January 2010 – The Narrative Lab

Spanish Geese & Employee Engagement

As you would have seen via our blog, twitter feed and our newsletter, we are partners in the upcoming 2010 Employer Branding Summit (find out more here). We are especially interested in how organisations can tap into the power of narrative to improve employee engagement and build connections with possible employees outside of the organisation. In this article, Peter Schmitt (Tribalfish) draws on a very powerful metaphor of Spanish Geese to illustrate how organisations can capatialise on their employer brand. He writes: As [...]

By Aiden Choles|January 28th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

Elvis and the mathematics of metaphor

James Geary gives a great TED talk on Metaphor. It's definitely worth watching. We've been convinced of the power of metaphors, especially base metaphors in human systems and the way they govern behavior. As Geary says, a metaphor is a way of thought before it is a way with words. They live a secret life all around us, according to him we utter 6 metaphors per minute. It's therefore not surprising that they have a tremendous impact on how we see and behave [...]

By Aiden Choles|January 22nd, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: TED|0 Comments

First newsletter of 2010

We've just released the first 2010 edition of our newsletter, Dialogue. It has some very important thoughts on the role of conversation in business and how leaders can create a conversation culture through the use of Conversation Agents. Read it here.

By Aiden Choles|January 21st, 2010|Categories: News|0 Comments

The Abilene Paradox

There is an interesting phenomenon in social psychology called pluralistic ignorance or the "Abilene Paradox". In short it is the reluctance people have to voice a minority opinion in a group, especially if they feel that they're the only ones holding that opinion. When a group seems to be set on a certain idea or action, people will often not voice their disagreement with it if they feel they are the only ones against the group's position. Often this is [...]

By Aiden Choles|January 15th, 2010|Categories: Leadership & Decision Making|Tags: behavior decision making group dynamics, Paradox, safety|0 Comments

Analysis of narrative vs. narrative analysis

We're busy with a project in the education field requiring that we dip ourselves into a lot of academic research on the topic. Suffice it to say that I've not read as many journal articles since I graduated ;) Surprisingly (or not) there's been a lot of narrative work done in the education field regarding how people learn. One of the pertinent thoughts that I've found so far is the difference between the "analysis of narrative" and "narrative analysis. They [...]

By Aiden Choles|January 14th, 2010|Categories: Narrative|0 Comments

Monthly Archives: January 2010

Spanish Geese & Employee Engagement

Elvis and the mathematics of metaphor

First newsletter of 2010

The Abilene Paradox

Analysis of narrative vs. narrative analysis

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