People seem to be applying the same ten games from Territorial Games (1997) to control narratives and thus control our perceptions of what is/isn’t true. For the next ten weeks I’ll post about each of these ten games one at a time. But first let me give a bit of background on the research. It all started
The guy on the right drew this map. He is bailing out the boat that is sinking. He is doing his job in spite of a bad situation. I asked, “Who is the guy on the left?” He said “That’s my boss.” A few heads turned toward his boss sitting up front. I asked “So what
This picture was drawn by an employee of a large bureaucratic organization. When she lifted it up, there was a hush of recognition in the group. She said “This is me in the vice. But it could be any of us, really. We are all taking turns. All of these people are just waiting their
This picture was drawn by an employee of a large bureaucratic organization. When she lifted it up, there was a hush of recognition in the group. She said “This is me in the vice. But it could be any of us, really. We are all taking turns. All of these people are just waiting their
< This was drawn by a cross-functional task team in a high tech company where distrust was a big problem. Projects were way behind deadline, blame had eroded working relationships and a dangerous apathy drained employees of enthusiasm. The first two meetings with this group were frustrating – either no one was willing to speak
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
“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
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.
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
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
