The exception that proves the rule
What can you learn by asking about exceptional times in the history of your problem?
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…
Every problem has a past, and we relate to the past through telling stories. Think of a story people tell about an exceptional moment in the history of your problem or efforts to address it. In particular, you are looking for lessons people draw from these stories. How do those lessons shape behavior around the problem today?
If I had an extra day in every one of my teaching or consulting engagements, I would just ask folks to sit around and tell stories. Happy stories, sad stories, mythical stories, secret stories. I learn so much on the occasions when folks are just able to ramble.
One reason I feel this way is that even if you are a dedicated researcher, there are stories you don’t get on the first try. Ask people about the history of the problem they are working on, and you will typically get stories about founders of their organization, profession, or movement. Press a little deeper and you might get some of their assumptions about causes of the problem or the reason it won’t go away. All that is good.
But there are also some unusual stories that accumulate around social problems that affect efforts to solve them. These aren’t the stories you hear on the first try or even the third. They are stories of unusual characters, strange times, or extraordinary circumstances. Yet these stories are rarely obscure — in fact, they are often universally understood as code for “You can’t do X because look what happened that one time it was tried” or “We would all like to do Y but you could only do it if you were an extraordinary leader like the one from this story.”
Unearthing these stories can also reveal assumptions about the problem and efforts to solve it. Let’s look at how to find them.
HOW TO DO IT
Create a safe space for story - Whether you are working in your own organization or addressing a diverse group of stakeholders, these exceptional stories likely won’t be the first ones you hear. If you are engaging in a formal research process, you will probably have to hear more “official” stories before you get to these exceptional ones. However, if you are already engaged with a group, you may notice one of these stories emerge on the fly. If so, try to hear it without judgment.
If you are looking at your own organization, you probably already know a few of these stories, but it will still benefit you to hear them retold by others. So take the time to actually hear the story again from colleagues, rather than just saying, “Oh we all know about what happened in 2007.”Ask the storytellers what lessons they draw from the story - I hesitate about the word “lesson” because what I actually mean is “theme.” For example, many communities have stories of people who made great sacrifices for the greater good; some people may emulate those characters while others may say, “I’m no Mother Teresa” (or whoever.) The “theme” oof the story can be applied multiple ways. However, in practice, most people will think of the inferences to be drawn from these stories as “lessons.” What you are really looking for is whatever set of ideas translate the story of the past into behavior now.
Learn what you can about when and how the story is shared. - Any time we investigate stories from a problem’s past, we should pay attention to the situations where that story is invoked. Is the story shared to encourage people or discourage them? Do they hear it as students or only when they’ve been invited into the halls of power? This is particularly important for these “exceptional” stories because of the way they tend to live beneath the surface. So the situations in which they emerge are usually the ones where behavior is being shaped.
Connect the story to present behavior. - What kind of behavior might be encouraged or discouraged by the telling of this story? There are probably some you can figure out right away through logical inference. But you’ll do even better if you can use your storytellers and their experiences as a guide. What do they do or not do as a result of hearing this story? The ideal outcome is if the story helps you to explain behavior that did not make sense any other way.
Analyze the story and the behavior for unchallenged assumptions. - One way to start doing this is by asking yourself, “What new behavior might be possible if everybody forgot this story?” That can draw your attention to possibilities no one may have considered. However, you may eventually have to work with a community where the story is not so easily disrupted. So if you feel like your storytellers are open to it, ask questions that tweak the assumptions of the story. For example, you can say things like, “You said people tell this story to encourage folks not to do what this person from the past did, but what might happen if more people followed their example?” This will give you a sense if there is possibility for change in the behaviors tied to the story.
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE?
Yeah, though in this case it’s a very general one. Ever since I was a kid, I have heard organization and communities dismiss idealistic or utopian plans with a line like, “This isn’t the Sixties.” And sure, that idea may line up with a very limited view of hippies, communes, and free love without consequences. The people peddling this line may have even experienced some version of that scene and have regrets about it.
Over time, I have learned to respond to respond to these kinds of stories by insisting on historical specificity. For example, invoking “the Sixties” can be a way of conflating idealistic Great Society programs with a cultural moment of perceived moral decadence. That connection falls apart if you ask, “So are you saying you are worried it is going to turn out more like Medicare or more like Head Start?”
But this exercise isn’t really about questioning the exceptional story. The people saying “This isn’t the Sixties” had probably themselves heard that story at a moment of quashed idealism. So instead of questioning them, I would probably do better to ask something like, “But what if it were…?” and see what emerges.
GROOVY, SO WHAT MAKES THIS WORK?
This question is an example of how to better understand assumptions about your 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.