Patrick Lamb has a great post which summarises my concern about the over enthusiasm in the consultancy market for Story Telling. Investing in gathering and understanding stories from your employees and customers is not as attractive as telling them a story; regrettably there is no shortage of people, who should know better who are prepared to go along with this. Worst still is getting the employees together and influencing them to tell stories aligned with management needs.
When will people realise that narrative should be about understanding and comprehension, not propaganda? Of course if you listen you run the danger that you might learn something you need to know, but don't want to hear. That is all to common so I can see why it may be attractive to haul in consultants who will help you tell stories. You can then have a comfortable time as the politically astute, parrot those stories and their themes back to you. Employees are not stupid, they learn linguistic conformance fast.
If you want to engage in self-deception that then there are plenty platitudinous charlatans who will sell you their services (and their souls) to help you do it. The good news is that it will fail ....
Comments (5)
Hi Dave.
I'm not sure this speaks to the need of people attempting to create shared knowledge. We may be making mistakes, but aren't necessarily charlatans ;)
Here's example: I'm working on a dissertation regarding understanding new tools for creating organizational, shared knowledge. I did a social network analysis of 'trusted nodes' of the Blogosphere on related terms.
Yours is one of the 24 most trusted blogs out there on the topic.
I'd like to ask (beg, plead) for your participation in answering a questionnaire regarding best practices in design, support for creating organizational knowledge thru sharing what all the nodes on a network might know.
It wouldn't take long. I'd thank you profusely in dissertation. (that's all I can offer) II've followed your work for quite awhile and you already appear in lit review/findings/ influence on ideas.
If you'd participate, I can be reached at cmcarmean@gmail.com?
Here's link to the research site:
http://cmcarmean.googlepages.com/tappingknowledgeintheblogosphere
Gratefully yours,
Colleen Carmean
(PS I also sent a query via your contact link)
Posted by colleen carmean | January 21, 2008 8:18 PM
Posted on January 21, 2008 20:18
I will happily look at a questionnaire Colleen and answer it if I can ...
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January 21, 2008 11:46 PM
Posted on January 21, 2008 23:46
O Dave:
If YOU don't have answers, we are lost.
Thanks for generous reply. Will send link via C-E contact form.
Colleen
Posted by Colleen Carmean | January 23, 2008 5:43 AM
Posted on January 23, 2008 05:43
Dave,
Great post! So how do you facilitate story telling in groups without influencing the story?
I've recently learn't the importance of 'less is more' ... talk less, listen more ... and trust is important for people to open up and share their stories ... this is ok for individual 1-2-1 situations ...
But what about group situations ... or when you have an individual who stirs things up, heavily influences others with negative stories and propaganda as you put it ... I've found the story singing to the similar hym sheet ... Can narrative work in groups?
Posted by Kelly Page | January 24, 2008 1:25 AM
Posted on January 24, 2008 01:25
Kelly - thanks for the questions. I will pick up some answers in the main blog later in the week, rather than use comments
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January 24, 2008 2:18 AM
Posted on January 24, 2008 02:18