Michelle writes-

I got invited to participate in what I am calling the Consulting Dream Team by Greg Zlevor.  Greg was getting his ideal group together to work on a knotty problem – managing change in large organizations. I was invited as the resident organizational storytelling expert. The group included people whose luggage I would carry though O’Hare Airport for a chance to listen to them talk.  (More about them in a later blog.)

Somehow, and I blame no one for this but myself, a picture and a bio of mine from another life (my writer life) got included in the pre-meeting information sent out.  The picture of me was fine, if you like the look of Valium stunned 1950’s pin-up girls.  The bio was downright unprofessional, because it was in fact not my professional bio, but one from the back of a literary journal that published me ten years ago.  However, and I am saying this loudly, it was all out there for someone to find.

I consult on narrative for a living.  I breathe storytelling in my sleep.  Did I have a really resonant, clear story about myself out there for the world to see?  Had I done what I counsel and assist other people in doing?

No.

There was no recursive, iterative message.  There was no pattern recognition created so that the Michelle Auerbach brand was clearly defined.  There was no good storytelling to reinforce trust.  There was, in fact, a nightmare.

This was preventable.  I read a tweet today that said “Brand early, not often.”

Exactly.

Instead of a series of mutually reinforcing stories enabling people being to see clearly who I am, I had stuff out there that contradicted other stuff, made me seem if not untrustworthy, than at least inconsistent.  I was momentarily humiliated.  It all got fixed, of course, and the two days were life-altering.  (That’s material for the next blog.)

Here is what I learned: the world did not come to an end due to contradictory message.  I got the bio re-submitted, and sad though I was to see it go, the picture was replaced by a much more toned-down version of me.  Most importantly, on my way to a summit on managing change, I got the lesson that change is a messy process.  It means that you have to make a sea change – not the way people use the word now according to Daily Finance, but like Shakespeare meant it when Ariel sang:

“Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange . . .”

In making a change, it is difficult to erase all the traces of the old self, the old process, the old way of doing things, the old thinking.  They live on, whether on the web or in people’s minds.  This is just part of what managing change looks like: it’s messy, and that is okay.

That is exactly what we went to discuss – change in all the messy glory, and my nightmare gave me insight into how storytelling, visual and narrative, is essential to change.

You need to listen and learn what the new story is.

• You need to change the story you tell yourselves as your organization changes, and then you have to reinforce it.
• You need to make sure it resonates with the new you, the new process, the new structure, the new way of doing things.
• You need to find ways to explain it to everyone else.
• You need to explain that the old is being transformed into the new, and you need to help people get comfortable with that.

Storytelling is the key.

We are the stories we tell, and like Ariel’s song, those stories become something rich and strange.  Especially with the internets, nothing ever dies.  It all just needs to be transformed.  People and organizations change, that is a fact of life. What matters is how you tell the stories about it.  So by the time I got to the meeting, I was humbled and ready to contribute something I would not have been if I had blithely come in not thinking.

That’s change!

There’s a significance to listening that goes beyond the transfer of information.  In this week’s Sunday New York Times, Swedish author Henning Mankell writes about living in Mozambique, where “listening is a guiding principal.”  Listening and storytelling, he explains, are indelibly intertwined in the culture.

He is worried that he has to answer interviewers questions so much faster than he used to because our culture has lost the skill of listening.  His theory is hard to dispute.  There is so much information out there to which we are supposed to attend.  The project of sorting through all the input keeps the mind in information acquisition mode, which is not the same as listening mode.  Listening mode is about making something of the information.  It is about creating knowledge.

Before I read Mankell’s Times essay, I was thinking about the poet William Wordsworth’s explanation of poetry as “emotion recollected in tranquility.”  That is what I am doing when I sit down to create storytelling about of what happened at a meeting or a conference for a client.  I am recalling stories in tranquility.  The narrative I write helps the participants recall what happened and make something of it.  Gives their stories a life not just in information, but in knowledge and in action.

Mankell’s hopeful prediction at the end of his essay is that there will always be someone out there to listen.  I can attest to the fact that he is right.

Introducing Michelle Auerbach- an organizational narrative consultant who serves as the Director of STORY for Amplify the Impact- a meeting service that IDEA360 offers to help amplify the impact of meetings and events through visual and narrative storytelling.

This may look like a repost….and it is.  I just found this article on the Huffington Post and I had to bring light to the conversation that happened in Boulder a few months ago.  What the article highlights is also highlighted here.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-mckibben/want-to-light-up-a-moveme_b_635532.html

I promise there is some really exciting news to share and really incredible projects to talk about in the world of visual learning.  Because I have been so absent here, I thought I might take a step back and fill in the gaps.

It has been an interesting year for sure!  In March I started to notice some strange twitchy kind of stuff.  As you know, I am pretty good at looking at things from all angles…and my conclusion was…I had no bloody idea what was going on.  Here in Colorado, we can usually trace things back to a skiing accident and this was just different. April brought the interesting news of Lymes Disease.  So, I have been learning all there is to know about what it means to have these little buggers and how to get rid of them.  The journey is not over…but I am feeling lots better and one of the outcomes of feeling better- is having the energy to get back on the blog horse!

If you are unfamiliar with Lymes Disease, watch the documentary film- UNDER OUR SKIN.  It holds lots of very helpful information and it is quite normalizing.

To get more info you can visit http://www.underourskin.com/

Anyway, it is good to be back!

I just had my first TED experience.  I worked with the visionary- Ian Bryan of Sensible City as the graphic facilitator of the event (more on that later).  It was an amazing experience from all aspects.  I feel particularly close to this topic  because I am guiding my son through his learning  journey.    HOPE and Innovation feels paramount to the current state of education so it meets the needs we have in this 21st century

The day before this TEDxDenverED event on June 28th, I headed over to the convention center to learn how to use the PolyVision eno.  This is an electronic white board used in classrooms.  A pen and magnetic strip was all I had.  I spent 2.5 hours working and reworking and asking lots of questions…  “What might go wrong, what can I do to crash the system, is there anything I can do to really mess up?”  It worked out pretty well!

MORE TO COME~

Tomorrow, I will be graphically recording a TED talk here in Denver. 

Today, I worked hard to learn how to do the mapping on a PolyVision eno.  It was a full day!  I think I have a handle on it, but tomorrow will prove it to be true.

The so much more is the idea that this event falls in the middle of a program I am teaching through the Dawson Center.  Kevin Cloud, the Executive Director believes deeply in visual learning/Graphic Recording in education.  I feel very blessed to explore how the work I have been doing for almost 13 years intersects.  I am able to bring 5 of my students to TED with a job to do.  They will be supporting Dafna Michealson- a presenter at TED by heading the tops of the RAISE your HAND towers we are building.

There is so much more…and it will have to wait.

Bill McKibbon was in Boulder for an event later in the evening on May 10th, but an opportunity developed to gather  leaders in sustainability for a more intimate conversation inspring response to climate change.  The gathering  was designed, developed and organized by Seleyn DeYarus- the President of Boulders Best Organics and hosted by the Sterling Rice Group.

Seleyn introduces Bill Image by Sterling Rice

In a very tight space, I mapped the conversation.  Bill spent approx. 25 minutes talking to the group and the remainder of the time answering questions.

Bill McKibben Image by Sterling Rice

If you refer to the map, you will be able to see where Bill addressed the group at the top 1/3 of the map and the Q & A was on the bottom.  The box that says “HOW ARE WE DOING” on the left hand side is where the conversation with the audience began.  All of the boxes with blue writing are the questions the audience asked and the responses are linked to each.  Some big points landed at the top of the map giving you an idea of the tenor of the conversation.

Graphic Record- At the Epicenter with Bill McKibbon by Janine Underhill

This mapping technique is called Graphic Facilitation and it is a Visual Learning technique.  I listen to the conversation and capture it graphically and it happens…real time.  This conversation spanned a one and half hour time frame.  Often times when I am coaching a group on how to use GRAPHIC FACILITATION, I introduce the WHAT AND HOW questions.  What are YOU curious about, what do YOU want to know more about, and HOW might you integrate these ideas?  Give this concept a go as you look at the map.

The evening was unique in the fact that Bill brought his deep understanding of the magnitude of the problems and the issues and this very experienced and engaged audience brought theirs.  Boulder is not a place of inaction.

Bill pointed out the 2 ACTIONS that need to be taken.

1.  LOCAL AND COMMUNITY ACTION. As a rule of thumb, Bill noted that 80% of our time should be spent on local/community issues and 20% at the National level.

2.  ATTACH A PRICE TO CARBON

Bill writes on his website:

Imagine we live on a planet. Not our cozy, taken-for-granted earth, but a planet, a real one, with darkpoles and belching volcanoes and a heaving, corrosive sea, raked by winds, strafed by storms, scorched by heat. An inhospitable place. It’s a different place. A different planet. It needs a new name.

Bill and 350 Image by Sterling Rice

You will also see the number 350 prominently illustrated.  Here is a video that will shed more light to the work at www.350.org.  Find out what 10 10 10 means!

If you would like a digital file of the map, please email me at janine@idea-360.com

You can read an article in the Huffington Post by Bob Wells about the event that happened later that evening.

Do you ever see something and just say “YEEEEESSSSSSSS, amen, would THEY please pay attention”?

I am on strike.  I can not do another document that is presented in Times Roman (it is the MS Office default). I can not see another story rich experience depicted in bullet points because it is as far from human as I can tolerate

I worked with MARS (M&M Mars) earlier this week and the key stakeholders in the meeting… missed the meeting and traveled all over Europe hoping to find a flight that would bring them back to the US.  It is different when you know someone who is stuck.  They said that the hotel where they were staying in Brussels would happily extend their stay but the room rate was going to go from $200/nightUS to $550/nightUS.  What happens to the folks who are not traveling for business and have saved for their dream trip…or the backpack traveler who has spent a year in Europe and has $50 to get back home.  I am sure the stories are all over the map.

ANYWAY…I found this interesting info graphic while checking out the work of  Stefanie Posavec here

Besides looking really cool, I am pretty curious about the power of information when it is presented as a visual.  I think it helps us understand the world, cut through the rhetoric and show hidden connections, patterns and the stories that lives underneath.