This is Andrew Benedict-Nelson, social change strategist and innovation educator. Each week, I share a question that you and your organization can use to find a new perspective on the toughest problems you face. Reply to the e-mail or comment on the site and we can talk about them together!
NOW FOR THIS WEEK’S QUESTION…
When you look at the history of major social problems (as well as efforts to solve them) there are often figures whose stories dominate the past. Imagine for a moment that a current effort to solve the problem is so significant that it displaces this old story. What would need to happen? What might the consequences be?
When John Lennon said the Beatles were “more popular in Jesus” to a British journalist in 1966, the remark provoked no controversy in the UK. But when the interview was republished in the United States later that year right before the Revolver tour, Americans in the Bible Belt registered their displeasure to DJs and even burned Beatles records. The band eventually held a press conference where Lennon walked back the remark, saying, “I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I was not knocking it. I was not saying we are greater or better.” (Though as their manager Brian Epstein remarked at some point, “if they burn Beatles records, they have to buy them first.”)
The “bigger than Jesus” story shows how comparing oneself to revered figures from the past can get under people’s skins. This is true even when we aren’t talking about religious figures. If a nurse says he will have a greater impact than Florence Nightingale or a scientist says she will be more important than Charles Darwin, eyebrows will shoot up. It isn’t just a matter of statistical improbability — the stories of these individuals have taken on a value that solidifies social norms and makes them difficult to question.
That’s why we’re going to try. Imagine that you or your organization launches an effort so successful that it outshines the story of a key figure in your field. If you’d like, you can try the exercise with someone else’s solution — the point isn’t to hype yourself up, but instead to see what a “bigger than Jesus” moment might look like for your problem.
HOW TO DO IT
Your own personal Jesus — First, pick the “sacred” figure your story might disrupt. I encourage you to be as ambitious as possible, because the point of this exercise is to imagine maximum disruption. You should also make sure that you are targeting the “mythological” version of the figure, not just correcting the historical record or trying to take them down a peg. So it’s “we’ll be bigger than Gandhi because we’ll launch the greatest nonviolent movement in world history” not “we’re already better than Gandhi because of how he mistreated his family” (even if that story deserves to be known).
Re-examine the story — It’s critical for this exercise that you think about what role the story plays in the problem you are trying to solve. For example, even though the United States is filled with monuments to George Washington, it isn’t due to this military prowess or even the fact that he was the first president. Instead, he represents a set of ideals surrounding civic life and the presidency that few other individuals have even attempted to surpass. Make sure you can articulate what the revered person truly represents.
Outline the new story — To continue the example, let’s say you really did want to create such a great impact that you dislodged the stories of Washington or Gandhi. These two men are regarded as founders of their countries, their personal virtues intertwined with stories of the national character. So to be “bigger than Washington” you wouldn’t just need to be a really popular president. I imagine that you would need to fundamentally change the nature of the nation in some way. Figure out the same essential ingredients for your own story. Just how big would you have to be in order to be bigger than Jesus?
Put yourself in the story — (Or if you are using someone else’s efforts, put them in the story.) Once you’ve figured out what kind of disruption would need to occur to change the story, imagine a series of events that would link your current position to that outcome. It might be that you would need to take your organization in a new direction or start a mass movement of some kind. You might need to give up certain social norms that restrain behavior in your field, or create new ones that help people see things in a new way. But no matter how implausible the series of events may seem, sketch out how you might go from where you are now to the “bigger than Jesus” outcome.
Take what’s useful from the story — Guess what? John Lennon wasn’t bigger than Jesus, and he knew it. Nevertheless, the story took on a significance beyond a normal public relations snafu. It embodied questions people were asking at the time about the perceived decline of religion and the new kinds of meaning being derived from pop culture. In that sense, it’s absolute essential for understanding people who have used celebrity to exercise power, from Barack Obama to Elon Musk. In a similar way, you should look at the new story you tell and ask what you can take from the story and apply in an immediate, practical way. Even if you don’t end up bigger than Jesus, you might help people imagine a better world.
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE?
Absolutely. I sometimes run a less dramatic version of this exercise by asking people to imagine that the greatest moment in the story of their organization or social change effort hasn’t happened yet. This conversation was useful when Insight Labs helped examine strategy with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and then later with Rwanda’s Kigali Genocide Museum. In the case of the Holocaust, fewer survivors are with us every day, so telling the story of a “greatest moment” in the future necessitated imagining the time after all survivors have passed. By contrast, Rwanda is a young nation, and survivors of the genocide there will be alive for most of the 21st century. Seeing this contrast helped us understand how the memorial to the genocide required a different way of framing its social impact.
SO WHAT MAKES THIS WORK?
This question is an example of how to transform your thinking about a problem using the history dynamic. It’s one of six innovation dynamics I help people master to improve their critical thinking and build strategies for social change. Reply to this e-mail with your answer to the question and I’ll let you know what I think! Or learn more by visiting http://www.teachingsocialchange.com.