The stories we believe

We all tell ourselves stories that shape how we feel and how we setup our lives. Stories or narratives are also told TO US, and when these are not true, the consequences can be devastating.

In this post we take a high level look at how stories form our reality and the role stories or narratives play in the process of change.

Here are a couple of "meta narratives" or big stories we believe, often based on where we grew up:

You are a failure and will never amount to much!
You have to be positive to be successful!
The government / your boss / your spouse will look after you!
The government / your boss / your spouse wants to control you!
The world is a dangerous place and you need to be careful.
The world is a wonderful place and has lots of things to explore.
Humanity is basically good.
Humanity is basically bad...

As you can see the stories we tell ourselves have a dramatic impact on our lives. We haven't even touched on the stories we tell ourselves after trauma ... (here's an awesome lady in my network who helps with this).

What story are you telling? Will it form a chapter in others' stories?

When introducing change a the leader should be aware of where the change fits within their own story. Oftentimes, it'll be the solution you've been hoping for and now is your chance to save the day!

For your teams, the change may be part of another story they have been telling themselves like; we weren't good enough thats why they are making the change, they are using the change to get rid of us, I'm worried that I'll look stupid if I can't handle the change .... everyone is telling themselves a different story and you should have an awareness of this.

Work culture can change the story

Before anyone resigns themselves to saying, "I'll never be able to do anything about their story" ... hold your horses.

I've stepped into many organizations that had a toxic culture, and by making a few small but significant changes have been able to completely turn around the culture of the organization.

Instead of people having to come to work, we've seen how people look forward to coming to work and find themselves strengthened as their ideas and perspectives are heard and appreciated, where people are encouraged to take risk and the culture appreciates their courage.

In these sorts of cultures, change is best introduced from the people who understand the problem. If employees don't understand the problem, your role as a leader is to articulate this in a way that does not blame anyone, but creates a shared understanding of the challenge and opens the door to lots of ideas to address this - this is the first stage in our ADKAR framework for change. In most cases we found this results in a faster and cheaper change, which gets adopted quickly as it came from the very people who will have to implement it.

In my keynotes and workshop I take a "bare all" approach to the stories I tell from my life experiences include;

Living through the regime change in South Africa
Implementing technology changes in large governments and universities
Helping individuals caught in abusive situations
Being a fly on the wall to deep state implementations and manipulations
Working with freedom groups in Western Canada
Working with First Nations in Western Canada
Working within the higher education culture in the UK an Canada

Contact me to discuss how we could work together to help your organization move forward.