TaleCatcher - Tracy Kenny's blog

In common

When stories are contagious, when someone hears a story and picks up with another, it is often not about the same surface topic, but about offering an account of another situation which made the listener feel the same way. 'Next stories' are rapport builders. We feel the same way, we have something in common.

Before the workshop I did this week, I was chatting with someone from facilities who was helping me with last-minute preparations. I was telling him how I'd had a fright the day before, because when I'd rung up to confirm my catering for the room, I'd been told that actually I didn't have the room booked at all. 'My heart stopped,' I told him. Fortunately it turned out I'd just asked about the wrong room, and all was okay.

He picked up on the 'heart stopping' feeling. 'I had one of those yesterday too,' he said. 'I was wandering around John Lewis at lunchtime and thought maybe I ought to start looking for a present for Claire, as her birthday is coming up pretty soon. And then I realised it was today, and she hadn't said anything at all.'

'Oh no!' I said, feeling his pain. Building great rapport here. We have loads in common, right? 'What did you do?' I was looking for the happy ending in his story, like in mine.

But it all fell apart. 'Nothing,' he said. 'I've been looking for a way to get out of it. This way she'll ditch me, and I won't have to do the dirty work.'

Whoa. See what I mean when I carry on about our stories revealing our values? And this one broke the feelings of commonality I'd had with him. Of course we kept chatting, stayed friendly, but for me something had shifted. His story wasn't about what I'd thought it was about. We'd been going in the same direction, and he took it to a place I didn't want to go to.

People feel great when they're swapping stories because it's the feelings they have in common that build the bridges between each one. Finding stories that don't quite resound is uncomfortable, but it is revealing and useful, even if it doesn't build affinity.

Read

I went home from university and a well-meaning friend of hte family, maybe ten years older than I am, asked me what I was majoring in.

English, I told him warily. I couldn't explain it. It just seemed the right thing to do. He's an engineer, and so are all his brothers. And his wife too, and the niece and nephews. All the Hensleys, I reckon, are completely left-brained.

'What are you going to do with that?' he asked.  

'Read,' I told him. 'And write.'

Good answer.

It's good, because that is what I do. It's not just reading books, but reading situations, reading people, reading contexts and between the lines.

And it's not just writing words, but it's helping people take their own knowledge and ideas and leading them to create something new. Which others can then read, and learn from.

I am leading a workshop tomorrow. I always look forward to them, but I am always cautious going in, because I never know what the participants will bring. So we don't know what will come out.

Because

I'm going to stop you there. Yes, already.

Go back to the title. Did it move you, even a tiny bit?

When I see 'because', I feel like I'm likely to be shown a moment of honesty. Getting to the truth. Like something deep is coming.

We don't use 'because' enough. We rely on 'authority' instead.

Our company has decided not to permit children in the premises while the H1N1 virus is a problem. They don't want to expose vulnerable people unnecessarily. Whether their motives are pure (they are an insurance company, after all, and would be aware of their potential liability) or not isn't my concern. The reason is a sound one. I understand and accept it.

What I don't accept is that they aren't explaining it to  people. So on a day off I stand in front of reception with Elena who's doing a little dance because she needs the toilet so badly, and the female security guard literally stands up to face me off, to tell me to take her away because children aren't permitted in the building. Company policy.

People effacing themselves in the shadow of policy gets my goat faster than anything. They are not thinking, they are not connecting with me, they are even removing themselves from the situation so much that they are not even present, nevermind sorry. There's no person left there to be sorry.

Tell me why it's company policy, say it's because they don't want to put children at risk, and I will understand. I am eager to have a relationship with the person opposite me. Put it in your own words, tell me that you understand and this is how you see it, and I will be led by you to understand as well.

I had another one this morning. Adele's on antibiotics. I won't blog about the ridiculous user and customer experience I had just trying to get her seen by our new 'improved' doctors' process. Anyway I arrived at her nursery school this morning with her medicine, filled in the forms - one for each day, the same one won't do for tomorrow - and was told by the manager that she wouldn't be permitted to stay because she'd been on her medication for less than 24 hours. Company policy. It's my career on the line, she said.

Reading between the lines and catching a fragment of the word 'contagious,' I realised that my sense that I wasn't getting the straight story was on the mark. I made some phone calls: I called the other nurseries in the area. They have no such policies. I called Environmental Health. And I even called Ofsted. There's no official recommendation of such a policy.

K turned Adele away because she was concerned the rash was contagious. And that's fine. But telling me it's for to make sure Adele didn't have a reaction - that just makes me angry, because it doesn't ring true. Company policy. No discussion. If she'd said because, it would have made sense. Because in her experience that type of rash is contagious, and she has to protect the other children. That I'd have understood. I respect K's experience. That she didn't expect me to be big enough to defer to her opinion, but rather to shrink with her in the might of policy, well that's a snub against the rapport I thought we'd built.

You now, I'm not against policy and I'm not against process. I put both into place, myself, where I am a leader. I am however fiercly against anything that rips the soul out of the people that make it happen. The trick is in building policies and processes that are broad enough that people can stay alive within them, in showing them that policies can be boundaries to move safely within, and that processes are an assurance that things will go smoothly. People seem not to see either one as support, but as forces that they must submit to.

Because the process and policy will be more robust and personal when I am alive, I will not just submit to it. I will talk to K and see if the policy can be improved. She has listened to me before on a similar point. Let's just hope she's not become a philosophical vegetarian :-)

Re Elephantburgers

Turns out she's vegetarian. How can you be vegetarian against an idea? A meaty metaphor? Can you be philosophically opposed to learning?

Okay I didn't tell her about the elephants. But this is what I'm up against.

Play

I watched Stuart Brown on Play a few weeks ago and haven't got it out of my head.

Stuart Brown begins an argument that play is just as important as sleep and dreams in building our physical and mental health. I say begins, because he and his colleagues are only at the beginning of their discoveries.

Some of it didn't work for me, but I have drawn many analogies and anecdotes to use in my work. And I guess it's safe to say it's changed me: I now make more of a point to make sure I play.

For instance: juvenile rats play too. It's part of their progression in growing up. Scientists took a set of rats and suppressed their play instinct. The rats grew up normally in every other way, and were able to cope as adults same as their peers. Then the scientists introduced a collar that had been worn by a cat, and watched. All the rats ran for safety, but there was a difference. The rats that had played as youngsters came out after a time, sniffed the air, found out if the coast was clear, and then resumed normal life. The rats that had never played, however, stayed in hiding. Until they died. They hadn't been curious and explored. They didn't know how to cope with risk, how to recover from a fright, how to measure their options and make a decision.

And so a few hours later I was playing monsters with Adele. I pulled on my eyes and mouth and lunged for her, saying BOO! Her frightened face was priceless, just for a flash, then it erupted into laughter. Over and over. It was just a few moments of fun. But I can see it as more now. She's learning to recover from fear. And the laughter we shared helped me recover from bureaucracy, systems, commuting, convention.

Go make a game, and play.

Tasty elephants

Elephants again.

There's the expression 'You can't eat an elephant all in one go. You have to eat a lot of elephant burgers.'

I get that. Slow down. Pace myself. Be patient, I'll get there in the end.

Being positive and constructive, I am using the inverse of this analogy to console myself. You see, I tried having the conversation about having something to say with my colleague.

I am going to have to start feeding her elephant burgers. Ho hum.

Making meaning

I have various meetings where people want to know some stories. They invariably ask me how many I have. And they think I'm dodging the question when i say it's impossible to count.

I could give you a dozen stories. Or four dozen. How many do you want?

But within each of those I tell you there are countless others, and their backgrounds provide potential for another set, and then the varying infinite meanings we take out of them, and the various applications we find for them, make that set of say 12 stories an impossible number to count.

But that's with only choosing stories. The fact is, the stories don't turn up until we have something to say.

So you need to talk to your team about the importance of building an atmosphere of trust, before it's put to the test? All of a sudden your knowledge and experience from another situation, in which the learning is the same as what you would have your team to learn, that learning you've been carrying around with you can become a story, when you tell it as narrative, for the purpose of making meaning.

I have seen people in many workshops tell a story that they never knew was a story. But given the opportunity to be meaningful, what was previously just an experience becomes a story. And with their own reflection and telling, their listeners found it invaluable in learning how to handle similar situations of their own.

And so I go into these meetings where people expect me to just tell them stories with an uncomfortable and unusual heavy air. They want me to give them significance. If I knew what they wanted to say, what they were intersested in, what impact they were hoping to have, then we could work together to find the stories I've colected - or even better, in them - to really bring home the point. But until somebody has something to say, the communications will be flat, and the stories will be novelties. An anecdote has to have meaning to become a story. I cannot give these certain colleagues meaning, if they are not open to finding it in themselves.

Known for

I keep hearing that yesterday the guy who wrote the theme tune to the Adaams Family died.

There's a supermarket story for you - something to instantly be known by.

And it's a great example of how one story, unless it's overtaken by another, can become what you're known by. In his case, it was even more than his name.

I had a very pleasant coffee and chat with Mags yesterday. I am so fortunate to have simple and wise friends, who keep in mind what is important, and pull me back. She had walked into another conversation I was having about doing some storying work for the church, and asked to know more. I don't usually bore my friends with the details of work, but as the conversation got into supermarket stories, she stopped me.

'Why should I care what people tell about me?' Apart from validity of the question itself, I am amazed that it was the first time I had been challenged on it. It's a huge and fundamentally important point. That it had never come up before tells a lot about people in general. And it tells a lot about Mags that she asked.

We explored it. If people tell that I'm the one who always arrives 30 seconds before school or work or a meeting starts, then I guess I don't care very much. It doesn't interfere with how I see myself, and actually I'm realistic and confident enough to such a character trait be public. If they're telling, though, that I have a temper, or that I am difficult to talk to, or that I'm awkward with shopkeepers, well that's a different story. That's not in line with the values I try to live by. It matters then. And then it's an entirely different conversation - how you change your story.

Strengths, part 3: learning from Mr Gumpy

Ann bought the girls a copy of Mr Gumpy's Outing for a birthday last year. I enjoyed the book but didn't get it for a long time.

It goes like this: Mr Gumpy lives in a house by a river. He has a boat, and he decides one day to go out in it. The children ask to come along. Mr Gumpy is kind and says yes, but you mustn't mess about. The dog and cat want to come along; Mr Gumpy says the dog mustn't tease the cat. And so it goes on: the sheep mustn't go around bleating, the pig can't muck about, the chicken can't flap. Predictably, they all do exactly what their natures predispose them to do, and the boat topples. Mr Gumpy is also patient, so after they all swim to the shore, they walk across the fields and then sit down together for a lovely tea of fruit and cake.

That they each brought their own natures - or 'strengths' was obvious. And that they didn't mix was obvious. But I sensed there was a deeper application, and I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Until I used the expression 'liberate' to describe letting a member of staff go who just wasn't able to do the job. She had been coached and trained for six months and never grew in the role, just grew more frustrated. I referred to when she'd been set free, and those around me laughed, and I made a passing reference to how she could go find a job that would better suit her.

That night we read Mr Gumpy together. And I got it. Companies that force people in who don't fit, will topple, just like Mr Gumpy's boat. If the stakes are no higher than getting wet, then it doesn't matter. In an organisation in which people are putting their lives and livelihoods into it, however, we can't risk an all-inclusive, more-the-merrier approach. We've got to be clever and actively recruit on the strengths that will best fill the role, both in practical and emotional needs.  

Strengths, part 2: less to more

Marcus talks about how 'work' does necessarily have to have its bits that aren't play, but that the key is to learn to see the chores in ways that will appeal to stengths. So when I did my clouds exercise on myself the other day, I saw a direct correlation between the things that are holding me back and the things I need. Red lights, green lights, same issue, diferent names. Flip sides of the same behavoiur: obstacle or opportunity. Easier said than done, maybe, but identifying it is a start. And it makes for a fascinating half-hour of self-reflection.

In our old team we talked about 'lesser strengths,' when they occasionally needed to be acknowledged. Sometimes they get to be the elephant in the room, what everybody can see but nobody's talking about, even in our own minds. When they're obvious and causing problems, then it's time to pull out the 'lesser strengths', have a good look at them, and find out how we put them in the spaces we play in most naturally.

Marcus's example was about doing expenses, or something admin-y that he didn't like to do. But he had a huge completion strength, so he would focus on how pleased he'd be when he finished it. Rather than getting dragged down by the chore, he let his incentive for that 'done' rush pull him along.