Harness the awesome transformational power of storytelling

Storytelling works. Why? Because as humans we are predisposed to learning this way. In a story, we enter the persona of the hero as they start on their quest. We take their call to adventure and see what they see (and sometimes what they don't), feel what they feel and live what they live. We suffer their joys and their heartache. And in this magical process, we along with the hero are transformed.

Joseph Campbell in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, showed how all stories awaken powerful forces in the human psyche to do with our journey along this mortal coil, this tree of life, explaining stark similarities between story evolution in distinct cultures. He called it the Hero's Journey, used by storytellers the world over. As Campbell himself recognised, it's also a powerful metaphor when talking about transformation.

Star Wars is a good model (and indeed George Lucas a fan of Campbell):

1. Luke crosses the threshold of adventure into the unknown when he discovers the message from Princess Leia hidden in the droid, R2D2
2. He is helped by mentor, Obi Wan Kenobi where he learns about the mysterious Force and the art of the Jedi
3. With his compatriots Han Solo and his crew, he goes off in search of Princess Leia and the Rebel Alliance and undergoes challenges and temptations (to avoid trusting his intuition) along the way. He falls into the Abyss of self-doubt
4. He emerges from the Abyss a Jedi Knight, does battle with Sith Lord Darth Vader and destroys the Death Star
5. And returns to some semblance of normality celebrating the victory with the rebels

Aristotle in his Poetics understood that the power of storytelling lies in the necessity of plot events that are both surprising and inevitable at the same time. This dualistic nature is how jokes are made as well as stories in a point made by Pixar boss, Andrew Stanton.

Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge of Kubla Khan fame added Suspension of Disbelief to the lexicon: we let the storyteller off imperfections, inconsistencies and absurdities so we can enjoy the story. This allows cats to talk, spaceships to travel to far off galaxies, time travel and unlikely characters to fall in love.

Lucas again in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc shows us another characteristic of story: the hero wants treasure "fortune and glory", and ends up with something quite different but more valuable--typically wisdom and perspective. In Indy's case, his spirituality and sense of wonder is awakened by the mystical Ark of the Covenant.

So here we have four F-to-the-power-F-powerful ingredients of story:

1. Hero's journey into and returning from the unknown-->a transformation lifecycle and a set of archetypes/characters including a protagonist/hero
2. Surprising and inevitable at the same time-->dualities
3. The suspension of disbelief-->an open mind
4. Seek one thing, get another-->the ole' personal development grand switcheroo, to trick/aid those who need it but are not seeking it/don't know where to look

What this has to do with transformation

Transformation is hard as I have covered before. A journey fraught with danger and deep and uncomfortable truths. In other words it's a story: transformation as the hero's journey. This is how it works:

Organisation as Protagonist/Hero, transformation coach as Mentor

Useful if it can be personified since we prefer people to abstract notions. Microsoft's vision is exemplary:

Our mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more.

Person/Employee as Protagonist/Hero, transformation coach as Mentor

Super powerful. And remember (thanks for reminding me, Neil Hallam):

In short, stories provide a framework for personal Purpose, the most important aspect of Intrinsic Motivation. People need to be the heroes of their own story. And it must be tailored to THEIR position in life at the precise moment in time WHEN their adventure starts. For the personal aspects of transformation the critical point is that this is their story NOT the organisation's and CERTAINLY NOT the mentors. As transformation professionals we are merely robed secondary characters--this is the essence of servant leadership-- it is the protagonist undergoing transformation who is the hero. e.g.

Organisation's perspective:

• Modernising the company
• Embracing agility
• Saving money

Mentor's perspective:

• Offer arcane law and wisdom, the Red Pill
• Help them see the world in new ways
• Assist with combat training and aid them in battle
• Give them a vision, a purpose, a creed to believe in, to fall in love with

Hero's perspective:

• Overcoming fear of the unknown-- perhaps a new technology or skill or way of working or relating they didn't realise they could do
• Leaving former habits, biases and beliefs behind--that good and bad can be a matter of perspective, that there is always a win-win to explore
• Becoming proactive--all heroes need this

And before too long our hero will be able to:

• Jack into the Matrix
• Power-up in the dojo with Uzzi Ninjutsu training
• Use advanced transformation skills and transcendental woo-woo to bend spoons
• Go ape shit in lobbies with guns

All in service of a renewed sense of purpose: typically to save the world.

Advantages of the story approach to transformation

Aids liminality

Liminality is the formal name for right of passage. Like being a teenager, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Marriage--even the act of dying. We have to reject old beliefs/states/habits--even notions of friendship/identity and home and uncomfortable time may elapse before we're out the other side.

Turns out, the four powerful tools of story aid this traumatic passage considerably:

1. Hero's journey gives structure and characters we can relate to, we are Called to Adventure and travel from the known to the liminal state of the unknown, not knowing where this will take us
2. Surprising and inevitable dualities can be conquered here in the imagination. They can also be a source of humour
3. We suspend disbelief and try new things out with an open mind. Pass the hover board, Marty
4. We are seduced into the unknown by what we want (efficiencies, new ways of working a new skill etc.) and end up getting what we need (new ways of relating, of thinking, of feeling)

Indeed some enterprising travel company has even adopted the hero's journey as a metaphor for travel:

And here's a frank article on the storytelling inside ourselves and the true path to positive thinking:

This from David Ross. Liminality as seeing both worlds, multiple perspectives, and allowing double-loop learning, crime as beast vs. crime as virus. Framing narrative etc. JUST WATCH IT!!!:

Is a lot simpler than more complex theories of personal development

Faith is cool, Mindfulness and Meditation cool, Maslow cool, Freud and Jung and Adler cool, guilds and guildcraft cool, Gravesian Spiral Dynamics is way cool. But apart from a few kooks like yours truly, the risk is these excellent tools may well be left on the shelf.

Story is a simple gateway into these topics. Indeed 12th century polymath Maimonides, author of The Guide for the Perplexed, explained that bible stories like Moses parting the Red Sea were to capture the imagination of children (Story), whereas the Ten Commandments were for adults.

Is a great vehicle for dealing with complexity

Transformation and in particular personal transformation is VUCA complex: Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic and Ambiguous. And all good stories have VUCA elements, and many of them have happy endings. Storytelling also introduces dualistic and quantum notions for mortals: mild-mannered Clarke Kent is Superman. Harry is bullied AND a great wizard.

Here is another great graphic showing the development of The Hero's Journey with additional characters and dilemmas to help unravel all this complexity:

Tips

• Tell the hero's journey story of your org's and your own transformation
• Do it in groups and individually
• Make it personal. about people, about you

Conclusions

Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast, said Peter Drucker.

Purpose eats Culture say some commentators, summoning Daniel Pink's Intrinsic motivation (autonomy, mastership and purpose).

And I argue that the very human art of storytelling, our life's meta-narrative, eclipses them all:

"Storytelling eats purpose, while it moralistically devours culture, which is distracted eating strategy for breakfast, while it doggedly operates its game plan."

This is the canonical ordering of transformation. Nidhi agrees with me:

And:

“Artists are magical helpers. Evoking symbols and motifs that connect us to our deeper selves, they can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives. [...]

The artist is meant to put the objects of this world together in such a way that through them you will experience that light, that radiance which is the light of our consciousness and which all things both hide and, when properly looked upon, reveal. The hero's journey is one of the universal patterns through which that radiance shows brightly. What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfilment or the fiasco. There's always the possibility of a fiasco. But there's also the possibility of bliss.

”— Joseph Campbell.

So for the transformational professionals out there, be an artist, be a mentor and most of all be a storyteller. And for those undergoing transformation, be the hero of you own story.

??

Thanks to Leonie White for the reminder that we are all the heroes of our own story and the impetus. And for Caroline Crawford for accepting the call to adventure.

<Postscript>

Nietzsche saw this "magical transformation" more actively as dance:

"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh."

Friedrich Nietzsche

I'll sign off with this recent exchange between me, Susan and Caroline:

Susan Hasty, truth laughs, why is this? (edited)

Chris Patten because knowledge and ignorance grow (flow) together. ??

This will be a topic of future blog. In essence, Caroline Crawford, change is traumatic involving a rite of passage. Metaphor is the hero's journey of Joseph Campbell we seek treasure but gain wisdom. This is how people transform, becoming the protagonist of the story and changing with them. Spiral dynamics is linked to similar ideas to Maslow and explores development in modes of thinking. 

Chris Patten is not wisdom the true treasure? ??

?????????? Caroline Crawford, but sometimes it's value is not yet known