Public Narrative Christina Krause July 24, 2013

How do we create change at scale? Source: Marshall Ganz Shared understanding leads to Action Narrative why? Strategy what? Source: Helen Bevan, 2010

Not all emotions are equal … Some motivate and some inhibit actions When framing, you want to overcome the inhibitor emotions (action inhibitors) Source: Helen Bevan, 2011

Leadership Practices: Building Relationships Leaders learn to form interpersonal relationships that link individuals, networks and organizations Relationships create an opportunity for interests to grow, change and develop “social capital” –A relational capacity that can facilitate collaborative action Relationships amongst peers are as significant as those among leaders and between leaders and members Build a network and relationships and create leaders at all levels –Challenge: Cast net widely enough to recruit others to do this work Create the capacity to train them Offer coaching to support their development

Why respond to a challenge and take action? 1.How? Analytics – how to use resources efficiently, compare costs, etc 2.Why? Why it matters? Why care? Why value one goal over another? **To answer why – we use narrative – not why we think we ought to act, but rather why we do act Leadership Practices: Telling the Story

Power of Storytelling Communicate our values through emotion Stories share what we feel – our hopes, cares, obligations It often takes much more than knowing to inspire action Source: Samantha Bailey, Based Upon the Work of Marshall Ganz

Public Narrative You will learn to tell a story about: yourself revealing why you care about the issue you want to change the organisation or community who you are influencing the action required to create change and why it is urgent.

The key to motivation is understanding that values inspire action through emotion values emotion action Source: Marshall Ganz

Source: Samantha Bailey, Based Upon the Work of Marshall Ganz

who we are – our shared values, our shared experience, and why we do what we do transforms the present into a moment of challenge, hope, and choice transforms the present into a moment of challenge, hope, and choice Source: Samantha Bailey, Based Upon the Work of Marshall Ganz Story of Self Story of Us Story of Now who I am – my values, my experience, why I do what I do

What is your Public Narrative? 1.Story of Self: Why were you called to what you have been called to as a leader, the purpose in which you will ask others to join you? 2.Story of Us: To what values, experiences or aspirations do you hope to appeal to others when you ask them to join you in action? 3.Story of Now: What urgent challenges to these values does your team or community face now? What outcomes could you achieve by acting together, beginning now? Source: Marshall Ganz

Telling Your Narrative “A good Narrative is drawn from the series of choice points that have structured the “plot” of your life – the challenges you faced; choices you made and outcomes you experienced” Source: Marshall Ganz

What is your Public Narrative? Story of Self: Why were you called to what you have been called to as a leader, the purpose in which you will ask others to join you? -Our identity -Choices that have made us who we are -Values that shaped those choices -Share “choice points” = moments when we faced a challenge, experienced an outcome and learning -Adapt our story of self in response to feedback -WHERE WE CAME FROM; WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO; WHERE WE THINK WE”RE GOING Source: Marshall Ganz

What is your Public Narrative? Story of Us: To what values, experiences or aspirations do you hope to appeal to others when you ask them to join you in action? –Our stories of self overlap with our stories of us –Expresses values and experiences shared by the us we are evoking at the time –Articulates values of our community –creates collective identify Source: Marshall Ganz

What is your Public Narrative? Story of Now: What urgent challenges to these values does your team or community face now? What outcomes could you achieve by acting together, beginning now? Story and strategy overlap because a key element in hope is strategy –A credible vision of how to get from here to there Have to create a meaningful choice –NOT  “We must all choose to be better people” –Eliciting commitment to an action Can be small or large Source: Marshall Ganz

CHALLENGE – CHOICE – OUTCOME What turns recounting an event into a story? A plot begins with an unexpected challenge that confronts a character with an urgent need to pay attention, to make a choice, a choice for which you were unprepared. The choice yields an outcome – and the outcome teaches a moral.

Step 1: Focus on CHOICE points In our own story we reveal those moments in our lives when we experienced the influence of our values on the choices we subsequently made, which have shaped who we have become. When did you first care about being heard? When did you first experience injustice? When did you feel you had to act? Why did you feel you could act? What were the circumstances – the place, the colours, the sounds? Why did you choose to work in the public sector? Why do you stay?

Challenge, choice, outcome in your own story Once you identify a specific choice point – perhaps your first true experience of challenge or your choice to do something about it – think hard. Challenge Why did you feel it was a challenge? What was so challenging about it? Choice Why did you make the choice you did? Where did you get the courage (or not)? Where did you get the hope (or not)? Did your parents‘ or grandparents‘ life stories teach you in any way how to act in that moment? How did it feel?

Outcome How did the outcome feel? Why did it feel that way? What did it teach you? What do you want to teach us? How do you want us to feel?

1.What values does each of those choices convey? 2.What details or images caught your attention and also reflected those values? 3.When did she shift from a story about herself to a story of why now? 4.How was her story about herself relevant to her story of why now‘?

Tips for Brainstorming your Story of Self: Determine the challenge, the choice, the outcome you want to focus on for this story. Add specific details. How did it feel, what did it look like, what did it sound like, what did it smell like? What still moves you? The more detail you provide, the more the audience will be able to connect with you. Consider - who would you be telling this story to? What about it would move them? Keep it short – story of self should take no longer than two minutes. Source: Samantha Bailey, Based Upon the Work of Marshall Ganz

Exercise – Story of Self 1.First think about your purpose in asking others to join you. –What action are you going to ask them to do? 2.Now start to reflect on your own motivations for wanting to address this challenge. –Why is it important to you, so what values move you to act? –How might these values inspire others to similar action? 3.Now think hard. Where do these motivations and values come from? What public stories can I tell from my own life about specific people or events that would show (rather than tell) how I learned or acted on those values? Source: Helen Bevan, 2011