How Stories Facilitate Emergent Connections

Compass Point Consulting, LLC

How Stories Facilitate Emergent Connections

OD Network of GNY

December 7, 2006

Suzanne Roff, Ph.D.


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The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think and act anew.


Storytelling as described in Wikipedia

“…the informal stories people tell to each other about organizational norms, policies & change initiatives permeate organizational culture & reflect the meaning people give to organizational interventions.”


Possible OD methods involving conversation/storytelling

• Conversation Mapping

• Dialogues (David Bohm)

• Crucial Conversations

• Appreciative Inquiry

• Scenario Planning

• Anecdote Circles


Stories/Conversations>>>

• Organizations as network of interacting stories (Denning 2001)

• Culture is the emergent result of conversations (Seel 2000)

• Core elements of a process are the commitments made by individuals to one another (Winograd & Flores 1986)


Tagging

• Examples: Technorati, deli.cio.us

• Tagging does what we already do cognitively: make local, conceptual observations without categorical concerns.


Some Psychological Implications…

• Humans make decisions based on patterns, we do not process data but know when we need to know, in context.

• We always know more than we can tell, and we will always tell more than we can write down.

• Most human systems are complex adaptive systems – they are non-causal. David Snowden, Cognitive Edge


Memes

• Units of cultural transmission or imitation

• Examples include tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making a pot or building an arch

• People, Internet, Participation Applications – can now transmit cultural memes not bound by geography


Suggested Homework:

GOOGLE YOURSELF

on an annual basis, at least,

then tell yourself a story.

How Stories Facilitate Emergent Connections

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