By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 9 Apr 21
From time to time someone, knowing my interest in narrative sends me a link to yet another website collecting people’s stories. One popped up in slack as I was writing this offering a “magic formula” to change the world. It has some powerful stories all carefully curated by the design team. They are organised into categories and you can find ones suited for their need, and then you can sign up children (as long as an adult is present) to follow the four-stage magic formula to create more of the same. All worthy, all valuable in its way but I
From time to time someone, knowing my interest in narrative sends me a link to yet another website collecting people’s stories. One popped up in slack as I was writing this offering a “magic formula” to change the world. It has some powerful stories all carefully curated by the design team. They are organised into categories and you can find
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 8 Apr 21
I talked yesterday about metaphor-based languages and used Winnie the Pooh as an illustration. That was part of a loose set of posts starting to develop and codify a more general theory of leadership from a sense-making and anthro-complexity perspective. One of the key components of that theory is the idea of communication through engagement. Now that can involve the form of distributed sense-making envisaged in the Field Guide, but it can also involve engagement through the use of metaphors both common and also designed. If you have a body of common narrative then it’s easy; most British children of
I talked yesterday about metaphor-based languages and used Winnie the Pooh as an illustration. That was part of a loose set of posts starting to develop and codify a more general theory of leadership from a sense-making and anthro-complexity perspective. One of the key components of that theory is the idea of communication through engagement. Now that can involve the
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 7 Apr 21
You may be asking what connects the events on stardate 45047.2, the battlefield at Gettysburg (picture from October 2019 on a trip with good friends between conferences), and an illustration from chapter three of Winne the Pooh “In which Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting and Nearly Catch a Woozle”. Or there again you may not, it really depends what stories you have lived through and therein lies the connection. For those who don’t know the reference to Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra comes from the fifth series of Star Trek: The Next Generation which is also a reference back to Arena,
You may be asking what connects the events on stardate 45047.2, the battlefield at Gettysburg (picture from October 2019 on a trip with good friends between conferences), and an illustration from chapter three of Winne the Pooh “In which Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting and Nearly Catch a Woozle”. Or there again you may not, it really depends what stories
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 4 Apr 21
In yesterday’s post, I was concerned about both the abuse of power, and the effectiveness of confessional use of language. The desire to compel people to put into words (generally the words of power in the facilitator’s culture and/or ideology) learning is problematic to say the least. And the excuse of no one is compelled to ignores the guilt-tripping of group pressure and can easily result in gaming. The easiest way to get someone off your back is to say what they want you to say and then get on with what you wanted to do anyway. Most workshop-based intervention
In yesterday’s post, I was concerned about both the abuse of power, and the effectiveness of confessional use of language. The desire to compel people to put into words (generally the words of power in the facilitator’s culture and/or ideology) learning is problematic to say the least. And the excuse of no one is compelled to ignores the guilt-tripping of group
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 16 Jun 19
We need new narratives and stories! 2019 can be made by us to the year in which we once again begin to tell stories: forcefully and enthusiastically.Over the last few years we’ve been almost paralysed by Trump and Brexit, by autocrats and populists who like long forgotten shadows emerged from the woodwork of history. The old institutions, the political order established after World War II, the UN, the EU, and the old party system consisting of social democracy and christian conservatism, the neoliberalism of the 90s: all these are stories that have been boring us for quite some time and
We need new narratives and stories! 2019 can be made by us to the year in which we once again begin to tell stories: forcefully and enthusiastically.Over the last few years we’ve been almost paralysed by Trump and Brexit, by autocrats and populists who like long forgotten shadows emerged from the woodwork of history. The old institutions, the political order
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 5 Jan 19
We need new narratives and stories! 2019 can be made by us to the year in which we once again begin to tell stories: forcefully and enthusiastically.Over the last few years we’ve been almost paralysed by Trump and Brexit, by autocrats and populists who like long forgotten shadows emerged from the woodwork of history. The old institutions, the political order established after World War II, the UN, the EU, and the old party system consisting of social democracy and christian conservatism, the neoliberalism of the 90s: all these are stories that have been boring us for quite some time and
We need new narratives and stories! 2019 can be made by us to the year in which we once again begin to tell stories: forcefully and enthusiastically.Over the last few years we’ve been almost paralysed by Trump and Brexit, by autocrats and populists who like long forgotten shadows emerged from the woodwork of history. The old institutions, the political order