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Tornado

I’m the HR director standing on stilts because I have to talk to the director, but I don’t really have any power. Labor Relations (L.R.) and Personnel (Pers) are about to make me fall down.” This was a state government organization. Notice that “Labor” is in a turret with a fence around it with a window but no door. The central turret is open at the top with a person clearly “available.” The stance of this person reminds me of the woman behind the desk when I needed to change a class in college. She was the one person who could make it happen, but she really was sick of students asking to change classes. “Administration” the place you go when you are a problem…have a problem…same difference. THEN..look at IT. Information Technology was considered invasive at this agency and they talked like “aliens” thus the UFO. Try to understand with lots of stupid questions and you get “You don’t need to know that. Just (insert jargon) and you will be fine.” This one picture created insight for the HR person about balance and boundaries. The HR guys who kept agreeing they had to stop using jargon, finally “got it” from seeing themselves portrayed here. Notice also they are portrayed as lazy. IT guys simply have a different definition of urgent than most employees. Fixing your laptop does not equal a system-wide failure.

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Infrequently Answered Questions

Infrequently Answered Questions QUESTION:  I’ve been reading your book, Story Factor, and it’s really opened my eyes to the power of story and how far it can take someone (like a Jesus or a Hitler). I was wondering, though, what your thoughts were on using it to influence yourself.  I know you say that you

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Photostory

Brief Description of the Community An urban community near a large southern city. this community is predominantly African-American and suffer the effects of poverty on the health and well-being of the residents and community at large. During the Spring of 1997, community residents worked with a University to identify and prioritize 5 community health concerns:

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Do a magic trick

If you want a story that will “make them see” once and for all, that you are right, you have missed the point.  There are many points of view, you look at mine and I might be willing to look at yours.  But if you over control a story, it makes you very boring and

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Popular Posts

Paradox: Root Cause of Polarization

According to Pew research, disdain between opposing political parties in America has doubled in the last 30 years, coincidentally the span of my own consulting business, Group Process Consulting. My efforts to document true stories about these escalating conflicts inadvertently produced a set of oral histories across the years: Territorial Games (1997), A Safe Place

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Contrasts, Not Conflicts

 “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”  Groucho Marx Troublemakers erode trust faster than we can build it back right now. Yet, many of these “troubles” are invented conflicts that distort predictably contrasting values. It helps to know what to look for. And once

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Storyteller’s Confession: My Secret Mission

I’ve been trying to infiltrate the halls of power for decades. My secret mission is to increase the diversity of thought by teaching those without a voice how to tell their stories and by teaching leaders how to find and retell stories that broaden everyone’s understanding.

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Stories with a Moral Blueprint – part 8 of 8

We need a Magic School for Storytellers Thirty years before J. K. Rowling created Harry Potter, Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series imagined a magic school that taught apprentice sorcerers how to avoid abusing the power of magic. Le Guin points out early in the series that “even to light a candle is to cast a

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Stories with a Moral Blueprint – part 7 of 8

Truth in Storytelling When I wrote the first edition of The Story Factor twenty years ago, I began with the idea that people don’t want more information. They want faith in you and your positive intentions. I never suspected that two decades later we’d be discussing an explosion of stories that intentionally undermine this faith. Without

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