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| 28/11/07 | | Finding the domain for communities of practice |
One of the key challenges in starting a community of practice is to find the right domain - the topic that people are passionate enough about and interested enough in to contribute some of their discretionary time and effort. One of the tests we use is the 'I am a .....' test - designed to find out the topics people identify with. I discovered yesterday that two additional questions can help identify domains:
'I am passionate about or interested in ....' - this question helps where someone has an interest in an area but their current role might be outside this topic.
'I want to be ...' - this question elicits aspirations and can help with new entrants who would be reluctant to describe themselves when answering the 'I am a ...' question.
I would love to hear other thoughts/hints/tips on helping to identify potential CoP domains.
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| 27/11/07 | | Maxine McKew tells three anecdotes |
People vote for politicians based on the emotions they generate not the intellectual merits of their policies.1 And emotion is generated by the stories we are told and the stories we tell ourselves. We watch the candidates and observe what they do and tell ourselves a story about the type of person they are and what they stand for. The Rudd campaign understood this fact.
Kevin Rudd's campaign was effective in telling three types of stories which helped to create positive emotions towards him and the ALP. These three types of stories are: Who am I? Why am I here? and My vision story.2Kevin Rudd's first television commercials contained his 'Who am I?' story. We learned how Kevin grew up in outback Queensland, how his parents didn't even get a high school education and how he enjoyed going back to his home town and talking with the residents about what they wanted for the future. For many people in the electorate Kevin was just like us.
Kevin's 'Why am I here?' stories revolved around his focus areas of an education revolution, being a economic conservative, getting rid of work choices, ratifying the Kyoto protocol, and providing new leadership. And in talking about these focus areas Rudd set out his vision for the future--his vision story.
Rudd's campaign mastered the master narratives required to create the right emotions in the electorate. Interesting, however, both Rudd and Howard avoided recounting anecdotes of specific events and encounters as a way to illustrate what the candidates really value. I have been told by one political insider that both Rudd and Howard are worried the media will crucify them for using anecdotes as a mere trick to spin a particular message.But we saw on election night how storytelling can be done with authenticity and impact when Maxine McKew gave a short speech on the news that she look like winning the seat of Bennelong. Maxine started by saying some general statements about the contest for Bennelong being on a knife edge, and how the seat will never be taken for granted again. Then she moved into storytelling mode, first remembering how she was at this town hall only a few months before and then recalling the many interviews she had done over the years and that some of the very special people she has ever met were actually in Bennelong, and this is where the mood changed as Maxine told three anecdotes.
I'm thinking of the 90-year old Sister Louise who's at St Catherines who I met just a couple of weeks ago. She's blind. But the day I talked to her she said, "Nobody is blind in heaven."
And I'm thinking of 6 year old Emily at Denniston East. She told me that she told her parents to vote for Kevin Rudd because Kevin Rudd would be a great Prime Minister for children. And you know, ... we need a great Prime Minister for children.
And I'm thinking as well of a boy called Ali who only recently completed his HSC exams, who—maybe Ali you are here tonight—who a few years ago was in a Pakistani refugee camp waiting for passage out, and Ali has found a safe home, and a welcome here in Australia ...
I'm sure many people felt goosebumps at the end of this speech--emotions were created.
We help leaders tell these types of stories, first by helping leaders learn how to find their stories (of course Maxine is an expert at this but we all can do it), then help them learn how to tell these stories and ensure at all times there is authenticity in what you say.
1. Westen, Drew. The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. New York: PublicAffairs, 2007.
2. Simmons, Annette. The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling. Revised edition ed. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
| 26/11/07 | | Storytelling a key factor in Rudd's win |
Here's a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald making the case for storytelling as a key factor in Kevin Rudd's success.
Kevin Rudd's campaign was successful in crafting such a narrative. First, he got the audience's attention because he was new. This allowed him to play the future card and frame the Coalition as backward-looking. He went on the front foot and used climate change and broadband to champion his future credentials.
Thanks to Seth Kahan for the pointer.
| 21/11/07 | | Knowledge Strategy - an emphasis on action |
We have long advocated the importance of action over analysis in both our knowledge strategy and community of practice work and I blogged about the 'ready, aim, aim, aim' phenomenon in 2005. Maybe it is because I am conscious of this issue, but in the past few months I have noticed many voices emphasizing the 'do something' theme, starting at the AIM Annual Convention in Sydney in September.
Here are some of the comments/quotes I have heard recently on this theme. I have heard all of them before, they just seem to be more prevalent recently.
- "Ready...Fire...Aim" - attributed to Ross Perot
- "You only find oil if you drill wells" - unknown
- "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzsky
- "Plan a little, implement a lot" - Etienne Wenger
- "Do-think, not think-do" - unknown
- "You cannot think your way to success, you have to 'do' your way to success" - related by Tom Peters at the AIM Convention
Does anyone know of other similar quotes. More interestingly, have others noticed a trend toward action/experimentation over lengthy analysis in recent times?
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| 21/11/07 | | Truth and fact in stories |
I'm often asked, "What happens if the story is untruthful? Wont that skew the participant's viewpoint?"
Robert McKee makes this paradoxical observation which you might find helpful.
"What happens is fact, not truth. Truth us what we think about what happens."
McKee, Robert. Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York: ReganBooks, 1997.
| 21/11/07 | | Let's be proactive with organisational storytelling |
Stories are created in organisations whenever something remarkable happens, and people love to remark on how leaders react under pressure because the way anyone reacts under pressure reveals their character. With this thought in mind I have been reading an excellent book called Crucial Conversations and I was struck by the following anecdote about a leader who was put under pressure and how she reacted.
Greta, the CEO of a mid-sized corporation, is two hours into a rather tense meeting with her top leaders. For the past six months she has been on a personal campaign to reduce costs. Little has been accomplished to date, so Greta calls the meeting. Surely people will tell her why they haven't started cutting costs. After all, she has taken great pains to foster candor.
Greta has just opened the meeting to questions when a manager haltingly rises to his feet, fidgets, stares at the floor, and then nervously asks if he can ask a very tough question. The way the fellow emphasises the word very makes it sound as if he's about the accuse Greta of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby.
The frightened manager continues.
"Greta, you've been at us for six months to find ways to cut costs. I'd be lying if I said that we've given you much more than a lukewarm response. If you don't mind, I'd like to tell you about one thing that's making it tough for us to push for costs cuts."
"Great, fire away," Greta says as she smiles in response.
"Well, while you've been asking us to use both sides of our paper and forego improvements, you're having a second office built."
Greta freezes and turns bright red. Everyone looks to see what happens next. The manager plunges on ahead.
"The rumor is that the furniture alone costs $150,000. Is that right?"
Of course what happens next determines the type of story that gets told in the organisation.
Greta might have said, "Excuse me, but I don't think that my new office is an appropriate topic for this forum." In which case a story of the leader's hypocrisy will fly around the organisation in a flash.
Here is what Greta actually said: "You know what? We need to talk about this. I'm glad you ask the question. It'll give us a chance to discuss what's really going on." And this conversation led to Greta investigating the costs of the new office and committing to drawing up new plans designed to save 50% of the costs or cancel the project altogether. Now her team knew she was serious about cost cutting and by encouraging dialogue created an opportunity for a positive story to travel.
In organisational storytelling there can be too much emphasis on finding and retelling persuasive stories. We should also help leaders take actions that create the stories that help the organisation. We can be proactive and improve an organisation's storyability.
| 20/11/07 | | Keynote speaking - organisational storytelling |
Mark and I love speaking to audiences of all shapes and sizes and we have had the privilege over the years to give seminars and workshops to large and small groups. Our clients seem to enjoy our talks (sometimes they are more like workshops) and report significant impacts as a result of our presentations and follow up coaching. Recently I have been enjoying presenting on how we are helping leaders to be more memorable and persausive using organisatonal storytelling techniques.
So we've set up a page on our website describing some of the speaking topics we are delivering to our clients.
Here are a couple of quotes from our clients from recent speaking engagements.
The Churchill Club promotes entrepreneurial conversations without the hype and Shawn delivered that in spades at our recent session on business storytelling. He's tremendously engaging, has deep knowledge and passion for business narrative and can connect the dots between an esoteric subject and tangible business outcomes. Brendan Lewis, Executive Director, The Churchill Club.
Shawn’s presentation to our technical sales forum was right on the money. The story telling tactics and skills passed on have been immediately adopted, and are producing higher quality presentations by our team to our clients. We look forward to continuing to develop our skills in this area, which will support the business objectives of our organisation and our customers. Senior Manager, IBM Australia.
| 19/11/07 | | Collaboration at Tipping Point |
There are many ways to encourage collaboration in an organization. Using Web 2.0 tools is a great way to start a collaborative discussion in under 5 minutes.
I came across an interesting collaborative concept recently www.thepoint.com
Launched in September 2007, The Point is a community where people can come together to solve the problems that are too big or time-consuming to solve alone. The Point is a groundbreaking way to use the Internet that helps groups of like-minded people get things done. How? No one is obligated to do anything unless a campaign reaches its "tipping point." At the tipping point, everyone springs into action, knowing they have the numbers to make a difference.
Great way to get people involved to test an idea or get a democratic vote before leaping into a decision (and avoid email overload)!
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| 15/11/07 | | Letting go |
I was waiting for a flight the other day and I happened to catch 5 minutes of a surfing documentary featuring Kelly Slater, 8 times world champion. So what has this got to do with a blog on business narrative I hear you ask?
Well, when talking about his 7th title win, he tells an amazing story. I'll try and retell it (although I'm sure that I won't do it justice) ...
Expectedly, he had surfed his way right into yet another championship final contest. However, he was beaten comprehensively in the first heat of the final, even though he thought he had surfed particularly well. Angry with himself, and distraught at the thought of losing the title, he had to come up with a strategy to make an assault on the title in the next two rounds.
Realising his predicament, he took some time to ponder the situation. There was clearly a lot riding on the next heat. He wondered whether he should perhaps 'try harder'. But he soon realised that this would not work, he had to do something more. He had to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.
What did he decide to do? He made a conscious decision to 'let go'-to stop trying so hard and to go out there and just have some fun!
And the result? You guessed it, he came out and scored two perfect 10's in the next two rounds, with some awesome rides, one where he visibly nearly comes off the board twice! Just incredible.
What amazing courage in the midst of all this chaos to trust his instincts and follow his heart and not his head. I think there is some important wisdom in this story that is applicable to other areas of life.
When was the last time you or your organisation just 'let go' and had some fun? What were the results?
There is a trailer for the documentary here if you're interested.
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| 13/11/07 | | Three stories and an argument |
Larry Lessig has a presentation style named after him. You guessed it, the Lessig Method. Professor Lessig is a copyright expert and champion of creative commons. And in this presentation he demonstrates the power of presenting stories before presenting his argument. Steve Denning makes the point in his latest book, The Secret Language of Leadership, that if someone has a strong opinion and you present them with an argument to change their mind, it only serves to reinforce their strong opinion, regardless of how good your argument is. However if we are presented with a story illustrating the failures of the current situation followed by an aspirational story, then the person is more likely to take notice of a following new point of view. Enjoy this 18 minute video.
| 12/11/07 | | Business Narrative Workshop - 3 December |
Over the years we have refined our one-day Narrative Techniques for Business workshop and have it to the point we are proud of both the workshop content and the materials we provide for participants. Our emphasis is on the practical application of business narrative techniques and our extensive project experience is used to bring the issues to life for participants.
We are putting together our schedule of workshops for 2008 and have decided, due to the demand for this workshop, to run one in Canberra on 3rd December.
The details can be found here. The venue will be at Regatta Point overlooking Lake Burley Griffin. We look forward to welcoming you there.
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| 12/11/07 | | Last week's conversation at the Churchill Club |
Last week the Churchill Club hosted a conversation titled, What's Your Story? Leon Gettler (journalist at The Age), Andrea Lemon (scriptwriter, author, theatre director and circus ethnographer) and I formed the panel. Brendan Lewis, the club's executive director, recorded the session and here it is. Download the mp3 to your iPod and listen when you next walk your dog.
| 7/11/07 | | Name badges as conversation starters |
Graham Harvey in his book 'Seducing the Vigilante Customer ' tells of his experience in a restaurant.
"Even though I sort of half guessed what the answer might be, I went ahead and asked the question anyway.
"Why do you have Cardiff, Wales written under your name?"
"Cardiff is where I was born." replied the waiter.
The conversation then continued for a couple of minutes centring on how long she had been in Australia, why she had left Wales etc. She also explained that everybody in the hotel had their birthplace inscribed on their respective name badges and how positive the idea had been in creating conversation between guests and staff."
Although Graham is looking at this from a sales and marketing perspective his point is relevant to any group that is trying to build relationships. A key step in establishing rapport is engaging in conversations on a first name basis as quickly as possible.
You could have a lot of fun with this. Here are a few possibilities from the conventional to the quirky:
* your nickname
* sports you love to play or watch
* the footy team you follow
* your favourite biography
* what's on the cover of your diary
* a thought provoking quote
* your personal motto
* the beginning of an interesting story
Can you suggest any better ones?
Add something interesting or unexpected to a name badge at your next seminar, conference or community of practice kick-off meeting and watch curiosity get those conversations started.
| 7/11/07 | | Stories make brands stronger |
Brandweek reports that the Advertising Research Foundation has just completed a three year study on the effectiveness of TV advertisements in the USA and found that storytelling was the top factor for a successful commercial.
The report contends that in many ways, advertising is stuck in the past. The 20th century was dominated by a one-way transactional focus where ads were pushed at consumers. Today, consumers interact with ads to "co-create" meaning that is powered by emotion and rich narrative. "Advertising has been standing on the sidelines, stuck on the language of positioning," said Randall Ringer, managing director and co-founder, Verse Group, New York. "Telling a story about the brand is more engaging, memorable and compelling than telling a bunch of facts. What worked 30 years ago with a 30-second spot doesn't work today."
[thanks to Dan Heath for the link]
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| 5/11/07 | | Changing people's attitude toward change |
Collaboration brings with it change and complexity and uncertainty. How are we going to do this? What will happen next? Why should we work like that?... are some of the questions that mark the beginning of a collaborative project. It’s all a state of mind! A matter of perspective.
I’m Chandni and I’m new at Anecdote. My first blog is about my experience in managing collaboration and change and an interesting technique - a 10-second test!
To pursue my passion for knowledge, narratives, complexity, people, culture, and change, I’ve flown all the way from UK (where I did my MBA) via Mumbai (India, where I am originally from) to Canberra. My journey at Anecdote started on October 22 and I’m having a great time doing what I really love.
In my previous roles (as Chief Knowledge Developer and Head of the Knowledge Initiative at an ITeS company), I always thought that bringing about change in the culture was a simple thing. Our workforce was young and spirited and we were innovative and had an open working environment…what could be difficult about that?
Well, I was obviously very wrong and spent a few years figuring out why some people share what they know quite easily, some literally ‘find’ obstacles and put them in the way or some simply don’t want to be disturbed. So I divorced the explicit aspect and started exploring the social aspects of knowledge-sharing behavior, and in talking to people I discovered that narratives have a unique power that often remains untapped. Aligning the right technique to the right situation, that’s where the trick lies. I’m guilty of missing target too!
Let’s change that.
At Anecdote, we continuously seek and design techniques to deal with the complexity within organizations by understanding the ‘story behind the story’. What stories are people saying about an event or experience in their workplace?
Now, (this is my MBA talking) a lot has been said about how denial is the first stage in change management. And collaboration initiatives are a big change for people sometimes. BUT the more important aspect is that there are reasons and stories that form this denial in people’s minds.
Here’s an interesting technique I stumbled upon on Ken Thompson’s blog. He has some good collaboration techniques listed, but this one is a great insight. He calls it a 10 second test to assess people's reaction to change.
How can you quickly find out what each team member's number one concern is about working in this scenario?Dr Lewis recommends you get each of them to repeat the following 5 words out loud without thinking about it too much:
"We can’t do that here”
Listen carefully to which of the five words they stress – if its:
We – they are worried about their Identity
Can’t – they are worried about their beliefs and values
Do – they are worried about their skills
That – they are worried about their behavior
Here – they are worried about the environment
It might then be useful to probe the domains the participants seem most concerned about using anecdote circles to collect stories about the concerns that in fact may be the cause of their resistance or concern.
When you try it out, let us know how it went for you. We’d be happy to hear your story ☺
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| 4/11/07 | | Hardly a story to be heard in the Australian political campaign |
I have been listening carefully to the politcians on both sides of the Australian political fence in the run up to our election day on the 24th of November. And surprisingly I can't remember a single anecdote or story from either of the leaders or or that matter from their team members. Mind you I have only heard them on TV or the radio and maybe they keep all their stories for the campaign trail. This is surprising because books like The Political Brain and Steve Denning's latest, The Secret Language of Leadership, make it clear that voters make their decision on who they vote for based on the emotion they feel for a candidate, not the policies or promises they make. And we all know that emotion is best communicated with a story or anecdote.
Barack Obama knows how to create emotion with a simple anecdote. Here's how the UK Telegraph reports the way he finished a recent speech.
Mr Obama finished with an anecdote about visiting a town for a political meeting where he sat bemused as one woman kept chanting: "Fire it up! Are you ready to go?"
"I didn't know what to make of it," he said. "But here's the thing: after a minute or two, I'm feeling pretty fired up. It goes to show, one voice can change a room.
"Are you fired up? Are you ready to go?" he asked the crowd. Not one voice was silent as they loudly shouted their affirmation.
| 3/11/07 | | Our need for the knowledge worker is over |
The term 'knowledge worker' is now a meaningless concept in developed countries because the shift Drucker started to notice in the '50s from jobs requiring manual work to jobs requiring knowledge work is now complete. Today all work is knowledge work because even the most manual of activities such as farmer digging post holes for a fence requires pre-planning using their spatial information system, the use of GPS to position the hole and entry of data when it's done. The ubiquity of technology is one major factor that makes everyone a knowledge worker.
Sadly, when we use the term 'knowledge worker' today we are often unfairly saying one type of job is superior that another. It's an dark undercurrent and tacitly becomes a basis for discrimination. "Our salespeople are knowledge workers but our gas fitters are not." I suspect this feeling of superiority comes from the erroneous data-information-knowledge model where knowledge (and even more ridiculously, wisdom) sits at the pinnacle of the pyramid. See here for an alternative model for thinking about data, information and knowledge.
Have you ever seen anyone in recent years define what they mean by knowledge workers and knowledge work? They tie themselves in knots and confuse their readers. The people who write about knowledge workers see themselves as a knowledge worker and wish so very hard that the term is true and useful. But alas it's not and the sooner we realise this the better so we can get back to asking more useful questions like, "How does knowledge help us to work better?"
| 1/11/07 | | Using Twitter to stay connected |
I was sceptical whether Twitter would be a useful business tool. I heard it was addictive so decided to keep away until I worked out how it might be useful. There are six of us in Anecdote and we all work from home. Three of us are in Melbourne and three in Canberra. One of the problems with working from home, or out at client sites, is the feeling of disconnection that builds without hearing the chatter that would surround you in an office. Twitter provides this chatter.
We started using Twitter a few weeks ago and already I can feel the difference. I have closed down access to my Twitter feed to the world so only Anecdoters can see my twits. That way I can share all the things I might say if we were in an office together. This is a valuable service for our business but I couldn't measure this value. It's the value of contentment, sanity, fun, and a smile when you hear Robyn has just baked some muffins, Daryl is wrestling with Zahmoo, Mark is updating his iPhone, Krista is writing an anecdote for her business card and Chandni is getting her mac working.
I noticed Tom Davenport is writing off the business value of social networking applications like Facebook and MySpace. He might be right but being social is essential to our work. So if Twitter is a social networking applications I can say it delivers us business value but don't ask me to put a figure on it.
PS. It is this type of hard the measure business value that Most Significant Change and Zahmoo is designed to assess.