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Storytelling workshops

By Aiden Choles|June 29th, 2009|Categories: Culture, Narrative|Tags: peter christie, storytelling|

If you're interested in the more traditional application of storytelling, our good friend Peter Christie will be running a series of workshops on how you can harness your own storytelling ability. The two workshops are entitled: The North, South, East and West of Storytelling in Organisations (11th to 14th October) AND Life Storytelling in Organisations (14th to 17th October). They'll be run in the Maluti Mountains in the Free State. Contact Peter at bigchief@nottheboredroom.co.za if you're interested.

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2009 Accreditation kicks off

By Aiden Choles|June 22nd, 2009|Categories: Narrative, the narrativelab|Tags: accreditation, Cognitive Edge, Complexity, Narrative, steve bealing, the narrative lab|

The 2009 Cognitive Edge Accreditation kicked off in Johannesburg today. We're running the accreditation in conjunction with Cognitive Edge and Steve Bealing (CEO) is here from Singapore running the session. It's Steve's first visit to South African, and Africa for that fact. He's on a whirlwind learning curve on South African culture and traffic ... We'll be live-tweeting the event over the next few days athttp://twitter.com/narrativelab. Follow us there for course updates, thoughts and nuggets of wisdom on narrative and complexity.

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The non-crime hotline

By Aiden Choles|June 12th, 2009|Categories: Narrative|Tags: learning, Narrative, stories|

People often ask why "appreciative enquiry" is not our methodology of choice, and why so many negative stories, archetypes and values surface in our processes. One of the key arguments is that humans don't tend to learn from other people's success as it is very difficult to replicate, we can however learn much from other's mistakes as it tells us what to avoid. This great post by Shawn from Anecdote about the "non-crime hotline" serves to illustrate.

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J.J. Abrams: The mystery box

By Aiden Choles|June 11th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: mystery, Story|

I really enjoyed this TED talk by J.J. Abrams. Key points that stood out for me: Sometimes mystery is more important than knowledge Mystery is the catalyst for imagination Mystery offers Infinite possibility A blank page is a mystery box Stories are mystery boxes The difference between what you think you're getting vs what you're really getting is often profound The mystery box IS all of us - what is really inside of you?

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Using wisdom of crowds to find Air France 447 black box

By Aiden Choles|June 10th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|

It strikes me that the search for Air France 447, and the current search for it's black boxes, has been approached in a very routine way. The French nuclear submarine will be scouring 35 square kilometers a day in search of the black boxes. Is there not an easier way to estimate where they are, or retrospectively, in identifying the possible crash site? So, for example, why not try out James Surowiecki's "Wisdom of Crowds" approach to estimate the location? After all, [...]

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“I’ll go down, I’m not scared to die …”

By Aiden Choles|June 5th, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, safety|

Give me a chance to go down today, I'll do it! I'm desperate to get out of this poverty. I'm not scared to die or get arrested because even the police are involved in this. I don't blame zama-zamas; in fact I'm encouraged by their initiative." These are the words of a 18 year old jobless hostel resident in Welkom, South Africa. These words are especially disturbing after a week where at least 76 illegal miners (zama-zama's or chance-takers) have died [...]

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Narrative at 29th OD World Congress

By Aiden Choles|May 22nd, 2009|Categories: Narrative, the narrativelab|Tags: change management, Narrative, narrative lab, presenting|

We've been accepted to present, alongside some sharp thinkers, our approach to Narrative Change Management at the 29th Organisational DevelopmentWorld Congress. The Congress will take place on 20th and 21st July 2009 in Pretoria (info here). In our presentation, we'll profile how a narrative approach to change management can be applied within change programmes to improve engagement, resilience and awareness. In particular, we'll be looking at a case study of how we developed a Change Story for the Turnaround Strategy within theDepartment of Home Affairs. Hope to see you there.

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Swarm theory – does it apply to humans?

By Aiden Choles|May 21st, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: complex adaptive systems, Complexity, effective adaptation, self-organization, swarm theory, thrive|

"If you're looking for a role model in a world of complexity, you could do worse than to imitate a bee." This is the end quote from an engaging National Geographic article on Swarm Theory. As the quote suggests, there's much to learn from the swarming habits of insects in terms of finding novel, effective and efficient solutions to complex problems. The technical term for this process is "self-organisation" and the encouragement is for managers to, in the face of complex problems, implement a self-organising management [...]

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Xerox: stories important in change

By Aiden Choles|May 19th, 2009|Categories: News|Tags: change, change management, quotes, storytelling, xerox|

The turnaround of Xerox is an important case study in today's global economic situation. Here's a Fast Company article that outlines how important stories are in this context. The article also shows how litte "s" stories becomes Big "S" stories: Storytelling is hugely important. At our town meetings, the most frequently asked question wasn't whether we'd survive, but what we would look like when we did. I got great advice: Write a story. We wrote a Wall Street Journal article, because they [...]

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Our study featured on Mining Weekly

By Aiden Choles|May 19th, 2009|Categories: Narrative, the narrativelab|Tags: deloitte, mine safety, mining, narrative lab|

Our mining safety research collaboration with Deloitte has been profiled on Mining Weekly. Feel free to read/comment/distribute it. Read it here.

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