Welcome to The Narrative Lab's April 2009 edition of Dialogue.

A father and son were traveling home from a rugby game late one night in the 1970s when the dad pulled the car onto the shoulder of the rural, desolate highway and asked his son to take over the driving. As hard as it was for him to admit, the father said his eyesight was failing him and he didn't think it safe for him to stay behind the wheel. So the son took over, and it didn't take him long to realize that his dad's eyesight wasn't the problem - it was the car's headlights that were fading.

In today’s world we need to realize that the “headlights” we relied on have begun to fade, or have totally blown out! Do we realize this, and to what extent does our vision of the problems and the solutions we envisage become blurred unbeknown to us? We often look past the obvious problem and assume the worst and then spend a lot of time, effort and money trying to fix the wrong problem!

This edition of Dialogue will point you towards tools and techniques that will help you clarify your vision of the problems you and your organisation face.

• Of interest ...
• Events
• Products
• Recent blog posts
• Narrative Resources
• Project Spotlight
  

We're often faced with this question: what do you mean when you use the word "narrative"? Is it not just a fancy word for "storytelling?" Well, yes, storytelling is one aspect of narrative, but there is another world that the "telling" doesn't cater for ... the "gathering" of stories. And so, we've put together a short model on how storytelling and storygathering combine. Click through to this model to find out what benefit storytelling and storygathering give you. 

As a follow-up to the launch of Thrive! Effective Adaptation last month, we're offering a 20% discount on the Thrive! keynote presentation if you book it before the 15th May 2009.

In addition to hosting Steve Bealing (CEO of Cognitive Edge) in June for the Accreditation course, we're also looking at having Prof Dave Snowden with us in August - so keep a look out for news about these events.

There are still spaces open in the Cognitive Edge Accreditation course in June, 22nd -24th. This is a highly interactive course that will help you turn complexity from a liability into an opportunity. The course will also equip you to gather stories within your organisation and empower you to use them in your problem-solving. We'll be facilitating the course with Steve Bealing, CEO of Cognitive Edge, a very practical and insightful facilitator. 

Learn more about the course by clicking here.

We launched Thrive! Effective Adaptation last month - a presentation and educational programme for leadership teams focused on developing ways to adapt effectively in the face of the economic meltdown. The take up has been predominantly within the financial sector ... any surprise there?

Learn more about Thrive! or book your presentation (and qualifying for the May discount special) by clicking here.

Here are some of the must-read blog posts from the past month:

• Thrive! From builder to gardener - Sonja takes a look at a new management metaphor and the promise it holds for our leadership amidst the global economic meltdown. Read it here.
  
• Thrive! The role of metaphors - Aiden shows us how there is always an underlying metaphor in our organisations and how that metaphor guides/governs our behaviour. Read it here.

• If you're on Twitter, you should be following Storytellin who provides a stream of interesting resources, links and thoughts on storytelling.
• A book we highly recommend is The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and A. Beckstrom - it is a powerful argument around the unstoppable power of leaderless organisation. We also use the metaphor of Spiders and Starfish in our Thrive! presentation to illustrate self-organising teams and how one can distribute decision-making wider within organisation to improve effectiveness.
  
• Community-based storytelling is a powerful way to make sense of complexity. This paper takes a look at how storytelling has been used as a participatory art form within a community development project.

Narrative Change Management in the Department of Home Affairs

One of the most powerful uses of narrative is as a tool in change management projects. Using a contextually developed and emergent story in a change project motivates, educates and shifts people towards the change goals. 

We were fortunate enough to be involved in the development of a Change Story for the biggest turn-around programme government has seen, within the Department of Home Affairs. The process entailed working with staff to elicit stories about the DHA and the vision of change. These stories uncovered an emergent metaphor of metamorphosis, and based on this metaphor, a story was developed that was communicated to all 7000 staff with a professional storyteller, cartoon strips, interactive workshops and training material.

Here's a hint for the next time you're passing through emigration at a South African airport: ask the emigration agent if he knows about Bayo the Guardian? Bayo was the main character in the story and the hero - we have found that starting this conversation makes it easier getting a stamp in your passport.