How do you facilitate change? In this occasional series, we explore various aspects of facilitating individual and group change.
Knowing where you are: The Story Spine
Last month, during my immersion into the world of improv at a fabulous BATS Intensive in San Francisco, I learned about The Story Spine, a core ingredient of the improv form. The Story Spine, charted above by my teacher Lisa Rowland, is a blueprint for the dramatic structure of basic stories, whether those told in improv or elsewhere. (Incidentally, it includes all the different pieces of my favorite change model, that of Virginia Satir, which one of these days I’ll find time to write about).
Lisa told us that the first two parts of the Story Spine—Once upon a time… and Every day…— are the platform. Many improv beginners feel compelled to start with something dramatic or unexpected. Lisa explained that this doesn’t work because you can only generate drama when the audience has a baseline from which drama can spring. You need to establish a platform before something new—what in improv is called the tilt—happens. Beginning a scene being pelted with oranges is confusing. Waking up tired on a lumpy mattress with your longtime girlfriend Suzy, entering IKEA to shop for a new bed, and then being pelted with oranges has potential.
This reminds me (the platform, not the orange pelting) of the second question I use in a Personal Introspective…
What is the current situation?
The second question I ask during a closing conference personal introspective is What is the current situation? I used to think this question was the easiest of the five questions to answer. Now I’m not so sure.
Just like in improv, it’s tempting to decide I need dramatic change, and then rush into listing ideas for reshaping your life. The unfortunate reality is that you can’t really figure out where you want to go until you know where you currently are.
Knowing where you are doesn’t just mean the facts of your situation:
I have a job with no prospects of career advancement.
Our customers are complaining about the amount of time they have to wait on hold.
Being responsible for all the logistics of our events exhausts me.
though these are important. It also involves noticing how you feel about these facts, because our biggest blind spots are usually those that are just too painful or embarrassing to notice.
I feel angry doing the same dead-end job day after day.
If I can’t satisfy every customer, I feel inadequate.
I feel selfish if I delegate and take some downtime for myself.
Working on teasing out the feelings behind the facts usually pays rich dividends.
Don’t rush
So don’t be in too much of a hurry to sink your teeth into the juicy possibilities of change in your life. Work on knowing where you are. Be sure to spend enough time figuring out the current situation. Especially the feelings that are driving your desire for change. That will make the tilt, when it comes, all the sweeter.
Product/service developers and marketers—listen up!
Google “Generation X’ and you’ll get over 300 million results.
I think this way of thinking about people is nonsense. And so does Clay Shirky.
“One of the weakest notions in the entire pop culture canon is that of innate generational difference, the idea that today’s thirty-somethings are members of a class of people called Generation X, while twenty-somethings are part of Generation Y, and that both differ innately from each other and from the baby boomers. The conceptual appeal of these labels is enormous, but the idea’s explanatory value is almost worthless, a kind of astrology for decades instead of months.” —Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
Shirky goes on to say that those who like to dramatize these generational differences are making a fundamental attribution error; mistaking new behavior for some kind of change in human nature rather than a change in opportunity. Much of the “difference” between “generations” is in fact caused by a change in that generation’s environment or circumstances.
Stop the Generation XYZ baloney!
Rather than start with supposed generational differences, dig deeper into the causes for changes in behavior. Instead of marketing driven by statistical analyses of differences in behavior, concentrate on understanding why behaviors have changed. (Or haven’t.)
Then develop your products, services, and marketing around your understanding of relevant human behavior and the changing environment.
Remember, people don’t change that fast. But their environment and circumstances can.
That’s what you should focus on.
P.S. If you haven’t already, read Switch by the Heath brothers for a great practical approach to changing people’s behavior.
