How It Works

		What are all these links?
	Is this only about business?

	Our intention is to explore what happens when we bring our ideas of work up close to who we are as people. This means we explore what it would look like to bring more of ourselves to our work (whether that's how we make our living or not). We explore how we came to understand what it means to be "professional", and how who we are at work affects how we are in the rest of our lives. Frequently, this means our stories are not about business at all. They've been about families and neighbors, children and politicians, pet cats and money, and whatever else we care to talk about.

	What happens at meetings?

	A typical meeting starts with a brief personal introduction; then we spend about an hour sharing experiences or stories around a topic, which is publicized in advance. After those who want to have spoken, we then move into an open dialogue about the ideas and questions that emerge from the stories. This is when we discover new ways of looking at issues, and pick up insights and encouragement in the process. In order to make these meetings safe and comfortable, especially for newcomers, we have adopted a few ground rules, including: Speak to create understanding. Listen to understand, not to fix. Whomever has the Talking Stick can speak without being interrupted. Take care of yourself - with respect for others. What is said here stays among us - unless specific permission is given. Practice sharing in the leadership of the group, in the spirit of our purpose. Finally, we sometimes experiment with other types of storytelling, such as inviting guest storytellers, sharing movie-clips or cartoons, role-playing and improvisation, or making up stories as a group.

	Why meet outside of work?

	Many organizations are in the process of transformation, evolving toward a vision that reflects a sense of their members' true capacities to contribute. Yet, support for stepping into our full wisdom at work may not happen completely within the organization. There is by nature a discontinuity in learning and community-building efforts in corporations, because relationships are typically predicated on business results within a relatively short period of time. Therefore, we also need support for making choices and developing ourselves that are not entirely mediated through our work organizations. We need support that reflects the truth that the organization is us, structured according to a convention we all subscribe to, and that we can change. However much this may benefit the organization, there are likely to be limits to exploring this perspective internally.

	What do we talk about?

	Recently, we've shared stories on topics such as: What were our first experiences of work? How did we learn what work was? Where have we experienced belonging and community? What is worth committing to in life? What are our experiences with speaking the truth? What are our experiences around authority? Future topics may include: Deadlines, time and priorities Responding to other people's change Demonstrating business results Speaking loudly Practical jokes Heroics Contradictions and more....

	What are some background assumptions behind this idea?

	These are some of the beliefs that are behind our approach to storytelling and business: One element missing in most organizational transformation efforts is a way to form or continue a supportive community that isn't conditional upon organizational support or the ability to produce business results within a specific time period. And many change efforts are intermittent - due to the nature of change in complex organizations and rapidly changing environments - so it would be useful to complement internal efforts with external support. Many people operate from wisdom and integrity, but when they attempt to live up to values that differ from the norm in the workplace, they can end up feeling isolated. Over time, they may feel swamped by larger forces and give up, shutting down inside or adopting a victim orientation. One way out is to participate more actively in the organizational dialogue. There are no simple solutions to these issues, because they are really around inventing new ways of being together. But if we are to participate in the process, we need support: a safe place to speak honestly about feelings, needs, intentions; people to remind us of why we're out there; and ideas about how to address challenges. Story can be a powerful entry point - a pathway to dialogue, inquiry, reflection, mental models, learning, memory, connection, vision, speaking alternative realities, and action. There is movement in sharing stories of pain when they are authentically told and compassionately heard.

	How are we organized?

	Business Storytellers^SM is currently sponsored by Bridge Interactive, Inc., with essential contributions from many others as stewards, facilitators, "brainstormers" and members. There are active Business Storytellers^SM groups in San Francisco, San Carlos, Oakland, California and Denver, Colorado. Groups meet between monthly and quarterly, in a location convenient to work. They are hosted by one or two primary facilitators. Facilitators sometimes arrange for notes from the sessions to be posted on-line, and moderate any related on-line discussions. Groups are self-supporting financially, collecting fees at each meeting to cover location costs, the website and other materials. RSVP's are requested, to minimize unecessary costs, although anyone is welcome to drop in. As the circles grow, we add additional circles on other nights or in other locations, to keep the meetings to about 10-15 people. At any time, a group can elect to commit for a four month cycle, allowing no new members for that time. At that point, we would add another group for newcomers. On-line participation levels in new areas may also prompt the creation of a new group.

	What if you want to create a new group?

	Creating a new group typically requires two people who are committed and capable of sharing the role of facilitator, and at least three regular attendees to provide continuity and stability in the circle. Realistically, you'll also need a convenient location (such as someone's home, or a library, conference room, school basement), and a list of 10-15 people you'd like to invite. If you think you'd like to start a new group, simply contact us and we'll tell you about the Facilitator's Guide, which makes it easy to get started.

	What support does this need?

	People to hold the organization's purpose and intentions, supporting those involved People to convene and/or facilitate sessions in new locations People to attend sessions and hold the container for authentic sharing People to cultivate awareness, inviting those who would benefit in participating People to participate on-line and experiment with creating safe containers for sharing there

When I first became involved in the Diversity Committee, I was quite surprised at the difference between what senior managers said publicly and their private concerns about the subject. Upset after one conversation, I called a more experienced consultant I admired. "Listen," he said, "You're a germ. And if they find out you're a germ, they'll send the anti-bodies after you. So you need to disguise yourself until the day when you can go into the phone booth and put on your super-germ outfit and come out flying. But if you show yourself now, you'll catch trouble. It won't be direct, just little things like people rolling their eyes when you speak at a meeting."

"Most change initiatives fail. Two independent studies in the early 1990s, one published by Arthur D. Little and one by McKinsey & Co., found that out of the hundreds of corporate Total Quality Management (TQM) programs studied, about two thirds 'grind to a halt because of their failure to produce hoped-for results.' Reengineering has fared no better; a number of articles, including some by reengineering's founders, place the failure rate somewhere around 70 percent. "

"A great change came over capitalism itself about 1880 or 1890. Formerly characterized by a very large number of very small units, small businesses run by individuals, partnerships, or small companies, it was increasingly characterized by large and impersonal corporations. The attractions of the 'limited liability' corporation as a form of business organization and as a means of encouraging investment arose from laws, enacted by most countries in the nineteenth century, which limited the individual investor's personal loss in the event of a bankruptcy to the amount of his shares of stock in the enterprise."

"People talk about corporations like they ARE something, like they have some real existence aside from what we give them. They forget, the corporation is us."

"Dilbert, do a presentation for the big boss tomorrow morning on the status of your project.. --There isn't any status. You only assigned the project an hour ago. --Well then, do a presentation on why there's no status. --I don't have time before tomorrow morning. --Okay, then just do a presentation on why there's no time to do a presentation of the status.. and I want to review it two days before you present it. --That would be yesterday. Should I do a presentation on why tomorrow is less than two days from today? --Hmm, good. The boss likes that analytical stuff."

"To Foucault, language is an instrument of power, and people have power in a society in direct proportion to their ability to participate in the various discourses that shape that society. ...He argues that there is an inseparable link between knowledge and power: the discourses of society determine which knowledge is held to be true, right, or proper in that society, so those who control the discourses control the knowledge. At the same time, the dominant knowledge of a given milieu determines who will be able to occupy its powerful positions. ...Alternative, competing stories are generally not allocated space in establishment channels and must seek expression in underground media and dissident groupings. ...For instance, in her monograph 'Playing in the Dark', Toni Morrison discusses how the 'knowledge' of American literary historians and critics...'holds that traditional, canonical American literature is free of, uninformed, and unshaped by the four-hundred-year-old presence of, first, Africans and then African-Americans in the United States. It assumes that this presence - which shaped the body politic, the Constitution, and the entire history of the culture - has had no significant place or consequence in the origin and development of that culture's literature.' ...Discourses can change and evolve when conversations between people affect culturally available narratives. That is, knowledge at a local level and from subcommunities can influence larger discourses. As simple as it may seem, ... simply listening to the story someone tells us constitutes a revolutionary act.

"Inside his mind was a stone like an egg. He took a deep breath, let it out, and imagined that his mind and his memories were inside the rock. He set a ward, the tiniest speck of mindstuff, to watch and wait and bring him out again when it was safe or necessary. ...he took the crystal egg of his mind and his memories, of what was in him that he believed made him, and fled. The more they came after him with drugs and questions, the farther away he hid. And the stone was buried deep, deep, underground. Where his mind had been was something opaque and resilient that memory bounced away from."

"Gumption is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going. If you haven't got it there's no way the motorcycle can possibly be fixed. But if you have got it and know how to keep it there's absolutely no way in this whole world that motorcycle can keep from getting fixed. It's bound to happen. Therefore the thing that must be monitored at all times and preserved before anything else is the gumption."

"Let us keep in mind that the best cannot hide. Meditation, education, all the dream analysis, all the knowledge of God's green acre is of no value if one keeps it all to oneself or one's chosen few. So come out, come out wherever you are. Leave deep footprints because you can. Be the old woman in the rocking chair who rocks the idea until it becomes young again."

"Some of us will go to quite extraordinary lengths to avoid our problems and the suffering they cause, proceeding far afield from all that is clearly good and sensible in order to try to find an easy way out. In the succinctly elegant words of Carl Jung: Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering."

"This is so necessary, given the way organizations operate today - it's a butterfly bombshell."

"This is great - you could really make it fun. And, practically speaking, you can start low to the ground with just a couple of simple advertisements."

"I'm not sure you need to come from outside the organization. There is power in being a Trojan Horse, because when initiatives stop, individuals who were inspired keep sharing the ideas."

"Even as a consultant, my purpose is not business results. What I do does help business results, but my purpose is really about the people, too."

"I didn't see why you were drawing the distinction between what's good for organizations and what's good for people, but, it makes complete sense now that you relate it to the continuity challenges around change efforts."

"I like the idea of story and business...I'm interested in the organizational story, like the family story that explains why we function this way. It's infuriating when leaders tell inspiring stories about how we could be, though, and then contradict themselves so dramatically with their actions."

"This is an opportunity to help individuals find their own integrity in the business environment, through an accessible format. It's especially relevant now as there's so much chaos. I wonder whether I personally would have anything to offer, though."

"My boss is the one with the politics - he pretty much decides what to do and handles it. I don't think it really affects me."

"Stories are not enough – you can get stuck in them if there isn't help to move on to working through mental models."

"Oh, my, that sounds incredible... a way to connect people to what they care about."

"Oh, wow... I'd like to be there... but share? I don't know if I have anything to tell..."

"This is really changing things for me. I was burnt out, facing ill health, and my workload was seriously damaging my personal life. After that second meeting, I went to the office the next day and called the HR department. I said, 'I've given a lot to this company over the years; now there's something I need....'"