trying to separate the two different sides of a coin. This doesn't seem to work because a story is attached to each actor’s identity. Working with stories can guide us to support landing safely in the middle ground of an intricate and highly polarized field.

2.) Visionary story-work. I use this approach in my coaching practice. A person starts with their own story, and then they combine it with a bigger vision/mission/message, which reflects their call for this world. In a social level, the “Stories for Europe” project is capturing this. Sharing our own authentic stories which are related to moments that we felt connected to a “European idea” may help us re-author and co-create a better future for Europe. The inquiry process becomes appreciative when you explore questions like for example: "What was a moment in which Europe appeared beautiful in my eyes? What if Europe´s political aim was to be beautiful?"

Working with a visionary story can also happen the other way around: I start by imagining a mission or a desired future and then I weave my own story into that future. I actually include myself and my existing environment in it, but in an imaginary way. An example could be to take any Foresight Scenario referring to a big subject (e.g. climate change, food and energy supply, etc.), which resonates best with me and tell the story of myself and my life in it at that time. The narrative of the prediction-data-based scenario changes totally and integrates an emotional loading with the inclusion of the "first-person tell" stories. What makes it impressive though is that the more attractive these stories are, the more will guide people towards respective actions in the present in a caring for the desired future way. In both cases, this approach may help us to create a strong future brand story of ourselves/company/work, etc.

The core question which could be explored here is: How will the future transform me? The metaphorical image which shapes a new narrative is a game-like one: I am experiencing my future life in a virtual reality chamber. The more I practice with it in an appreciative and optimistic way, the better it gets. And this is one way that our future is transforming us.

3.) Story as an intervention. This taps into the idea of how I would like and what it takes for people to meet in their humanity in the hearing of my story. Sharing our authentic story, how we share it and to whom, are important aspects in our effort to illuminate a field and create an impact. Self-confidence, power, powerlessness, drama, joyfulness, etc, are all expressions of our behavior and are related to how we tell our story. However, the most important aspect is from which inner state we share our story. Because this dramatically changes its impact. The inner state has to do with our level of presence at the moment as we are telling our story and the transformation process that evokes both within ourselves and in our listeners in the “here and now”. Creating awareness about the importance of the inner state that a story is told is an essential part of working with stories.

A Story holds such a power and as Michael Margolis nicely said: “…this stuff is dynamite, it can also do damage...” For example, the inner state and intention are what differentiates storytellers from populists. We could possibly agree that there is no innocent story. However, thinking in terms of narratives that shape the identity, foster the interconnection, and enhance the pride of a nation, could we imagine how different would have been the impact of “Make America great again” if diversity was included in the creation and experience of the story? It would even be more articulating if the word “again”, which implies a hidden blame, is excluded.

This brings into my mind a beautiful poem of the fabulous Nayyirah Waheed…

"some people

when they hear

your story.

contract.

others

upon hearing

your story.

expand.

and

this is how

you

know."

Mapping the Field – Interview with Wolfgang Tonninger

In this interview, our colleague Wolfgang Tonninger talks about BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018 and working with stories and narratives in the organizational context.

Mapping the Field – Interview with Sohail Inayatullah

We are proud to announce Sohail Inayatullah as one of our key noters today. He holds the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at the Islamic Science University of Malaysia (USIM) and a professor at Tamkang University (Taiwan) and an associate Melbourne Business School (Australia). He has worked extensively with governments, international corporations, and non-governmental organizations around the globe to re-author their futures. Here, he talks about what Re-Authoring Futures means for him:

Mapping the Field – Interview with Jacques Chlopczyk

As part of the programming, we are conducting a couple of small interviews. In the interviews, we want to "map the field": to explore what people connect with the theme of BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018 and why it is important right now. Our first interview features Jacques Chlopczyk:

We have a new logo! – So what?

After settling on the title for BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018, we looked at the wonderful logo that was the symbol for our first conference.

The bird we used in 2017 travelled a long way: I took a photo of this wonderful graffiti in the streets of Sao Paolo in 2015 where I spent a couple of weeks to work on the book BEYOND STORYTELLING (unfortunately, we cannot credit the person who did the graffiti – I couldn´t find a name tag).

Developing ideas for the conference, a bird that set out to fly was a fitting symbol that was representing what we wanted to do with BEYOND STORYTELLING: Starting a conversation about the contributions that narrative approaches can make to addressing the organizational challenges of today.

What we also like about the bird is the style. It has something modern and magic at the same time. The flying bird is an old symbol, which is represented here in a modern way. The image is accessible and easy to relate to.

BEYOND STORYTELLING wants to represent this:

• The depth of old heritage and traditions of Storytelling and the relevant practices associated with it in the different professional fields
• The curiosity of going into contact with a diverse group of people from different professional fields and building and enabling community
• The conviction that these old practices find themselves in the context of the business challenges of our times
• To provide a forum to take a "bird´s eye view" on what is happening in the field of narrative practices of different professions – to connect and build bridges

These aspects are still very important for us. At the same time, we felt that we want to change things up:

After the strength and energy it took to host the conference for the first time in 2017, we wanted to build on the wonderful experiences, encounters and insights that were created there.

Secondly, it we wanted to think new about how we program the conference. The first conference was a way for us to explore the field we created while working on the book "BEYOND STORYTELLING" can be made fruitful for a wider audience. After the positive resonance and feedback to the first conference, we wanted to give BST2018 a specific theme.

After choosing our new title, we also had the inclination to develop an new logo for 2018 . The new logo should speak more to the characteristics that we associate with "Re-Authoring Futures". We chose a tiger that jumps.

The BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018 Logo

The conceptual inspiration for this image came from an article written by Isabel Lorey in the Documenta 14 reader. In it, she outlines the concept of the "Tigersprung" based on the historical philosophy of Walther Benjamin. Central to this concept it that true change always in the here and now. But that any change that is to last actualizes the "shadows of the past" in the moment of transformation and transcends these shadows into a realization of a desired future yet to come.

Apart from this historical ancestry to the image of the "Tigersprung", we believe that this image alludes to different aspects that we want to invite in talking about "Re-Authoring Futures":

• Courage: Re-imagening futures und living into them is an act of bravery. We can only anticipate where stepping into the future – this "leap of faith" - will take us. We can not and will not know for sure. To step into new futures takes courage.
• Confidence: To step into an unknown future, also takes confidence into ones own talents, gifts and capacities. If you jump, you need to trust yourself to make it to the other end.
• Moments: The image also alludes to "moments". The jump of a tiger happens within the blink of an eye. It takes just a moment to get from here to there. "Moments" are central to Re-Authoring Practices – both as the medium and the time of transformation. Re-Authoring is about moments that matter.

We hope the new logo inspires you to explore the role of narrative practices in Re-Authoring Futures.

Re-Authoring Futures – What's in a title?

A title for a conference should entail tension – it should carry questions and paradoxes that stimulate our conversations, imagination and creativity. A title should create a field that is worth exploring. 

The future is the stories we tell

Coming from narrative practices and ideas, the title „Re-Authoring Futures“ has at its core the understanding that our futures are created by the stories we tell about it. From this point of view, the future is not fixed as something with a finite goal. The future in this understanding is an open field in which we are the authors and co-authors that write and co-write this story.

We are all authoring the stories we live into constantly, knowingly or unknowingly. Some of these stories are based in our context – our community, the markets and society. Some are hidden and not known to us but shape our lives in very profound ways – by impacting what we believe is possible or impossible.

Indeed, these beliefs and ideas are spoken about as facts – both physical, social and historical – that are shaping our lives and organizations. Within the hidden nature of these beliefs and ideas we give meaning and daily experience their impact on our lives and our organizations as we unknowingly author and co-author organisational futures.

Choice and agency – Taking back the pen

The plural of „futures" in “re-authoring futures”, indicate the possibilities and choices that are inherent in this view. We also chose this title, now, because, in recent years, we are witnessing the justification of decisions through the small but powerful word „alternativlos“ (without any alternatives). This German word implies that there are no choices.

That the path of action taken only follows given facts, a given logic and rational. And these „alternativlose“ stories can also be found – very often – in organizations. Because of a chosen path in the past or some constraints in the environment, things seem to be impossible to change.

Assuming that the choice we take is „alternativlos.“ it is the affirmation that we do not really have a choice. For the organization that is affected by this „choice,“ all power is taken away. The very notion of futures implicates multiple options, alternatives and yes, choice and agency. The notion of authorship implies that an organization, a community or an individual can take agency to impact the stories told and the stories lived and created.

The prefix "Re-„ is important to us in many ways: It stands for consciousness and engagement. It acknowledges that everyone, every organization and community is part of a context with a set of taken-for-granted beliefs and ideas that supports and invests in the stories that are told by and about them and others.

These taken-for-granted beliefs and ideas make people, teams or organisations the problem as it situates problems inside people or organisations. These internalised problem stories become thin descriptions about the  potential and the possibilities that an organization or communities can live into and choose from. „Re-„ is about making these taken-for-granted beliefs visible and through living and telling alternative preferred stories change and re-write the context along the way.

The roots of Re-Authoring Practices

The title also has a history and roots in a specific field of practice. The word “re-authoring” grew out of the work of the two originators of narrative therapy, Michael White and David Epston. Re-authoring conversations enable people to separate their lives and relationships from knowledges/stories that are impoverished descriptions of who they are and encourage people to re-author their lives according to alternative knowledges/stories and practices that have preferred outcomes. Our colleague Chené Swart, who trained as a Narrative therapist in South Africa, translated these re-authoring ideas into her work as a coach and consultant in the organisational and communal fields with her book, Re-authoring the World: The Narrative lens and practices for organisations, communities and individuals.

Today re-authoring ideas and practices are seen as “ways of being and working with individuals, organizations and communities that seek to ignite the beauty, dignity and honour of their lives” (Carlson 2017) . In this re-igniting of dignity, beauty and honour, we are invited to again become the primary authors of our lives and re-author (take back the pen in) our relationship to the preferred moments, narratives and communities that have shaped our lives in ways that move us forward. The work focuses on moments that matter, the context that informs it and practices that dignify people’s lives. Taken into the organizational world, it is about creating possible futures that are viable in an economic sense while taking into account the way an organization is connected to its constituents and communities of concern.

Re-Authoring Futures – BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018

The transformational nature of the re-authoring lens and work invites individuals, communities and organisations to individually and collectively take up the pen as authors and co-authors to shape the futures they want to live into.

The heart and soul of re-authoring practices is to co-create moments that transform our past, present and future. At BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018 we want to do that for our field of practice and explore how re-authoring practices are realized in different fields. What do we see and do differently in adopting this particular view? How can we imagine and build futures that are worth living into – for our organizations, communities and brands? What does Re-Authoring Futures mean for you?

** Thanks to Chené Swart for co-authoring this piece with me **

From Moments to Stories – Chené Swart's Moments Portal

A constant in my work as consultant and change facilitator in the past months is a concern about „moments“. It was brought into my focus by Chené Swart talking about her work in the Masterclass at BEYOND STORYTELLING 2017 and in the many conversations that followed afterwards.

I believe that as facilitators, we want to create „moments that matter“, in which we can support the people we work with in their search for new meaning, sensemaking or transformation. In creating these moments I used an approach from Chené Swart to invite the remembrance of significant moments to create relevance.

Generating new meaning and making sense of a situation is a key ingredient for transformation. Often it is about discarding old assumptions and creating new meaning. Not only in cognitive terms but also emotionally. Working with stories is a powerful way to connect the emotional and cognitive aspects of transformation.

Sensemaking is one of the key uses of working with stories. Stories speak to our head, hearts and minds. The question is how we get to the stories that map the field in a way that is useful and relevant for the people we are working with.

Entering the moments portal – Relevance

In any setting that has the stated goal of stimulating transformation of some kind, one of the key questions is how a topic becomes relevant to the people we work with. I don´t mean relevant only in the sense that people say „Yes, this topic is relevant or important for me.“ Relevance, for me, in the settings I work in, is an emotional stance towards the topic. A concern with the topic and an engagement and commitment to find out what the topic at hand really means for the people and the community involved. In some cases we do have a sense of urgency in the room but this isn´t always the case. So how do we invite engagement and honour people´s presence and time?

If you are used to working in participatory settings a lot of different methods might spring to your mind that enable you to set in motion ways for people to engage with a topic and with each other. But even with some years of experience with different approaches to the design and facilitation of such settings, Chenés work with moment is a constant eye opener – both for it´s simplicity and the impact it creates. The key to this approach is asking people to tell about moments in which a topic or theme was / is / became relevant and important to them. And this works magic.

Working with the moments Portal on Trust During the Berlin Change Days 2017. Pictures by @miriaminchange

Abstraction and experience

As human beings we are bound to our bodies. In each given situation we perceive with all our senses. Going up the ladder of abstraction, we create meaning out of the different impulses we get from our senses. With each step up the ladder, our experience is enriched, filtered and transformed by our mental models and interpretation routines. We move from experience to abstraction.

By doing this, we don´t perceive the particulars of the situation but the commonalities it has with our pre-established modes of thinking and seeing the world. Both as a means to make sense of what is happening and in an effort to reduce cognitive load. This enables us to react swiftly and orient ourselves. Albeit this „fast thinking“ works in a lot of situations, it also carries the risk of missing important pieces of information and makes us prone to oversimplifying things.

In a situation in which we want to invite people to really re-think a certain topic, fast thinking often leads to a situation in which we either see a new topic through our well established frames of reference (meaning: there is nothing new) or that we engage but without linking it an emotional element that is necessary for true transformation. Our attitudes and belief systems are shaped by the experiences we make and systems of symbols (culture) we use to make sense of them. All this adds layers of abstraction and generalizations. The magic of asking for moments is that people are recalling specific situations or moments in which a topic has or had relevance to them. With this simple question, we invite people to strip away their interpretations and simply recall. Indeed, if we ask people to take us to the moments that mattered for them, it becomes even more than recalling, it becomes reexperiencing. 

The power of this way of working lies for me in the fact that there is also no abstraction needed to talk about moments. The cognitive effort is not focused on making interpretations or finding deeper meanings or patterns. The cognitive effort is low in that it entails „simple recalling“. Letting people talk about moments is – in a sense – making people listening to themselves anew. This also invites the emotions and feelings that made up the experience of this moment. Working with moments, the invitation is to step down the ladder of abstraction and get close to the „raw data“ of our experiences.

Emotional and cognitive effects of working with moments

On an emotional level, this work invites being a true witness and builds relationships and community. As listeners to the moments of others we move from interpretation to perception, as we see a situation metaphorically through the eyes of the other. This often creates a sense of belonging and intimacy. Not only towards others, but also towards ourselves. We are not only witnessing others but we are also listening to ourselves. We experiencing the moments anew through our recalling and retelling.

On a cognitive level, I believe that this work – revealing the „raw data“ – cracks open our interpretations of situations, moments and the experiences we made. By stripping away our interpretations and mental models, we are able to re-interprete these moments anew. This creates the possibility for new ways of looking at things and the opportunity to tell a story in a new and different way.

From moments to stories

I experimented a while with asking the participants to my workshops to tell a story in which the topic at hand was relevant. From my experiences with the moments portal, I believe that this creates a hurdle that is not necessary. On the one hand people ask themselves what constitutes a story worth telling in the specific setting we are in. It concerns people with what to tell and how to tell it. Instead of focusing on relating themselves to the topic and the other, they are concerned with style and form. That is not necessary. If you ask people about moments, they will tell a story anyway.

Reconstructing the story of an R&D Team through the moments portal. What story emerged? What do we learn about us as a team looking at these moments?

From a narrative standpoint, this also enables to re-write the stories that shape the actions, decisions and interactions within an organization. Stories are made up by moments connected by a plot outlining the landscape of action and the landscape of consciousness. These stories, once established, are easily triggered for the interpretation of a given situation.

„While some community narratives are quite direct, many well-known narratives are coded as visual images, as symbols, as stereotypes, and as performances of behavior so ritualized that we may be unaware of the narratives we implicitly accept and enact, [...].Underlying much of what we know, and can recall, are encoded stories indexed by certain cognitive handles. […]. They are cues to the underlying story.“ (Rappaport, 2000, S.5)*

By going back to the moments in which the themes and narratives emerged, these moments become free of these assumptions and pre-established storylines. They become building blocks that can be re-interpreted and re-storied in a different way. A story that is more in line with what is now required from the organization or community.

Constructing a story out of these moments is again a step up the ladder of abstraction. But this abstraction is not as abstract as a model or theory. It is still a story with all the elements that go along with that. More importantly, every step that follows in this meaning making process is fueled with the experiences and emotions of the people involved.

Because they became relevant through the personal engagement and through community in passing through the moments portal.

*Rappaport, J. (2000) Community Narratives: Tales of Terror and Joy. In American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 28, No. 1.

More on Chené's work:

We want to get rid of you! The power of storytelling in intercultural contexts

A small little reflection on the power of storytelling from our dear colleague Joanna Sell: 

https://blog.culturaldetective.com/2017/10/31/we-want-to-get-rid-of-you/

More of her writings can be found on her new blog. Enjoy!

Interview zum Buch "BEYOND STORYTELLING"

Von Springer Professional wurde ich Anfang Juli zu unserem Buch "BEYOND STORYTELLING" interviewt. Das Interview fasst die zentralen Gedankengänge des Buches und der Konferenz gut zusammen.

Das Interview kann hier eingesehen werden: https://www.springerprofessional.de/interne-kommunikation/leadership/geschichten-sind-traeger-der-organisationskultur/12493420

Das Buch kann über alle bekannten Versandhändler oder direkt bei Springer bezogen werden.

Into the field – Rients Verschoor and Martijn de Jong Posthumus on Applying the ‘learning history’ method in local government

In 2015, a group of ten Dutch history students from the University of Groningen gradually found out that their core business – thinking, writing, and telling about continuities and discontinuities – was useful. Indeed, all jokes cast aside, history could be useful. That is to say, these young historians discovered that their discipline, which is often seen as fun but practically irrelevant, could have serious impact. They made this discovery when they wrote a so-called ‘learning history’ of the place-based approach of the local government of Groningen. An assignment during the course ‘Learning History & Organizations’.

                  Learning history is a method that enables organizations to learn from their past. Based on a paper trail (various documents, reports, correspondences, etc.) and interviews we write ‘learning histories’. These learning histories then become the basis for dialogues in and between organizations to foster processes of collective learning. The goal, in the Groningen method, is to enable organizations to become ‘learning organizations’, and – even better – systems of organizations to become ‘learning systems’. Groningen, however, is not the only area where this method gains ground. A strongly overlapping method is the storytelling method of Christine Erlach and dr. Karin Thier, which we hoped to further explore during the master class of Christine Erlach at the congress Beyond Storytelling. So we packed our bags and together with dr. Rik Peters travelled to Heidelberg, curious what we would find across the border.

                  Aside from a lively and historically intruiging city and loads of enthusiastic people passionate about storytelling, we found two splendid additions to our own learning history method: a new interview technique and various effective ways to present the results of these interviews. In order to trace valuable tacit knowledge possessed by employees, Christine interviews employees using an ‘Ereigniskurve’. The Ereigniskurve is a supporting tool with which the employee can visualize his or her experiences on a time scale, and which enables the interviewer to in depthly and accurately interview the employee about these experiences. In addition, and it may sound silly at first, Christine emphasized the importance of truly listening. Whereas we were trained to accurately and actively interview, specifically searching for information based on the paper trail we analyze, Christine claimed the gist is in how people tell their stories – and they have their stories; don’t worry about that.

Christine also taught us new ways of production after the harvest of the interviews. Central to our Groningen learning histories are the experiences from employees, combined with the historical knowledge of the researcher, and presented in a narrative filled with citations and reflective learning questions. However, Christine demonstrated various different ways of presenting the harvest: combining the stories of the employees in one visual ‘roadmap’, in a comic, or as we saw in ‘Augenhöhe project’ from Daniel Trebien, in a film. It is important to stress, though, that the welding of the stories in a format is not the end of the story. In fact, when the format is ready for use the story begins. For the stories have to be shared, through dialogue, within the organization in order that people learn from it.

                  Eager to blend Christine’s method with our own in our line of work, we gave it a shot in our local government in Groningen. This local government is dealing with a major transformation from the Dutch welfare state to a ‘participation society’, in which many national tasks have been decentralized and another approach in relation to collaboration with civilians is being implemented. A large aspect of this transformation in Groningen is the further development of the so-called ‘place-based approach’; a task for which we have been employed. In short, the place-based approach is a contextual approach in which integral aspects of an area are decisive for governmental policy-making and operationalisation, as opposed to sectoral urban policy.

                  Right now we are busy interviewing our collegaes and collecting stories. Every interview we start by asking: could you please visualize your professional experience on a scale from positive to negative by drawing a line. This question asks people to think about their professional life in order of a story. They recollect their different experiences – which are stories in themselves – and connect them to each other in a bigger story of their professional experience as a whole. The Ereigniskurve in the form of a line then serves as a guideline for the interview. The next question we ask is if they want to explain the line they drew. From this point onwards the listening begins. Sometimes we interrupt by asking, for example, what they learned from this or that experience. But we try taking the advice from Christine to heart: stop asking, start listening.

                  We already collected a bunch of beautiful stories. The next step is analyzing all the material and discussing it within the organisation. In analyzing the stories we search for tacit knowledge. That is implicit knowledge of which the owner doesn’t know he or she has. There is not one way for doing this. In the Dutch language we have a saying that you have to ‘read between the lines’ which, in this context, can be used as a metaphor for the method. On presenting and discussing the stories and their hidden knowledge we are thinking of (innovative) ways for doing that. One idea is to present and discuss the stories (whether in a classic presentation in text, a ‘roadmap’ or a comic) in a room which is totally filled with prints of citations from the interviews. In the end this blog is a story of our own learning history in making learning histories and we are somewhere in the middle of it. We ourselves are curious how the story continues…

Rients and Martijn supported us throughout the BEYOND STORYTELLING conference.

Learn more about them on their linkedIn profiles:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rients-verschoor-7b20624a/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/martijndejp/