Author: Steven Ober

This post as a distillation from Chapter IV of my upcoming book: Unleashing the Power of Your Story

smashwords, Winter, 2013.

My last post focused on learning to see your current story. This entry is about creating a new one.

You Can Change your Story

Remember that we are exploring the story you have told yourself about your life experiences. You are not a victim here. You created the story, and you can change it. You can come to reframe it and see your story anew–as a source of grace and wisdom rather than as a one of hurt and constraint. You can also learn to modify the parts that hold you back, emphasize the parts that work, and create a new leadership story that is more aligned with your highest aspirations. This learning process may happen in a step-by-step fashion or more organically, but, either way, the elements of adopting a new story are the ones below.

Learn to See your Old story

Seeing your systemic story (previous post) helps you identify your patterns of behavior over time and the assumptions that support them. Usually we make these assumptions without even realizing we are doing so; they are implicit. For example, if your story is about not pushing back on authority figures, an underlying assumption is probably that such behavior will impact you negatively. Through story work, our implicit assumptions can become explicit and, therefore, more easily changed.

Ask yourself, “Do the behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and assumptions that comprise my story really fit my present day situation?” Often the answer is no. They may have been effective in the earlier situation(s) for which you developed them, but now they are not.

Once you see your story, alternatives become almost immediately apparent. In the example above, an alternative behavior is to speak your mind diplomatically in front of superiors, and a different assumption would be that so doing actually causes them to see you in a better light and respect you more

Identify how you want to be as a leader

At this point, you have a good picture of your systemic story, how it has contributed to patterns of behavior over time, how it plays out in present day high stakes situations, and what some other options may be.

Reflect on how you want to be as a leader. Picture yourself as being that leader. Then, identify specific behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that you want to be engaging in. Notice and adopt key assumptions that support these new ways of being.

Let’s say your story includes something like: “I never say no to new opportunities and challenges because I don’t want to be seen as inadequate.” As a result, you get overloaded and stressed. You have thought about a number of possible alternatives. The new story you choose is, “I say yes when I truly want to, I say no when that is called for, and I negotiate when I think appropriate. My life is in balance.” Then identify specific behaviors and assumptions that will support your new story, for example, the behavior of sometimes saying no to authority and the assumption that they, rather than thinking less of you, will respect you for standing up for yourself.

Undertake Behavioral Experiments

To bring your new story into being, identify specific behavioral experiments–situations in which you will try out your new behaviors and assumptions. For example, “In our upcoming budget meeting, I am going to state my position very clearly and not cave in when people question me.” Again, you might begin your experiments in situations that are lower risk and later try them in situations that are higher risk–holding your own in the budget meeting may be less risky for you than opposing your boss in a 1/1 stand off.

Pay attention to what comes up

Try your experiments and notice what comes up for you—what you think, what you feel, what you say to yourself. Chances are you will experience both some satisfaction at having done something new and some anxiety in having tried something unfamiliar. Affirm your feelings of satisfaction and notice the thoughts and feelings from the old story. Notice them but don’t get tangled up in them. Metaphorically step back from them, see them, and recognize that they are part of the normal mix of things but that you don’t have to let them be in control. Choose to act in ways that support what you want to create.

When you are trapped by your old story and engage in less than optimal responses, your story is in the driver’s seat. When you choose and practice a new story, your choice is in the driver’s seat.

Sustain the Changes

Finally, to create sustainable changes in your behavior, make aligned, supportive changes at three key levels of your life system. Shift your behavior (your face to face system). Modify how you think and feel—practice adjustments in your thinking and feeling (your internal system) that support the behavioral changes you have made. And lastly, create elements in your social environment (your larger social system—family, organization, and/or community) that also foster the new way of being e.g. modifying your job description with your boss, changing organizations, tapping into your professional support network.

Reflection and Practice

Set aside an hour to reflect on your current and desired leadership stories.

• Reflect on a recent leadership challenge that was high stakes for you. In your mind, put yourself into that situation. Notice what you were thinking (your self talk), what you were feeling, and what you did. Identify the assumptions you were making that lay under what you did. In all likelihood, you now have a pretty good version of your systemic story.
• Identify the kind of leader you want to be as you face future leadership challenges. Identify the thoughts, feelings and behaviors you want to exhibit. Identify new assumptions that support these new ways of behaving.
• Select 1-3 upcoming situations in which you will practice your new way of being as a leader.
• As you are trying new things out, notice what comes up for you. Notice your satisfaction. Also notice the voices that are trying to dissuade you from your new way of leading. Simply notice them, but don’t get enmeshed in them. Say to yourself, “that’s just my self talk. Those are just some of the things that come up, but I don’t have let them be in control.”
• Choose to engage in your new behaviors, notice the results you get, and notice your satisfaction at having successfully done something new.
• Continue with your experiments until the new ways of leading became a natural part of your way of being.

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach.

If you would like to learn more about systemic approaches to leadership or story work, feel free to call or email Steve:

Steven P. Ober EdD

President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Affiliate: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
Email: Steve@ChrysalisCoaching.org

Website: www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

Leadership Blog: https://staging.management.org/blogs/leadership

This post is a distillation from Chapter IV of Steve’s upcoming book: Unleashing the Power of Your Story

Smash Words, Fall/Winter, 2013.

Your Story at Play in your Leadership

Have you ever been in the middle of a leadership situation and felt, “I’ve been here before”? The content of the situation may be new, but nonetheless, the territory seems very familiar. Have you experienced a tough, high-pressure challenge that was important for you to deal with effectively, but you felt stuck? You may have experienced yourself trying the same things over and over again, each time trying a little harder, and each time feeling more stuck. Conversely, you have probably experienced leadership challenges that came out wonderfully despite huge problems; you performed to the max, your energy flowed naturally, and you were successful. You may or may not have known why things went so well, but you knew that they did, and you knew you felt great.

Experiences like those above are reflections of your deep systemic story at play in your leadership.

One of the most powerful ways to understand your leadership, to learn why you behave and lead as you do, and to discover ways of significantly increasing your effectiveness as a leader, is to understand your systemic story.

What is a Systemic Story?

Your systemic story is the story you have told yourself about your experience in systems, particularly the first system of which you were a part. It reflects how you learned to survive and operate in systems; for example, your story reflects how you learned to:

Relate to key players in your life system

Achieve Success

Get noticed, or avoid being noticed

Protect yourself and take risks

Respond to authority, and exert your own authority

Give and receive love

At its core, your systemic story is the internal narrative you have created about your experience of the human condition. As such, it is central to who you are as a human being, as a leader, as a coach, and as a consultant.

Seeing your Story

Sometimes, trying to see your own story without someone to reflect with is akin to trying to see your own face without a mirror. Working with your story requires the capacity to parallel process—to watch yourself doing what you are doing, the ability to reflect deeply and learn from that reflection, a great measure of patience, and practice, practice, practice. It also requires a framework to help you think about and understand your story. Hopefully, this material will provide you with the kind of framework and mirror that you need. Having a useful framework, deep self-reflection, and lots of practice can lead to powerful breakthroughs.

Reflection 1

In the journey of learning to see your own systemic story, start observing yourself. “Stand on your own shoulder”, “on the balcony”, and watch yourself in interactions.

Pay particular attention to how you handle challenging situations—what you think about them, how you feel about them, and what you do about them. Thinking, Feeling, and Acting (meaning, affect, and power) are the three fundamental components of your story.

Reflection 2

After doing the above a few times, continue practicing. Observe yourself doing what you are doing, particularly in important, high stakes situations. As David Kantor says, “learn to save 15% of your mind to observe yourself and let the other 85% deal with content.” Learn to pay attention to your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in these situations.

To see your story even more clearly, ask yourself “What is my self talk about this situation? What am I telling myself about it?” Start to think about your self-talk, what you are telling yourself, as a story. Answer this question: “What is the story I am telling myself about this situation?”

Ask yourself “is this way of thinking, behaving, and feeling new for me, or have I done them before? Many people respond to this question with an answer like, “Oh, I’ve always done that; I’ve always been this way.” If something like that is your answer, you can be almost certain that you are beginning to see the plotline of your deep story.

As you practice observing and reflecting, you will find that your thoughts, feelings and behaviors do indeed fit into a storyline that reflects how you have learned to survive and succeed in systems.

Next: Creating a New Story

For many, seeing their story is a breakthrough. As Peter Block once said, “The first step to getting out of the cage you are in is to see the cage you are in.” People often feel a sense of release and start spontaneously thinking, feeling, and behaving differently; they start creating a new story. There are also specific things you can do to create and refine a new leadership story for yourself. Those steps will be the topic of my next post.

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach.

If you would like to learn more about systemic approaches to leadership or story work, feel free to call or email Steve:

Steven P. Ober EdD

President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Affiliate: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
Email: steven.p.ober@gmail.com
www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

Leadership Blog: https://staging.management.org/blogs/leadership

The World of Stories

Human history and literature are replete with myths and stories—about the heavens, the earth, planting, the harvest, winter, summer, light, darkness, nations, war, peace, families, and individuals.

All of these stories, our personal ones and our larger myths, are interconnected. Our individual stories are narratives we have told ourselves about our personal experiences. Our cultural myths are narratives we have created about our collective experience. And, in a very real sense, myths are more universal versions of our own stories, and our own stories are personal versions of age-old myths. Coming to know your own story is high leverage for your growth as a leader

Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey

There are remarkable parallels between stories from different cultures and with very different content. These parallels reflect commonalities in the human condition. Joseph Campbell identified a story-type that is particularly applicable to leadership—The Hero’s Journey.Hero’s Journey stories appear in all cultures, but their underlying character, plot, and thematic structure are much the same.

1. The hero begins in a stable place.
2. Something breaks her loose.
3. He goes into a difficult period, the pit, a trauma. He faces the abyss.
4. She emerges from that dark night of the soul and goes on a journey, a quest to accomplish some great thing, meet some great challenge, and/or get to a particular place.
5. The hero experiences several tests along the way
6. If the hero passes his tests and is successful in his journey, he achieves his goal, meets his great challenge, and reaches his desired destination.

Our life story can be seen as a Hero’s journey, and for leaders, your leadership story is your own hero’s journey.

For example, Dave is a highly successful mid level leader in a major corporation (stable place). He is promoted to senior management (promotion breaks him loose). Faced with difficult new challenges, he knows deeply that what got him to this point won’t make him successful there (a trauma) and realizes that his has to change his behavior and thinking as a leader (his journey). He experiences specific leadership challenges that he must overcome (tests) in order to be successful in this new world (his desired destination).

Seeing the story you are experiencing as a leader helps you rise above and master it, rather than letting the story master you.

The Tapestry of Life

Myths and personal stories are the symbolic, liturgical retelling of our core life experiences; of our quests for love, power and meaning; of the deeply experienced themes of our existence as human beings on this planet. Your leadership journey, your overall life journey, and your journey in your current phase of life are intimately intertwined. They are all variations of your own hero’s journey. Such is your life story; such is your hero’s journey; such is your leadership story; and such is the human condition. They are all part of one whole cloth.

Reflection

To see your own present and desired leadership story, ask yourself,

• “Where am I in my leadership journey, right now?
• What was my last plateau? What shook me loose?
• What is my destination, my goal? What are the major challenges I will face in reaching that goal?
• How do I proceed effectively and humanely to achieve my goal?”

Your answers to these questions will begin to paint the picture of your own hero’s journey and help you navigate it more effectively.

This post as a distillation from Chapter III of my upcoming book: Unleashing the Power of Your Story

Smashwords, Fall/Winter, 2013.

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach. See http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com

If you would like to learn more about systemic approaches to leadership or story work, feel free to call or email Steve:

Steven P. Ober EdD

President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Affiliate: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
Email: Steve@ChhrysalisCoaching.org
www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

“There is nothing so practical as a good theory”

Kurt Lewin

This post is my fourth in a series on what I call Leadership Story Work, which is a way leaders and others can dramatically increase their effectiveness and authenticity through working with their deep personal stories.

In this post I will summarize core ideas reflected in story work. Understanding these ideas can enrich our experience oF stories.

How we Co-create our Reality

The fundamental notion underlying story work is that we co create our social reality through the stories we tell ourselves about our interactions with one another and the world. This idea flows primarily from two places

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle posits that we cannot measure all of the properties of light at the same time. When we look at the wave properties, we cannot see the particle properties, because one kind of measurement screens out the other. What we observe is a function of the instrumentation we use. So, if we use instrumentation to measure waves, what do we see? Waves. There is a very real sense in which what we have chosen to observe is what we see. In other words, we co-create our experience of the world by how we interact with it and what we tell ourselves those interactions mean.

Similarly, The Observer Effect in physics refers to changes our observations make on the phenomena we observe. We cannot observe something in a totally removed, objective manner. When we observe something, the act of observation modifies what we are looking at. As soon as we enter a field of observation, we become part of it and help shape it. Thereby, we co-create our experience of what we are seeing.

Examples from the Social Sciences

During the 20^th Century, every major discipline, from Philosophy to Physics to Biology developed its own applications of this participatory view. Three examples from the social sciences are:

Social Constructionism suggests that we largely construct our social reality and its meaning through the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences.

In like manner, Symbolic Interactionism suggests that we are not simple, linear stimulus response creatures. We are stimulus-interpretation-response creatures. Our experience of reality has as much to do with our interpretation of events as it does with the events themselves.

Chris Argyris Ladder of Inference is a model of how we think that demonstrates how the instrument of our mind selects from around us the data that we actually see, then decides what the data means, reaches a conclusion, and decides what to do. Our conclusions and actions are based as much on how we have sorted the data and the meaning we have given it as they are on the data themselves.

Where do our screening frameworks, interpretations, ascribed meanings, and attributions come from? Social Constructionism suggests that they come from our internal narrative–from our stories. If you want to learn something about your story and your deep inner self, pay attention to how you interpret situations and react to them, especially situations that you experience in some way as threatening or high stakes. Therein, your story is at play. What you are telling yourself, what you are doing, and what you are feeling, particularly in very challenging situations, are windows into your deep personal story.

Time after Time, Good after Bad

Two other key ideas reflected in Story Work are important to mention:

How we think about and experience time:

The Traditional Linear View of Time: We usually talk about time using a linear model. We think about sequences of events that comprise our lives to this point. We talk about “timelines” and seem to believe that our major life experiences fall neatly onto these lines in a linear sequence. Our previous experiences were a long time ago, and we are very distant from them now. What happened in the past is over.

Some traditional approaches to coaching reflect this linear view of time, and some go so far as to suggest that, if we talk about the past rather than just the present, what we are doing is not coaching. Coaching is not about the past. We don’t deal with it; we only deal with the present.

A Systemic View of Time: Story work reflects a very different way of thinking about and experiencing time. Story work’s view of time is more akin to Faulkner’s, who said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

In discussing his book, Loving Grief[1], Paul Bennett suggests a different, more systemic way to think about time. Rather than being linear, our experience of time, and some would say time itself, are more like the rings in a tree. We start with a core and grow around it; we build on our experiences rather than moving away from them.

Rather than saying, “If we talk about the past, it’s not coaching,” story work’s view of time would say, “Because they are so intricately intertwined, we can’t talk about the present without talking about the past”—because we experience, interpret, and respond to today’s events through lenses we have created, through the lenses of our stories.

Perhaps people who say, “we deal with the present, not the past” or, “We don’t talk about the past” are drawing a false dichotomy. Our life experiences are part of one organic, systemic whole rather than being “what was in the past and what is in the present.” Like Jesus said about the poor, “Our stories we always have with us.” They are part of what makes us who we are.

How we frame “negative” experiences. There seems to be a belief in some coaching and consulting circles that the best way to deal with our negative, less pleasant experiences is not to deal with them. If we focus on them, we tend to reinforce them, get stuck in them, and give them more power. Appreciative inquiry means looking at and talking about only the positive.

This way of thinking about being appreciative is reminiscent of the old saying “Denial is more than a River in Egypt.” It attempts to screen out many of our experiences and thereby runs the risk of blocking opportunities for some of our deepest learning and growth.

An alternative view is that, paradoxically, denying “negative” experiences actually strengthens their grip upon us, keeps us from reframing them, and closes the door to our learning to appreciate them more deeply. However, being honest about them can be a source of release and wisdom.

When we learn to see and speak the truth about all of our experiences, we come to deeply appreciate and reframe them. When that which had been un-discussable becomes discussable in a productive way, we are set free.

In my experience, the most powerful leaders, teams, and organizations are not those who report only the positive and who never experience stuck places, dark nights of the soul, “negative” things. Those experiences are part of the human condition. The most powerful leaders are those who embrace their negative experiences, go through them, learn from them, and come out much stronger on the other side.

A key aspect of story work is learning to see, acknowledge, and reframe all of our experiences—both negative and positive.

Summary: When we fully embrace our stories, reality is not objective, cause and effect are not linear, the past is not past, and the negative is not negative. They are all sources of grace that help us come to terms with the human condition so that we do not deny it but, rather, appreciate it anew. They become, paradoxically, routes to transformation.

————-

The three previous posts that lead up to this one were:

The Presence and Power of Stories

Leadership for our Era

Examining your Own Story

These three posts are summaries from the preface and Chapter One of my upcoming E Book, Unleashing the Power of your Story. Today’s and my next several posts will each be a summary from the remaining chapters of the book. Today’s post is a summary of Chapter 2: Context: Larger Ideas and Meaning

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach. See http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com

If you would like to learn more about systemic approaches to leadership or story work, feel free to call or email Steve at:

Steven P. Ober EdD

President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Affiliate: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
Email: steven.p.ober@gmail.com
www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

Leadership Blog: https://staging.management.org/blogs/leadership

The world and our species are in states of deep transition. Many describe our present situation as a planet and a people as one of great turmoil. We experience constant “wars and rumors of wars;” we hover on the verge of economic collapse; our political systems seem unable to address societal problems.

Even more profoundly, the ecosystem necessary to sustain human life on our planet is at risk; we have created for ourselves a major threat to our civilizations, and to our survival as a species. Our climate is changing; extreme weather events are occurring more frequently, and time is running out.

As Kurt Vonnegut stated so poignantly, these realities are having a powerful effect on our consciousness:

”Is there nothing about the United States of my youth, aside from youth itself, that I miss sorely now?” opined Vonnegut. “There is one thing I miss so much that I can hardly stand it, which is freedom from the certain knowledge that human beings will very soon have made this moist, blue-green planed uninhabitable by human beings.”

From Our Choice by Al Gore

Indeed, earlier civilizations have experienced economic, political and environmental Collapse. Numerous Central and South American civilizations had come and gone over the thousands of years before Columbus arrived at islands off this continent’s shores. Some of these earlier civilizations destroyed themselves through war, some through greed, and, yes, some through destruction of their environment. Others were destroyed by disease brought by visitors from across the oceans. (See 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann and Guns, Germs and Steele buy Jared Diamond).

The difference now is not that we as a species are encountering these cataclysmic shifts for the first time. The difference now is the scale on which we are experiencing them. Our species has become so large in number, and so interconnected, that we now face these challenges on a global scale. We are regarded by many, and I think accurately so, as a species out of control, a species in danger of destroying not only ourselves, but also the ecosystem on which we depend for survival.

Some refer to this period as “The Great Turning.” Many believe that we are at a critical, make or break turning point as a species. One fork in the road will lead to disaster, to a situation in which our planet can no longer support human life and human civilization as we know them. The other path leads to a new level of integration with one another and our environment and a new level of consciousness as a species. Depending upon the choices we make, we can either destroy ourselves or evolve to a higher state.

We need many things to address today’s crises and to evolve, including a clear vision of a better world, the ability to collaborate in ways we haven’t yet imagined, and the political will to make the required changes in our legal and social infrastructures. Another of the things we certainly need is to be grounded in who we are—to be able to act with a conviction based on our deepest view of ourselves. To meet today’s challenges effectively, we need leaders and followers who can operate from this deeply grounded state and draw upon our wellsprings of wisdom, strength and courage. Story work can help us become so grounded and operate from that place of personal alignment. It will help us be clear about who we are and enable us to have the reserves of strength, authenticity, and good sense to address contemporary challenges successfully.

If you would like to learn more about story work and/or consider story coaching, feel free to call or email me at:

Steven P. Ober EdD
President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Affiliate: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
Email: steven.p.ober@gmail.com
www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

Leadership Blog: HYPERLINK “https://staging.management.org/blogs/leadership” \t “_blank” https://staging.management.org/blogs/leadership

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach. See HYPERLINK “http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com” http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com.

The world and our species are in states of deep transition. Many describe our present situation as a planet and a people as one of great turmoil. We experience constant “wars and rumors of wars;” we hover on the verge of economic collapse; our political systems seem unable to address societal problems.

Even more profoundly, the ecosystem necessary to sustain human life on our planet is at risk; we have created for ourselves a major threat to our civilizations, and to our survival as a species. Our climate is changing; extreme weather events are occurring more frequently, and time is running out.

As Kurt Vonnegut stated so poignantly, these realities are having a powerful effect on our consciousness:

”Is there nothing about the United States of my youth, aside from youth itself, that I miss sorely now?” opined Vonnegut. “There is one thing I miss so much that I can hardly stand it, which is freedom from the certain knowledge that human beings will very soon have made this moist, blue-green planed uninhabitable by human beings.”

From Our Choice by Al Gore

Indeed, earlier civilizations have experienced economic, political and

environmental Collapse. Numerous Central and South American

civilizations had come and gone over the thousands of years before Columbus arrived at islands off this continent’s shores. Some of these earlier civilizations destroyed themselves through war, some through greed, and, yes, some through destruction of their environment. Others were destroyed by disease brought by visitors from across the oceans. (See 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann and Guns, Germs and Steele buy Jared Diamond).

The difference now is not that we as a species are encountering these cataclysmic shifts for the first time. The difference now is the scale on which we are experiencing them. Our species has become so large in number, and so interconnected, that we now face these challenges on a global scale. We are regarded by many, and I think accurately so, as a species out of control, a species in danger of destroying not only ourselves, but also the ecosystem on which we depend for survival.

Some refer to this period as “The Great Turning.” Many believe that we are at a critical, make or break turning point as a species. One fork in the road will lead to disaster, to a situation in which our planet can no longer support human life and human civilization as we know them. The other path leads to a new level of integration with one another and our environment and a new level of consciousness as a species. Depending upon the choices we make, we can either destroy ourselves or evolve to a higher state.

We need many things to address today’s crises and to evolve, including a clear vision of a better world, the ability to collaborate in ways we haven’t yet imagined, and the political will to make the required changes in our legal and social infrastructures. Another of the things we certainly need is to be grounded in who we are—to be able to act with a conviction based on our deepest view of ourselves. To meet today’s challenges effectively, we need leaders and followers who can operate from this deeply grounded state and draw upon our wellsprings of wisdom, strength and courage. Story work can help us become so grounded and operate from that place of personal alignment. It will help us be clear about who we are and enable us to have the reserves of strength, authenticity, and good sense to address contemporary challenges successfully.

This post is the second one from Unleashing the Power of your Story, an upcoming E-Book by Steven Ober.

If you would like to learn more about story work and/or consider story coaching, feel free to call or email me at:

Steven P. Ober EdD
President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Affiliate: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
Email: steven.p.ober@gmail.com
www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

Leadership Blog: https://staging.management.org/blogs/leadership

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach. See http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com.

A New Series

In 2010, I posted a series here focused on leaders’ making great improvements in their effectiveness by working with their systemic story. I continue to do Leadership coaching with executives and continue to learn. Now, I am writing a book that will help leaders and others connect to their core through story work. This group of posts will be part of that work.

The Presence and Power of Stories

Our lives are full of stories. Stories are, almost literally, everywhere. They are so much a part of who we are and what we do as human beings that, like the air we breathe, we often don’t notice their constant presence. Stories are a key part of our movies, television, books, communication, religion, work, humor, conversation, and thinking. They are one of the primary ways we pass our experience, wisdom, and foibles from individual to individual, group to group, generation to generation. And most powerfully, our stories are a reflection of who we are at our core—who we are as individuals and as a species on the planet.

Stories cover the whole gamut of human experience, from our descriptions of the universe, e.g. the Big Bang “story”, to expressions of our deep inner selves–our core personal stories. While taking both into account, this work focuses primarily on the latter, our deep personal stories, how we can learn to know them more clearly, how they help us, how they can constrain us, and how we can, when we wish, learn to “see them anew” and create even more powerful personal stories that reflect not only our life experiences to date but also empower us to reach our highest aspirations for the future.

Stories and Leadership

Stories are critical for leaders. Every leader has a deep personal story, a “systemic story” that shapes her/his patterns of leadership. Recent work in leadership and leadership development suggests a new answer to the age-old question: “What makes a leader?” We have searched for, among other things, common traits, patterns of behavior, and core competencies that characterize leaders. But we are discovering that what makes the most powerful leaders, the authentic leaders, are not necessarily common traits, behaviors, or competencies. What makes the most powerful leaders is that they live in congruence with and become the masters of their own personal stories—that they live consistently from who they deeply are. This material is intended to help leaders, coaches and others become clear about their core and live from it creatively.

If you would like to learn more about story work and/or consider story coaching, feel free to call or email me at:

Steven P. Ober EdD
President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Affiliate: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
Email: steven.p.ober@gmail.com
www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach. See http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com.

Leading and Working in Complex Human Systems

As the stakes go up…

In our “dance with the butterfly”—our continuing conversation about human systems—we have examined The Butterfly Model of Complex Human Systems, the three major sub-systems that make up a human system, and how the face to face world is a stage on which the systemic drama plays out.

In this post, we will focus on two questions: What happens in Human Systems “as the stakes go up”? (Stakes = threat, risk, importance x difficulty). How can you lead most effectively in these kinds of situations?

It is useful to think of the behavior of Human Systems on a continuum:

Interactions in Low Stakes Situations

Interactions in Medium Stakes Situations

Interactions in High Stakes situations

In each of these scenarios, Human Systems exhibit different kinds of behavior.

In LOW STAKES situations, interactions are usually pretty much what they appear to be. Individuals’ profiles are at play, but not in a demonstrable way. Conversations proceed smoothly.

In MEDIUM STAKES situations, metaphorically, the heat goes up a bit. People’s repetitive patterns of behavior, while they may not dominate the interaction, start to become more visible. For example, if a person gets anxious when conflict occurs, in low stakes territory they will probably not experience much anxiety. In medium stakes situations, they start to feel some anxiety that other players may detect.

In HIGH STAKES situations, a number of more visible shifts tend to occur.

• Most notably, forces from the larger external system and the deeper internal systems tend to interject themselves more directly into face-to-face interactions.
• For example, in a bankruptcy, lawyers, buyers, and bankers bombard the executive team; most of their face-to-face conversations are about finances, possible buyers, and what the lawyers are telling them.
• Some people get “hooked”. That is, their deeper insecurities, shadow material, and unresolved issues are triggered.
• When hooked, people tend to revert to long-standing learned ways of reacting to threats—behaviors that may have been appropriate for the situations in which they learned them but that are not effective responses to the present pressures. The anxious person tends to move into a state of higher anxiety.
• In high stakes situations, the darker parts of our systemic stories (see my earlier series of posts re “Unleashing the Power of your Story”) interject themselves into our feelings and behavior. Some people may cry; some may yell or bang on the table, others may withdraw.
• People are more apt to get into “stuck” interactions with one another. They feel like they are in a trap that they can’t see.
• In most extreme cases, two or more players can become locked in what for them is a very old conflict. That is, rather than responding appropriately to pressures in the current situation, people may behave more like they have learned to respond to threats historically. They get caught in a ritual impasse in which they are both reacting to the shadow sides of their deep stories rather than to the current dilemma.
• They become locked in mortal combat, but, as far as dealing with the present issue and reaching resolution, they totally miss one another.
• They believe they are talking about the same things, but they are not. For example, on person may have learned that to survive and be noticed in threatening situations, he must loudly claim his place and resist others. He raises his voice; he yells.
• Another player may have learned that, to be successful, she must take control.
• These two players can become locked in conflict, one becoming louder and louder and the other trying harder and harder to gain control of the meeting. Each individual feels compelled to behave in ways he or she mistakenly feel will make them safe, but, all the while, the situation becomes both more stuck and more chaotic.

Guidelines for Leaders

How can you lead effectively in these very difficult situations?

1. Learn to read the room and detect whether your team is in a high, medium or low stakes situation.
2. Be aware of your on tendencies in high stakes situations. Learn to manage your own foibles. With practice, functioning effectively in high stakes situations is a learnable skill.
3. Be aware when you, and/or a number of other players in an interaction, are feeling hooked.
4. Help people learn to step back from threatening situations and see them in a different light.
5. If people cannot extract themselves in the moment, disengage–take a break or table the issue until a later date.

If you want to explore leading in high stakes situations further, feel free to contact me.

Meanwhile, good journey…

Steven P. Ober EdD

President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Partner: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners have created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach. See http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com

Leading and Working in Complex Human Systems

“The World is a Stage…”

by Steven Ober, March 3, 2011

In this post, we will continue our “Dance with the Butterfly”—our examination of human systems, how they behave, how we experience them, and how we can lead and work in them most effectively.

Our direct experience of systems is via the face-to- face world.

We see an interaction, attend a meeting, engage in a debate or conversation, go to lunch with a colleague, attend a family dinner, go to a community meeting, talk with someone about their economic situation, listen to a close friend tell us how they are feeling. We live our lives in the face-to-face world.

There is more going on than meets the eye.

While we may sometimes think of these experiences as isolated events, or even as a stream of interconnected, observable happenings, they are actually much more. Complex human systems are holographic. Any given interaction in the face-to-face world is a holographic intersection of elements from the face-to face-world, the larger social world, and the internal individual world. Understanding and experiencing this characteristic of systems is like learning to see a system in rich, colorful 3-D as opposed to seeing it as stick figures. When we can see systems in this way, we have a much more profound understanding of what is happening, and we become able to lead and work in more powerful ways. We learn to lead and work systemically rather than linearly, to see root causes, to identify leverage points, and to have greater, more lasting impact.

No element is an Island.

Another way of describing this phenomenon is: No element of a system is an island unto itself. All the elements—from the larger social environment, to our face-to-face interactions, to our inner thoughts, feelings, and stories, are intricately interconnected in ways that are much more thoroughgoing than we usually stop to realize.

What John Muir said about the natural world is also true of human systems. “ If we try to break off and examine a little piece of nature (or here, of a system), we eventually find that it is connected to the whole universe.” Seeing and experiencing those interconnections, and acting with that knowledge, is what systemic leadership is all about.

The face-to-face world is a stage.

Therefore, what happens in face-to-face word is a mirror, a reflection of the whole system at play in any given moment. It is an integral part of a larger whole. The larger social and deeper individual forces manifest themselves in the face-to-face world, where we see their impacts. For example, we cannot see a thought or a feeling. But we can experience the influence of a thought in what a person says (Hopefully what we say is influenced by our thoughts!) and we can see evidence of angry feelings in a reddened face and loud talking.

Experiencing systems is analogous to watching a play. When we see the interactions of the players, and hear their conversations, we relate to play on one level. If we have information about the larger social, organizational, cultural and/or historical context, we have a much broader understanding of the story. If we have information about what is going on in the hearts and minds of the players, then we understand the play on a much deeper level. The Face to face world is a stage on which systemic drama plays out

Leading effectively in complex systems

Leading in complex systems is about honing our experience of the face to face world, understanding that experience in a broader and deeper context, and then acting intentionally from that space. The more we know about each level, and how they are interacting, the more deeply we understand what is going on in that system and the more effective we can be in leading, working within it, and changing it. A systemic perspective enables leaders to work on the system rather than being trapped in it.

What leaders can do

In important interactions:

• Notice what is happening in the room.
• Ask yourself what forces from the organization and its environment may be influencing what is happening.
• Think, and inquire about what mental models, feelings, or deeper stories are influencing people’s behavior in the room.
• Ask, what are the highest leverage things I can do to help the system move forward?
• Lead from that perspective.

If you want to explore leading and working in humans systems further, feel free to contact me.

Meanwhile, good journey…

Steven P. Ober EdD
President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Partner: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
Email: Steve@ChrysalisCoaching.org
www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners have created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach. See http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com