Story conference: habits, corporate culture & stories for change

Summary: An article based on content presented at the Celebrating Story conference held last week in Melbourne, Australia. The post talks about how individual habits form, how organizational habits are the corporate culture or "the way we do things around here" and how, during culture change projects, stories can be used to mediate the tension between individual survival responses and participation in the larger (organizational) group.
NB: This post is an abridged version of an article on transformational culture change in organizations due to be available later this month - to request a copy of the article upon its publication, email the author.

Habits are handy

Remember when you first learned how to drive a car or ride a bike?

In the beginning it took a whole lot of conscious, focused attention to learn this new task. Quite soon, though, the movements needed for that activity became more or less automatic. So much so, that sometimes you (like most people) will drive somewhere you've been to many times before and, upon arrival, have no recollection at all of having made the trip.

Similarly, if you try to explain in words to someone how to ride a bike, it's a really hard thing to do. Your long repetition of bike-riding behaviour has turned it into a habit and actually put it outside your conscious awareness, into an automatic set of movements.

The mechanics behind this process work like this. When you first sat astride that bike or buckled up in the driver's seat of a car you engaged in some pretty serious and focused attention, so as not to either scuff your knees or wrap your dad's car around a tree. At times like this, you're consciously engaging your cortical brain - that's the part which engages in complex tasks by weighing different options, considering evidence and laying down the new neural pathways required for learning and skill acquisition.

This is the "heavy-lifting" part of your brain; a processing powerhouse, the possession of which separates we humans from other species. It's hugely expensive to operate in caloric energy terms: it takes about 25-30% of the body's available energy to engage in sustained cognitive activity, like that required to learn a new complex task. That's why after a long period of intense concentration like studying for a test you're exhausted. Even though you were not very physically active, you probably demolished a big meal soon after and had a nice long sleep.

In order to manage your body's resources most efficiently the brain automates as many cognitive activities as possible. New learning is swiftly turned into automatic patterns of behaviour. They become habits and, as you have probably experienced, they can be very tricky things to try to change. As they become simply "the way you do things," they drop out of your conscious awareness. You find you have "imperfect introspective access" to your habits, making them hard to shift and a very powerful force for the maintenance of the status quo.


Vive la différence

Eating the same evening meal day in, day out can be comforting habit. It's efficient, no thought is required and it probably saves time and effort that you can expend on other things.

However, it also means you'll miss other experiences and culinary opportunities. It leaves you exposed if the ingredients for your favourite meal are suddenly unavailable. Your body may rebel against this monotony and develop an intolerance for some of the foods. The point is: the efficiencies that habits can bring can also stand in the way of the flexibility needed to adapt to internal and outside changes.


Organizational habits: Corporate Culture

A similar process happens on a wider scale in organizations. They can be said to have "habits" too, ones that, taken together, form the corporate culture - a concept that is most often described simply as "the way we do things around here". Corporate culture can therefore also be a powerful force for the maintenance of the status quo and, as with the dinner example above, most of the time that's OK.

However for an organization to be flexibly adaptable (e.g. for the organization to move from where it is now to where it needs to be in order to deliver on its strategic goals) many of the habitual patterns wrapped up in the corporate culture will need to change as well.

Now mention “corporate culture” to people in an organization and most will return a blank look, an uncertain smile, or a tentative nod. Having a conversation about culture is a bit like trying to talk to a fish about water - the awareness level is just not very high, because everyone is so completely immersed in the culture.

Any organizational change initiative will very quickly run smack into habitual, automatic patterns of behaviour. The way that people are invited to take part in that change process will therefore determine from the very start how successful the shift will be, and what results will be achieved as the new strategy is executed.


Change can unbalance "The Battle inside your Brain"

Since the habits of corporate culture are powerful forces to maintain the status quo, you need equally powerful countervailing efforts to shift these habits. The thorny question is: will making a powerful case for culture change encourage people to rationally evaluate new ways of operating using their cortical brain networks, or will it represent a source of disruption, insecurity and distress that's seen as a threat and triggers a limbic survival response in each individual?

The way that a change initiative is launched and managed will determine how well you set people up to be on the productive side of The Battle inside their Brain.

Remember that the limbic emotional brain network is where you see the classic knee-jerk reaction - act first, then consider - as it makes decisions first, then seeks justification (or rationalization) for the decision after the fact.

Meanwhile the cortical rational brain network is built to weighing options and alternatives, gathering data and information and then make decisions based on careful analysis and thoughtful debate - consider first, then act. It's in this latter part of the brain that our better nature and true talents as functional adults is located. During a change, you want people to be spending lots of time there and as little time as possible in their limbic survival mode.

What's tricky is that the limbic survival reaction produces powerful emotions and reacts faster than the cortical rational brain. Here's why.


Survival strategies and the Individual

When any change happens in their environment, people will have an immediate response at a very basic level of the brain, the limbic system.

This is a survival response and one that is deeply hardwired - essentially it provides the motivation to focus your attention and assess the situation that you now face in terms of what threats may be present and whether there's action that needs to be taken to ensure your survival.

These survival responses are made up of something that you've no doubt heard of before: the "3 F's" of fight-flight-freeze response.

The limbic system is much older in evolutionary terms than the larger cortical brain, which means that these emotionally-fuelled fight-flight-freeze reactions happen even before we’re consciously aware of them. Now, these reactions have to be fast or they wouldn't be of much use to keep you alive in threatening situations where instant action is required.

The price you pay for the limbic system's speed is that it bypasses the rational cortical brain. Because your rational cortical brain is the part which enables you to consider evidence, weigh alternatives and make well-thought-through decisions, it means that pre-cortical, unconscious reactions can produce some really dumb decisions. Also because the limbic system is a critical part of our age-old, hardwired survival mechanism there's no way to "turn it off". That is to say, you can't NOT have a reaction to things.

The question is, what you do with the emotional energy that results.

Managing this energy requires that people know their most frequent survival strategy: fight-flight-freeze. To use less provocative terms, think of them as gears that you switch depending on whether you need to go forward, reverse, or just be in neutral.

• Forward (fight) is all about action, but it can't be your only survival mode; faced with something bigger and toothier than we are, it makes sense to have other reactions to fall back on.
• Reverse gear (flight) is the withdrawal mode, where you disengage to observe the surroundings for signs of danger and decide whether to re-engage or flee still further.
• Neutral (freeze) in this context is the in-between mode, staying put and being mostly non-threatening and compliant.

These reactions are reactive, not thoughtful. Fighters will unthinkingly attack a change initiative, Fleers will unthinkingly withdraw either mentally or sometimes even physically from the environment, while Freezers will unthinkingly agree and be compliant, but not have any capacity for real engagement with the change.

People in survival mode are in a emotionally high-strung state of limbic lock-down. They will be barely functional as rational adult individuals and even less inclined to participate in groups. Since each person's limbic behaviour tends to trigger a limbic response in others, teams devolve into an animalistic battle of each-against-all.

As each person's limbic response ricochets and intensifies that of others, the group's level of emotional reactivity rises and other team members come to be viewed one of two ways: as competition or food. In such a setting change becomes impossible and people long for the safety and familiarity of habitual patterns - hence why so often a few months after a change is introduced, people revert back to pre-change behaviour patterns.


We live in tribes and tell stories

This may all sound quite grim, a bit like an organizational Lord of the Flies (a.k.a. The Apprentice TV series). Thankfully, two characteristics of human beings offer a way to mediate this state of high tension between individual survival and group participation: 1) we are inherently social animals and 2) we are meaning-making machines.

1) Our social brains. There's something called the default mode network in the brain, which is "what the brain does when it is doing nothing in particular" and involves primarily two areas of the brain.

Researchers don’t agree on all the components of the default network, but consensus is growing that it has two major hubs: the posterior cingulate cortex, or PCC, with the precuneus, and the medial prefrontal cortex. The functions ascribed to those two areas may give clues to what the default network is good for. The medial prefrontal cortex is involved in imagining, thinking about yourself and “theory of mind,” which encompasses the ability to figure out what others think, feel or believe and to recognize that other people have different thoughts, feelings and beliefs from you. The precuneus and PCC are involved in pulling personal memories from the brain’s archives, visualizing yourself doing various activities and describing yourself. [...] Together, these hubs give you a sense of who you are. Their prominence in the network has led some researchers to propose that the function of the default mode is to allow you to internally explore the world and your place in it, so you can plot future actions, including contingency plans for various scenarios you might encounter.*

So it seems that when you're not thinking of anything else, you're thinking about yourself - as defined by your social relationship with others. In other words: as defined through interactions with the group.

2) Stories. A good deal of research has confirmed the human predilection to make characters and narratives out of whatever we see in the world around us. Put simply, we are meaning-making machines. In keeping with the above, it's also interesting to note the role that stories play to promote social cohesion among groups and serve as a valuable method for passing on information. Moreover, stories and narratives play a key role in persuasion: people accept ideas more readily when their minds are in story mode as opposed to when they are in an analytical mind-set.** (Hat-tip Shawn for this article.)


Practical takeaways

God turns you from one feeling to another
And teaches you by means of opposites
So that you will have two wings to fly
Not one. ~ Rumi

Illustration credit: Simon Kneebone, Cartoonist & Illustrator


Our default mode is to define our selves in social terms through relation to others and we tell ourselves stories to make sense of the world around us. We're naturally tribal, storytelling creatures. In this tension of opposites, between the individual's concern for survival and his/her desire to belong to a group, there can be found both the high energy of the emotional limbic survival response and the amazing human capacity for complex thought and meaning-making.

From the very start of a change process, leaders need to use stories and encourage people to channel their emotions into productive behaviours. This can be successfully done in two practical ways:

1. Help individuals to recognize and manage their own limbic emotional reactivity, through awareness of the nine predictable limbic types (see below, Workshop).
2. Engage the group with story, with a narrative journey of change that sets the context, lays out the strategy, invites participation, shows the benefits, engages at an emotional level, outlines the detailed plan, and finally looks forward to positive future state (see below, Consultancy).
   

Are you a slave to your emotions or is your emotional energy serving you?

Workshop: The 9 Survival Strategies - which ones you use and how to put them to work for you (as presented at Melcrum's Strategic Comms conference Sydney, and used by Deutsche Bank, Lloyds TSB Bank, AMP, and other organizations in Australia and the UK).

What's the story of your next organizational culture change project?

Consultancy: To learn more about how tmc helps leaders to effectively engage their teams through times of change, email Todd.



References:
Peter Burow. "The Art & Science of Transformational Leadership."
**Jeremy Hsu. "The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn - Our love for telling tales reveals the workings of the mind," Scientific American Mind, August/September 2008, 46-51.
M.D. Lieberman, D. Schreiber & K.N. Ochsner. "Is Political Cognition like riding a bicycle? How cognitive neuroscience can inform research on political thinking," Political Psychology, 24(4) 2003, 681-704.
*Tina Hesman Saey, "You are who you are by default," Science News, 176(2) July 18th 2009, 16.
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Update: Story & Narrative Approaches to Change (Conference MELB 8-9 Oct)

There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories. ~ Ursula K. LeGuin

This is a quick update about the two-day Celebrating Story conference happening next Thu-Fri (8-9 October) in Melbourne.

There are still spots available!

Organized by my friends at Babelfish Group, the conference will feature five sets of five parallel sessions (25 sessions in all, plus an Open Space session) to explore the use of story and narrative approaches to change across the areas of business, government and community.

For full details check out the latest conference brochure or contact conference organizer Andrew Rixon directly at +61 400 352 809.

And - tell him Todd sent you!


Shifting the narrative in organizations - why change is NOT like riding a bike

Here's additional information on the session that I'll be presenting at the conference, bright and early on day two (Friday 9AM):

You are invited to a conversation that explores some brain-based aspects of story, narrative and meaning-making. Change invites people to shift their habitual narrative and in most cases provokes a (limbic) survival response, part of the ongoing Battle inside your Brain. The practical challenge is therefore to channel the resulting emotional energy into productive cognitive action and away from reactivity/resistance.

After Todd talks about the latest research in social cognitive neuroscience that explains why it can be so hard to effect behavioural change in organizations and why change programs fail to take hold, we will share an interactive discussion of what works well in practice and what we can do differently to get the results we want.

The best of the session:
• Gain insights into the hard science behind the soft skills in the areas of story, narrative and meaning-making
• Learn practical ways to help people manage the inevitable emotional reaction to change
• Leaders will learn how to communicate in a way that speaks to each person in his/her own "language" and invites people along on the change journey

Hope to see you there - do come up and say hello!
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Story conference in Melbourne, 8-9 October

Celebrating Story: Approaching Change One Story at a Time

There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories. ~ Ursula K. LeGuin

Have you a passion or curiosity around story? Are you a coach, facilitator, change consultant, qualitative researcher, narrative therapist, OD professional, manager or leader? Are you interested in celebrating and sharing ways that you have worked with story? Are you interested in learning more on how others have used story and narrative in their work? Are you seeking inspiration and new ways forward?

My friends at Babelfish Group have organized a two-day conference this 8-9 October in Melbourne to explore the use of story and narrative approaches to change across the areas of business, government and community.

I will be there to run an interactive session on the brain-based aspects of story, narrative and meaning-making (particularly the neuroscientific reasons why it's so challenging to shift people's narrative in organizations and why change programs often fall apart or fail to take hold as a result). Hope to see you there!

To find out more about presentations and other details, check out the conference brochure or contact conference organizer Andrew Rixon directly at +61 400 352 809.

And - tell him Todd sent you!




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NeuroPower Leader: Barack Obama

Insights from New Zealand

Greetings from the latest NeuroPower training program in Queenstown, New Zealand. Each year NeuroPower practitioners gather in this inspirational and contemplative location to develop not only participants' understanding and application of the framework, but to review the year's latest research and refine and update the framework itself with the latest input, insights and business applications.

This year's particular focus is the process of Transformational Change in organizations and teams. We have also looked at the role of NeuroPower Leaders in the transformation cycle, as outlined in the NeuroPower handbook (developed by author and strategist Peter Burow).

NeuroPower Leaders

These extraordinary individuals are the leaders we admire and follow because we trust them.

We trust them because neurobiologically we can sense that they are coming from a position of nobility rather than a position of selfishness.

We trust them, yet they can be difficult for us to understand because they have most often been able to integrate the diverse aspects of their personality in a way that is compelling and inspires us to achieve more of what we are capable of being ourselves.

In their presence and through their words we believe we can be more than what we've been up to now, that we can achieve more than we've ever achieved before.

If you haven't seen or heard President-elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech I encourage you to do so through the embedded link below or here. Notice in his speech how he integrates all the aspects of both archetypes that he represents, the Chancellor ("bridge builder") and the Navigator ("visionary planner").

Listen for how he brings together the various noble qualities of:

Faith - "The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there."

Charm (in the sense of placing the focus on the other person) - "... you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done. But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you."

Negotiating and Diplomatic - "There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

Protecting - "To those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you."

Responsible and Principled - "And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope. That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."

Building Bridges - "A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Senator McCain. Senator McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him; I congratulate Governor Palin for all that they've achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead."

Seeking Role Excellence

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change.

And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

And perhaps most characteristic of all for his campaign, the hopefulness of the slogan "Yes We Can", embodied by the qualities of Honour and Genuineness invoked by the memory of Obama's Illinoian predecessor, President Abraham Lincoln:

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

An extraordinary individual for an extraordinary time - and most hopefully for us all, the things he is able to do are based on his being able to fully and freely access all six intelligence centres that are available to him - as they are to all of us.

So are we all able to access the things that will make us NeuroPower Leaders like the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama?


Yes We Can!
TM

What makes you stronger? Resilience & meaning-making

Traditional Western psychology suggests that the cause of people’s psychological problems lies in what happened to them in the past. According to this view, at some point early in each person’s childhood something “bad” happens (a trauma or an unfulfilled need). As a result, that person will spend the rest of his or her life repressing, compensating, avoiding or exhibiting any number of other problematic behaviour patterns based on reaction to that initial “bad” thing.

And so we get the simplistic and linear equation:

difficult childhood = problems as an adult

and the corollary:

adult with problems = adult must have had a difficult childhood.

Yet there are countless examples all over the world of people who have had terrible experiences as children – including those displaced by war, famine, poverty and other extreme situations – and yet they have managed to develop into well-adjusted and even happy people. Meanwhile, sadly, there are people who struggle with serious problems as adults who had relatively happy childhoods.

So the linear equation does not hold true – there seems to be something else at work here.


Resilience and meaning-making

Resilience describes the human being’s ability to survive, recover and persevere against various obstacles and threats.

Some people are made stronger rather than weaker by their past life experiences – how does this happen? Interestingly, much of it has to do with the story that you tell yourself about what happened.

Our brains are meaning-making machines. It’s a process that happens automatically and continually. What this means is that we constantly create narratives to make sense of our lives and the world.

The good news is that since we each write our own narrative or story about the world, it is entirely within our ability to change that narrative to create one that serves us better as we grow and develop through life.

You can create a narrative that promotes self-respect and hope without distorting the facts. This is a more comforting and optimistic view than the problem-focused approach most often used in traditional psychology – but is this just being a Pollyanna slapping a happy face on tragic situations?

No it’s not.


Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich staerker

“What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche


In his excellent book It’s Never too late to have a Happy Childhood, Ben Furman cites research on how people recover from catastrophe and crisis which suggests the key factor in recovery is how people choose to make meaning of what happened.

After a bank robbery, for example, it is important that the staff has a chance to talk about what happened immediately and that everyone present during the robbery receives positive feedback. Everyone should be able to think that their reactions were meaningful, or at least understanding and normal in the circumstances. They should realize that each of them acted the best they could in that situation. [p52]

Taking this example to the wider context of how people make sense of childhood traumas and past problems in life, Furman continues:

The past is a story we can tell ourselves in many different ways. By paying attention to the methods that have helped us survive, we can start respecting ourselves and reminiscing about our difficult past with feelings of pride rather than regret. [p56]

You’re not “broken”

Admittedly, “bad” things do happen to people. The view offered in traditional Western psychology is that people are somehow “broken” or “defective” as a result and their life’s task is therefore to overcome past traumas.

What if it’s the case that people are capable of all things, but circumstances and “bad” events cause them to play to certain of their talents and abilities more than others? This is quite a different view, which suggests: people are not broken, they’re just not accessing everything that they were born capable of doing. So faced with life’s challenges, people develop “strong suits,” their default, habitual mode of behaviour - but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that they cannot develop their full potential and diversify across the full range of human abilities.

Viewed in this way, our past difficulties become a rich source of evidence for our own coping abilities and resilience in the face of adversity. We can rewrite our narrative to describe how the things that did not destroy us have in fact made us stronger and better able to withstand adversity. Furthermore, we can explore the full range of our talents and how they can help us to grow into well-adjusted and fully-functioning human beings.

We can come to view our past hardships as something of a gift. I heard a proverb once that is, I think, of Chinese origin:

One disease, long life; no disease, short life.

I take this to mean: if you never face adversity, you will be more likely to succumb to the first major problem you encounter; whereas, if you have been strengthened by the things that have challenged but not destroyed you, your resilience is much greater.

The thought I like best from Furman’s book is that everyone is due a certain amount of happiness in life. If you didn’t have that happiness in your childhood and early life, imagine how much more you can expect to find later in your life!

Wishing the world were other than it is gives you nothing more than a potent recipe for unhappiness...acting to make it what you want is a step toward happiness and satisfaction. So – get started on rewriting your narrative today!
TM

Michael Rennie – McKinsey, meaning-making, mindsets and more…

It's been a week of serendipity...while researching something else entirely I came across this interview with Michael Rennie, whose name resonated because of a conversation I had on the weekend. His point of view converges entirely with the ideas I want to promote with this blog and deserves the widest possible audience, hence this post.

Rennie's a remarkable individual. Diagnosed at the age of 31 with terminal cancer and given at most 12 months to live, he embarked on both an inward journey (remember yesterday's post about the value of plumbing the depths...?) and a process of connecting outwardly with others.

He beat the cancer and now over a decade later has taken the lessons he learned in the process about meaning-making, meditation and changing mindsets into the world of large organizations. Today as global co-leader of McKinsey & Company's Mindsets and Capabilities practice he specializes in performance culture improvement and behaviour change in large organizations, working closely with Chairmen and their top teams on leadership performance.

The result is a compelling vision of transformational leadership for the 21st century.
Hope you enjoy what he has to say as much as I did.
TM


Michael Rennie: Head & Heart