Dialogue - Narrative Blog

We're often asked what the difference is between a focus groups and surveys and our approach to research.  I think this cartoon by Tom Fishburne illustrates the problem with most focus groups perfectly.  They are influenced by the facilitator (whether consciously or not) who is usually trying to prove a pre-existing hypothesis.  Our pre-hypothesis approach aims to obtain true insight into the perceptions of staff, customers etc, by mitigating against facilitator bias, and asking indirect questions aimed at eliciting narrative with no pre-existing hypothesis. 

I like reading Bob Sutton's blog, he often links to books and writings I never would have known about if not for him.  This week, he wrote about Professor David Dunning from Cornell University, who's done some really interesting research (along with various colleagues) on self-awareness.

Some interesting insights from the Professor's new book "Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself. " include: "people do a pretty bad job of guessing their IQ scores, are downright awful at rating their ability to catch other people's lies, that workers do a far worse job of assessing their own social skills than their superiors or peers, that in survey of thousands of high school seniors 70% of respondents rated their leadership ability as above average while only 2% rated their leadership ability as below average, and -- turning to my own profession -- that 94% of college professors say they do above average work."

A key insight from this is ...

The guys at Cognitive Edge seem to be on a roll with all the video's they're creating!  The latest one to be released is of Dave Snowden retelling one of the very first (and best) analogies I heard him use to explain the difference between ordered and unordered approaches.

Enjoy!

We utilise a software suite, SenseMaker^TM, when working on projects that involve huge amounts of narrative as well as when a client needs to maximise their own decision-making capability in the face of a complex problem.

SenseMaker^TM is developed by Cognitive Edge, and Dave and the gang have released this useful video introduing the software.

This TEDGlobal video is one of the most poignant talks I've ever viewed. It is by Chimamanda Adichie, an African novelist, who shares some experiences of how encountering a single story of a person, people or country framed the way she viewed them.

Her point is that being exposed to a single story is very dangerous, and that we've got to open ourselves up to "balanced stories" in order to really get a grasp on the world around us.

If you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with "secondly". Start the story with the arrows of the Native American Indians and not with the arrival of the British and you have an entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African states and not with the colonial creation of the African State and you have an entirely different story.

As I have written before ...

With all credit to Sonja on this one, we're toying with the idea of changing our title's and job descriptions within The Narrative Lab.

For a loooong time, we have been uncomfortable with describing ourselves as "consultants". While it may be true that we're consultative in our way of putting together projects of an emergent nature for our clients, we are certainly not consultants of the traditional fold.

And so, we've been grappling with a title that brings together the blend of facilitation, consulting, advisory, presenting and sensemaking projects that we love to embark on.

How about ... Conversation Agents?

At the heart of all we do is conversation. Whether it's gathering stories for a sensemaking project, or having stories told back into an organisations to enhance communications ... conversation is the root.

What say you?

Now how much more effective is this than a couple of posters on the wall and powerpoint presentations on improving your health by climbing the stairs ...

Goes to show, when it comes to changing behaviour, we need to think outside the box!

Aristotle said: “The greatest thing by far is to have mastered the metaphor.” And the Spanish philosopher and writer Jose Ortega y Gasset added, “The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man.”

One of the indelible lessons I picked up from my training as a narrative therapist is that words are important. If words are signifiers (that is, they give meaning) then the very same words represent a gateway through which we catch a glimpse of how a person views themselves, the world around them: their reality.

And so, the stories we tell about ourselves and the experiences we have in this world are significant ... more significant than you can imagine: they are the gateways into understanding reality and the way things are.

It is this "significance" of stories that I believe is what underlies the inspiration, motivation, connection and insight we gain from hearing the stories of other people.

I noticed on Ron Donaldson's blog, The Ecology of Knowledge, that he had participated in a very interesting process - one that combined the use of traditional storytelling and constellations to find novel solutions to intractable problems.

I know a fair amount about the realms of storytelling and intractable problems, but know absolutely nothing about the use of constellations.

One could do a massive google search to find out more, but for now, I'm more interested in what the network has to say about constellations?

Any takers?