TaleCatcher - Tracy Kenny's blog

Simple story

I've been helping someone with his CV today. He warned me that he didn't want any of that storytelling stuff in it, that he'd read up on it and it's all more theory than accepted practice.

We've worked through several versions, over email and over several hours. I think he's as pleased as I am with it. But I haven't pointed out to him that what we've done is build in a clear story.

I maintain my position: a story is when Somebody Does Something and it Means Something.

That's all.

We spent some time on the 'Somebody' - he was selling himself short. He wasn't showing off his achievements, and he wasn't really clear on what he's all about.

Of course a great deal of what  you're 'about' is made up of what you 'do'. So we looked at the actions and achievements, figured out that they made him a certain type of person, and tweaked it to sort that persona. The actions and the person are in line, reinforcing and valdiating each other.

That's typical CV stuff.  The transformation is in the meaning. 'So what?' I asked (politely). 'What's the impact? Why did it matter?'

Bang, now there's lots of meaingful stories about his accomplishments, and one big story about a very caring, very efficient operations manager who's technologically savvy but does it all for the people he's working with.

It sounds like the preise for a novel. Or screenplay.

He won't let me put in the stories like about the widowed customer who cried because my friend helped him when learn to cook and use a washing machine (he thought his oven was broken when he actually was trying to bake it on GM2),but his story comes through all the same.

He can save that stuff for the interview. That's when stories will get centre-stage. 

Ways of getting what I want

Years ago when I was doing my MA, my friend De'Lara was working for a quite brilliant professor - whose intelligence of course left her a bit out of the loop around new technology.

I was reminded of the story when I was walking around Norwich Cathedral with my brother last week, admiring the typesetting machine which the Jarrold company had donated to their education hall. It had only two sets of type, all the letters held in a huge wooden tray with a key for finding the right ones quickly. It wasn't based on QWERTY!

Anyway back to the future, in this case the late 1990's. De'Lara had done some word processing for Prof M in some font or other, but it wasn't what the esteemed woman had in mind. She was kind but firm, insisting that my friend re-type the entire thing in the preferred font. My friend tried to interrupt and say that it was no problem, she could change it in a few key strokes. Eventually, rather than let the situation develop into a full argument, she backed down and told the boss she'd see her in a few hours with the document in the new font.

What lessons do I take out of this for today?

• Shut up and listen, I might learn something
• There are usually easier ways of doing things
• Think more about what I really want, than getting stuck on how I want to get there

Giving from ourselves

A few weeks back I was intrigued to find in Seth's triiibe (a closed community for those who read and try to demonstrate the principles in his books) a discussion of generosity, and how unselfish giving seems to always bring returns to the giver, but not in reciprocal or repayment ways. The poster, Christina Ciani, suggested that it's about a change in the individual. I posted this reply. The story as well as the learning have stuck in my mind, and I thought it worth repeating here:

I've been trying to pin down how it (generosity) works for months, hoping to write on the topic, and there just isn't a formula. I think you've pinned it down, that the giving is about changing a place in ourselves, which then helps us to achieve more. Sometimes the results of the giving come back to help us, but really the best benefit is becoming better as individuals.

My favourite story on the topic is last autumn I was grumpy one afternoon and had chosen to focus that energy into cleaning house. I was on the rampage, I was getting stuff done, and it felt... well it didn't feel good, it just felt like I was getting stuff done.

My two young daughters, 2 and 6 at the time, were in the garden, pestering me to come and play with them. I got fed up with the sound of my own 'no, no, no,' and I did.

I chased them. We ran in circles, we fell over and tickled in the grass, and we had a marvellous time. I wasn't grumpy anymore...

Not even when I did my last chase around the shed and broke my toe on the flower bed. The two little ones supported me back to the house, caring for me, but even in my pain I was laughing. The lesson to give especially when I don't want to had got through, because it's then that I need to be pushed back into a generous space, so I can see the beautiful day and benefit from the wonders of the connections there to be made.

Stuff I've Learned

Before I left Aviva I learned how powerful it can be to frame experience in the words 'Stuff I've Learned.'

'Stuff' keeps it humble, down-to-earth, and accessible.

'I've' keeps it personal.

'Learned' shows that I'm open to the journey, that I don't have all the answers, and that I'm heading in the right direction with the right attitude, even if I make mistakes along the way.

It's much more powerful a practice than it appears.

Today I sat down and captured the Stuff I’ve Learned in a sort-of 'story-listening' project I worked on in February and March. Much of it was learned again - isn't it funny how some stuff doesn't stick! I thought the device and the learnings both worth sharing:
 
1.            People will buy into a cause much more readily if they feel their opinion’s been heard.

2.            A giggle is heart-warming, even coming from deepest Africa over the internet.

3.            People learn deeply when they are asked questions, and they think through the answers.

4.            There is almost always something to find in common with someone, however different they may seem, and have a conversation.

5.            Brazil switches to Summer Time a week before the rest of the world does.

6.            A brand comes through clearly to everybody, regardless of a logo.

7.            Organisations develop metaphorical systems around a concept – which comes first, the thing or the way people talk about it?

8.            My hourly rate is higher than I thought it was.

9.            For the most part people want to get along.

10.          People are loyal first to their own team and direct boss, whatever the organisational structure. Communications plans need to always remember that.

11.          The internet means I may think I’m ringing Tanzania, but it can instead be a place in Massachusetts where I holidayed as a child.

12.          Playing to collective strengths is much more powerful and effective than building up lots of subsets.

13.          People are always going to be worried about how they are perceived.

14.          I still speak more French, German and Spanish than I thought I did.

15.          In reporting, the content leads, the style follows.

16.          When people say their opinion is neither considered nor expert, they like to hear that experts who don’t ask for their opinions will get things wrong. Everybody’s opinion counts.

It in't about the stories

Something I've learned along the way, and particularly in the last month or so of my relative silence: TaleCatcher started out being about stories. But it, and the work I do, absolutely isn't about the stories. It's about connecting. 'Communicating' is the best word we have, even if it is well past its use-by date, to describe the process of using words to connect. Usually we fail, because we get stuck on the words. Stories are the best means of communicating to sweep us over and past the words and all the injuries and damage they can cause. Stories get straight to the heart. They are the means. Not the end.

Pitchforks and champagne

Here's a little story my friend Sam sent me a while back.

When the Montgolfier brothers invented the hot air balloon the local French peasants thought they were creatures from another world. The brothers learnted to carry with them bottles of champagne to prove that they were French and stop them from being attacked with axes and pitch forks. As a result it is now tradition that all balloon flights end with a glass of champagne to celebrate a safe flight and landing.

She sent me this to encourage me, and I treasure it.

I've landed - and in a single day, today, I've seen pitchforks as well as champagne.

I've learned that people aren't always going to like us for being positive. It doesn't fit with what they're tellng themselves about the world.

The journey is bigger than the landing.

Does it matter?

On BBC Breakfast this morning they were talking about punctuation, spelling, and grammar, and asking the question, 'Does it matter?'

Really quickly:

Yes. It does matter, because it forms the basis of people's impression of you.

It's the same as going out: are you just popping out to the shop ten minutes before they close to get some milk? Then go in your track suit bottoms, trainers, and manky hair, by all means.

The writing equivalent goes like this:

Are you just scribbling a note or email to a very familiar friend to say you've gone to get the milk, or similar?

Then misspell away. The tea needs making. Go! Rush! Get the milk.

But. If you are going out to a fancy party, or a job interview, or just out into town, you need to think more carefully about your appearance.

Same with your writing. Think more carefully, if it will betray a negative impression of you.

It's the same as going out with your flies open, or your skirt tucked in your knickers. You just wouldn't go out without looking in the mirror.

If your writing is full of mistakes, people will think you are lazy, uneducated, disinterested, and you don't know what you're talking about. Or worse.

However: don't get so fussy about punctuation and grammar and stuff that you miss out on the genuine-ness and heart and emotion of what someone is offering you with their writing. Would you chuck an apology back in the writer's face, saying 'You cretin, don't you know that when it + s has no apostrophe when it's possessive?!'

By the way: I was the one who went to Waitrose in the night for milk, after travelling for 36 hours. Turns out this poshest of supermarkets was having an after-hours card-holders' soiree, with wine tasting, flower arranging, fish monger demonstrations, the lot. I was too embarrassed to stay and get the milk. 

And this: learn your rules. Then you know absolutely whether you are right or wrong, you learn a great deal about playing the language, and when someone tries to correct you, you can get your little copy of Fowler's out and turn it into a curious pursuit to find out more, together.

Know your enemies, and love them

Okay to start, I don't have any enemies. 

But let's think in story terms. At school, the thing that is out to get our hero was called the 'antagonist.' Whatever our hero wanted, this guy/force/instinct was going to try to stop him getting it.

Think about a tv detective programme. There's a serial killer on the loose. Even if the police don't know who it is, they get a sense of their character, based on the pattern of things they do. And they start to project more things about this villain, building a fuller picture, from the snippets of story they've got a handle on.

See when people have only got a little information, and even less understanding, they can lay blame and build a whole series of accusations into someone they see as an enemy, where they don't belong. I ran a focus group a few weeks back, in which a young lady was almost violent in her rage against a particularly senior leader in the company. She was banging her fist and everything: 'How DARE he talk to me about peace of mind, when he's cut my pension?!' she demanded to know.

A few minute later, she spoke with affection about some other equally fat cats.

I asked her what the difference was. She wasn't set up or framed or anything. In her own words: 'Oh I know them. I understand them. I know their stories.'

See she's got just enough information about this one guy, who's actually not all that bad, that she's blaming him for everything. We may as well accuse him of causing poverty and cancer and pollution while we're at it.

If she understood him just a little bit better, if she knew some of his stories, like what he did last weekend and why it's important to him, then she'd gain some perspective and insight into what he's actually responsible for, where his values lie, and why he makes the decisions he does.

In his brilliant book Story Robert McKee explains that in any film, you never completely hate the bad guy. There's always something there, just a little bit to like. And you know him just enough to understand him a little bit, to keep you going. Perfect contempt won't work. You need to understand him as a character, even if you choose to dislike him, to keep the story going.

So two things:

1 - Tell enough stories that people know you and what they're getting with you, so you're not some blank unknown quantity that they can shape their fears around

2 - And if you've got somebody that you genuinely think is Out To Get You, then twist it around. They're your baddie. Your story and your vision are strong enough that you've got your own personal antagonist. Get to know them, and appreciate them, and grow stronger from responding well and being true to your values and the challenges they present you. And get on with creating the happier ending, for both of you. Because your story is not in what happens, but in how you respond to it.

-Fin-

Animal instincts

I wouldn't call myself an animal lover. I admire them, I donate to animal causes, and I even worked for the RSPCA for a while. But I never wanted a pony. I love and respect animals but I'm not the sort of person to have them in my home. Maybe one day. Not now.

Anyway as I see myself in this way, I've been trying to understand why I keep being impressed by a number of animal stories that I want to blog. They communicate in that 'deeper than words' space that we find it so difficult to access. Maybe I should just start blogging them, so we can figure out their appeal, together.

Here's one that got past the 'deeper than' and into words. Fascinating stuff. What do you think?

http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2010/07/irene_pepperber.html

Stories not to tell

Instinctively I know that the stories we tell build the world around us. There is a kind of metaphorical framework or scaffolding that happens, that our world hangs on and builds upon. I havne't been able to fully describe it yet. But I know it, same as I know my own skeleton supports my body.

Ray often comes home with stories from Chattanooga. I tell people 'We moved back here from the south for a number of reasons,' and I usually leave it at that. Sometimes I think it would be interesting to capture more of them in this blog, but for the 'building my world' thing - I don't want to dwell on it. I don't want to keep telling the stories, and having them alter the 'framework' of stories that I'm building my life, attitudes, philosophies, behaviours by.

For instance there were two stories this week.

A man in Chattanooga phoned the police to say that he was going to kill himself, because his bank had foreclosed on his home. When the police arrived, he came out waving a gun around (not that unusual). The police shot him dead, with eleven bullet wounds. According to the radio it was called 'suicide by cop.'

Okay I complained about the police here yesterday, but let's face it, but I think I'd choose the unhelpful police, if that's what you get.

The other story: At the mall just across from where we lived there, a pet shop was closed for the systematic abuse of animals. Please, please don't read this without warning. It is horrifying. And it is only one story, but it is not the only I have heard of its kind.

Like I said, we left Tennessee for a number of reasons. If I dwell too much on them, they'll become part of me again.

'Tell affirming stories' is easy advice to give, of course, if your life is full of pretty easy stories to tell - just stop telling the ones that drag you and others down. But there is the difficult problem of what to do if your reality is full of the really hard stuff, like these two stories. In this case, inaction is worse than focussing on positives. If you truly can't change your reality, if you can't change the circumstances around you, then getting out may be the best thing you can do.

A story happens when you do something, and it means something. It's the first way to make a new story. Do something, and start building that new world around you. Even if it's someplace else entirely.