Category Archives: Growth

  • 18
    Jan 23
  • 0

The Untapped Opportunity of Institutional Narratives

Category:Emotions,Fear,Growth,Leadership,Narratives,Opportunity,Strategy

Everything I do is connected, even when the connections aren’t immediately apparent, even to me. Almost 15 years ago, I started writing about shaping strategies as a powerful way to unleash enormous value for companies – including here and here. Much more recently, I published The Journey Beyond Fear, a book that explored the role that narratives can play in helping to motivate people to achieve much greater impact that is meaningful to them. In that book, I discussed how institutional narratives can help organizations connect more deeply with their customers and third parties to create more value. Unfortunately, I have not yet made the connection between institutional narratives and shaping strategies explicit, even though they are deeply connected.

Institutional narratives

For those who haven’t read my writing, let me start by explaining what these two approaches are. Institutional narratives are not stories, even though most people view them as synonymous. For me, stories are self-contained – they have a beginning, a middle and an end. Stories are also about the story teller or some other people, real or imagined, but they’re not about you.

In contrast, narratives are open-ended. There’s some kind of big threat or opportunity out in the future and it’s not clear how the narrative will be resolved. The resolution of the narrative hinges on the listeners in the audience – it’s a call to action to them to determine how the narrative will be resolved.

In this context, institutional narratives are not about the institution. They are about some big, inspiring opportunity for the customers and stakeholders and the action they will need to take to address the opportunity. There are very few examples of this kind of institutional narrative, but a classic one was the narrative by Apple Computer in the 1990s that was condensed to the slogan “Think Different.”

Shaping strategies

Shaping strategies focus on opportunities to restructure entire markets or arenas in ways that create significant value for the shapers. Shaping strategies mobilize a large number of third parties to pursue the restructuring of the market or arena.

Shaping strategies rely on three elements. First, there’s a shaping view that focuses on what the new market or arena structure could look like and the benefits it could provide to the participants. Second, there’s a shaping platform that helps participants to come together and achieve greater impact with less effort. Third, there are shaping acts and assets which the shaper can use to demonstrate its commitment to pursuing the shaping opportunity.

Most organizations take the existing market or arena structure as a given and focus on how to thrive in the existing structure. In a world of accelerating change, the challenge is that existing structures are rapidly becoming obsolete. The missed opportunity is to imagine and pursue a new structure that could create far more value. Some of the most successful shapers in the business world have been Dee Hock (Visa), Malcolm McLean (containerized shipping), Victor Fung (Li & Fung), Bill Gates (Microsoft), and Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com).

Connecting 

So, what’s the connection between institutional narratives and shaping strategies? The connection is through the shaping view. When I originally developed the perspective on shaping strategies, I saw shaping views as very business-like, focusing on risks and rewards. As I’ve shared before, Dee Hock, the founder of Visa opened up my eyes. In one of our conversations, he cautioned me that it was not about risk and reward, it was about fear and hope, because that was ultimately what motivated people to act. It was an “a-ha” moment for me that helped me shift my attention to the world of emotions, which became the focus of The Journey Beyond Fear.

Institutional narratives emerged in my thinking as a way for organizations to create much deeper emotional connections with their customers and stakeholders. By framing really inspiring opportunities for those outside the organization, institutional narratives communicate a much deeper understanding of what really motivates these participants and help move people from fear to excitement as they look into the future.

For this reason, institutional narratives can become the foundation for a powerful shaping view. Once leaders have framed the really inspiring opportunity that can excite and motivate participants to take action, they can take the institutional narrative to another level by focusing on defining a market or arena structure that can help participants to address the exciting opportunity out in the future. This could attract a growing number of participants to join in the effort to evolve this new market or arena structure.

Exploring an example

So, what would this look like in practice? Let’s look at the wellness arena.  More and more people are becoming focused on strengthening their wellness and not just waiting until they get sick to get help and support. Today, the wellness business is highly fragmented with wellness coaches and a growing array of wellness service providers, ranging from gyms to nutrition experts.

I believe there’s a significant opportunity for wellness coaches to evolve into trusted advisors that orchestrate growing networks of specialized service providers to serve the needs of their clients. This could be a platform for significant growth by mobilizing more and more diverse expertise based on larger and larger networks of participants.

To address this opportunity, a small wellness coaching business today could begin by framing an institutional narrative that focuses on the growing ability of people to improve their wellness, driven by new technology and deeper understanding of what our bodies need to function at better and better levels. The narrative would emphasize that this opportunity requires action from people inspired by the opportunity to improve wellness to adopt new practices – it won’t just happen on its own.

This opportunity for improved wellness can then provide the context for framing an opportunity for a growing number of third parties to come together into a broader network that will be orchestrated by the wellness coaching business. Because these third parties will bring a very diverse set of skills and capabilities, the network will be a lot more effective in improving the wellness of its clients. These third parties can become excited by the potential to improve the wellness of clients much more than if they were just operating as isolated service providers.

This institutional narrative can thus become the foundation for a powerful shaping view. The institutional narrative focuses on cultivating emotions of excitement and passion among both clients and third parties that can help the clients. This will motivate them to act boldly to pursue the opportunity. A more detailed shaping view can then help to provide the third parties with a road map to guide them in the actions they can take to come together and address the opportunity. It will  also help them to see how they can collaborate in ways that will create more value for clients as well as for themselves.

Bottom line

Institutional narratives can play many different roles in helping organizations to connect more deeply with their customers and stakeholders so that they all can achieve greater impact. One key role of institutional narratives is to motivate third parties to come together and act more boldly in ways that will restructure an entire market or arena. Based on my research, there are very few examples of organizations that have made the effort to develop a powerful institutional narrative, but there are even fewer examples of organizations that have pursued the potential of institutional narratives to support shaping strategies. This is an untapped potential that needs to be addressed.

  • 01
    Jan 23
  • 2

The Old Becomes the New

Category:Exploration,Growth,Opportunity,Paradox,Passion,Poem,Potential

As we enter the New Year,

Let’s not become consumed

By the newness.

It’s an opportunity

To look within

And to see

What’s always been there,

Waiting to be discovered

And drawn out.

It’s not new.

It’s been there

From the beginning.

What’s new

Is our willingness to see more of it

And pursue more of it.

And it’s not just within

One of us.

It’s within all of us.

What is it?

It’s our spirit

That wants to make a difference

That is more and more meaningful

To us

And to others.

We’ve all been in touch

With our spirit,

But we’ve only experienced

A small part of it.

There’s so much more

To be discovered

And nurtured.

In this New Year,

Let’s make the effort

To nurture

What is already there,

So that we can all thrive.

  • 23
    Dec 22
  • 4

The Present Is a Present

Category:Community,Connections,Growth,Opportunity,Poem,Potential

During this holiday season,

We are showered with gifts.

But gifts are things.

Gifts can distract us

From a present that really matters.

Let’s never forget

That our present

That matters the most

Is the present.

We are so lucky to be in the present.

Without the present,

Nothing matters.

The present has so much to offer.

Yet, we are too often distracted

By what happened in the past

Or what might happen in the future.

We need to spend more time in the present

And savor all that it has to offer us now.

The present can also be shared with others,

Making it much richer for all.

We should also never forget

That the present

Is a time when we can act

And make the present even richer

For us and for others.

If we act with others in the present,

The present can grow

In ways that we never imagined.

The present is a present

That keeps on giving.

Let’s be grateful.

  • 07
    Mar 22
  • 2

Embracing Paradox

Category:Connections,Exploration,Growth,Learning,Opportunity,Paradox

We live in a world

Of either/or,

Not both/and.

This is a world

Where reason rules

And does not tolerate

Exceptions to the rules.

But that’s not the world

We really live in.

We’ll never see

The full richness of our world

And we’ll learn a lot less

If we choose not to see

Its complexity and contradiction

And its endless mystery

Hiding beneath the surface.

Paradox can help us to learn

As long as we welcome it

And explore it,

Grateful for its ability

To challenge our deeply held beliefs

And tightly enforced rules.

  • 24
    Dec 21
  • 5

Seek the Gift

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Exploration,Growth,Opportunity,Passion,Poem,Potential

Christmas

Is a time of

Giving

And receiving.

We should be grateful

For what we have received.

But let’s not just look around.

Let’s look within.

Our greatest gift is

The energy and spirit

Residing within us,

Waiting to be discovered

And unwrapped

And brought out

For others to see

And experience.

The greatest gift

We can give to ourselves

Is to seek

That energy and spirit

And nurture it,

Drawing it out,

To help us pursue

What is really meaningful.

If we do that,

We will offer

Ever expanding gifts

To those

Who mean so much

To us.

Our gift within us

Can be the gift

That keeps on giving.

The gift to us

Can become the gift

That we share

With others.

  • 07
    Jun 21
  • 5

Cultivating Emotions Through Learning Platforms

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Emotions,Exploration,Fear,Growth,Learning,Small moves,Workgroups

My new book, The Journey Beyond Fear, covers a lot of ground, but perhaps the most speculative and also the most promising involves the untapped opportunity to deploy and participate in learning platforms. Learning platforms are very different from the platforms everyone talks about today and they  can play a key role in the journey beyond fear.

What are learning platforms?

Most of the platforms we know and talk about today fall into two categories: aggregation platforms and social platforms. Aggregation platforms focus on supporting two-party transactions. It could be buying and selling products and services (retail platforms) or accessing data (database platforms). These are all about facilitating short-term transactions.

Social platforms are focused on helping us to connect with and maintain relationships with family, friends and acquaintances. These platforms support long-term relationships across an increasingly complex web of participants.

Learning platforms are very different. I should clarify that when I talk about learning here, I am not talking about learning in the form of sharing existing knowledge. There are lots of platforms that provide access to a growing array of online courses and lectures – that’s all about sharing existing knowledge. These platforms fall into my category of aggregation platforms – they facilitate short-term transactions by connecting individuals with courses that might be of interest to them.

The learning platforms I’m excited about, involve learning in the form of creating new knowledge. This kind of knowledge can’t be created in a classroom or lecture hall. It is created through action – testing out new ideas and approaches, seeing what kind of impact they achieve and then evolving the ideas and approaches to generate even more impact.

I also suggest that creating significant new knowledge requires us to come together into small groups – something that I call “impact groups” ( a lot more on these in my book). No matter how smart and talented we might be as individuals, my experience suggests we will learn a lot faster and generate a lot more impact when we come together into small groups.

These groups are by necessity small – I suggest that they typically include between 3-15 participants, no more. These groups can learn a lot on their own, but they will learn even faster and generate more impact when they can connect with a growing number of other small groups in broader networks.

That’s what learning platforms are all about. Helping small groups to come together and create new knowledge by learning through action and reflecting on impact and connecting these small groups into growing networks.

Why learning platforms matter

So, why are learning platforms so important? Well, it starts with the Big Shift. As I’ve written about before, we are in the early stages of a profound transformation of our global economy and society shaped by a variety of long-term forces.

One key element of the Big Shift is the accelerating pace of change. As change accelerates, our existing knowledge becomes obsolete at a more and more rapid rate. This increases our need to learn in the form of creating new knowledge.

But it’s not just a need, it’s an opportunity. We can create far more impact that is meaningful to us when we learn faster. As I discuss in my book, those of us who have discovered our passion of the explorer are driven to learn faster because we are excited about the opportunity to have more and more impact in domains that matter to us. People pursuing this passion tend to come together into impact groups to help each other to learn faster and have more impact.

But their ability to learn faster is hampered by the absence of well-developed learning platforms. In some cases, they’ve cobbled together platforms that can help to connect their impact groups. In this context, I discuss the efforts of big wave surfers to connect through a variety of media and means to learn from others beyond those in their local surf break.

So, as we make the journey beyond fear and draw out the passion of the explorer that’s waiting to be discovered in all of us, we’ll feel an increasing need to participate in learning platforms so that we can scale our learning and impact. We’ll see a very exciting opportunity. That opportunity is to unleash network effects in our learning activity. The more connected we become in our shared quest for learning, the faster we will all learn. And it won’t just be a linear increase in learning – it will go exponential. Why would we ever pass up that opportunity?

But there’s more. Learning platforms can help to strengthen the emotions that will help all of us to move beyond fear. Even if we’ve found our passion of the explorer, participating in a learning platform with others who share our passion will deepen and strengthen that passion. That’s especially important in these times when most of the environments we live and work in are deeply suspicious of the passion of the explorer and actively seek to crush it. We need to seek out the support of others and offer them support in return.

And if we haven’t yet found our passion of the explorer, learning platforms can help us to find it and draw it out by presenting inspiring opportunities and making it easier to connect with others who are also inspired by those opportunities and wanting to learn through action. The more impact that can be achieved through acting together, the more energizing those opportunities become and many will develop a passion to pursue those opportunities.

Design elements of learning platforms

So, what do learning platforms look like? I go into much more depth on this in my new book, but I will give you a high level view so that you can see how different these are from the platforms that dominate our lives today.

First, the primary design goal of the platform is to help participants learn faster by acting together and receiving rapid feedback on the impact they are achieving. The core unit of the learning platform is the shared workspace that each impact group can use to determine what actions they are going to take and what impact they are seeking to achieve. These shared workspaces protect the privacy of the group participants as they come together to challenge and support each other.

But then there are broader discussion forums where participants from different impact groups can come together and ask questions about challenges they are facing and draw on the diverse experiences of a much broader range of participants. These discussions are archived and can be easily searched to see if earlier discussions might provide insight into a current challenge.

The platform would also provide directories so that participants can quickly and easily find other participants who might help them in addressing their questions. Reputation profiles based on the demonstrated ability to address challenges  would help in connecting the right people.

These learning platforms will be designed to provide rich and real-time feedback loops so that participants can quickly assess the impact that they are achieving. A key question for all participants will be to identify the metrics that matter as they embark on their quest to have more impact.

Why have learning platforms not yet been developed?

Platforms emerge in response to felt need. In a world dominated by fear, we seek platforms that can help us execute short-term transactions or build networks of relationships that help to reassure us that we are worthy of attention.

Very few people have found and cultivated their passion of the explorer where they are inspired by long-term opportunities to have more impact and where they are driven to learn faster together. And our institutions and communities have not yet embraced the need to learn faster by creating new knowledge.

But that’s all going to change. As many of you know, I am a strong proponent of “small moves, smartly made that can set big things in motion.” I believe there are enough of us with the passion to learn faster together and that we can start building platforms or evolving some existing platforms to address this unmet need. As other people begin to see what can be accomplished on these platforms, they will be drawn to them and find their passion of the explorer beginning to surface. It won’t happen overnight, but I believe learning platforms will begin to play a significant role in all aspects of our work and lives.

Bottom line

As my new book suggests, we all have the need and opportunity to embark on the journey beyond fear. We won’t eliminate fear, it will still be with us, but we can cultivate emotions like hope and excitement that will motivate us to move forward in spite of fear to achieve impact that is much more meaningful to us. As we cultivate those emotions, we will begin to discover the passion of the explorer that is patiently waiting within all of us. Learning platforms can help us to come together and achieve exponential impact. As that impact begins to become apparent, it will motivate more and more of us to make the journey beyond fear and venture onto these learning platforms. A virtuous cycle will be unleashed that will become unstoppable. Our journey will venture into terrain that has yet to be explored and we’ll achieve more and more of the potential that is within all of us.

  • 31
    May 21
  • 0

From Fear to Passion

Category:Collaboration,Connections,Emotions,Exploration,Fear,Growth,Learning,Movements,Narratives,Opportunity,Passion,Workgroups

My new book, The Journey Beyond Fear, was published last week! It suggests that a very specific form of passion can help all of us in overcoming fear. Passion draws out excitement and motivates us to act in spite of fear to achieve more impact that’s truly meaningful to us. But most of us have not yet found our passion and many of us have given up looking for it, because we live in environments that are hostile to passion. We need to change that.

Passion of the explorer

Passion is one of those words with an infinite number of meanings. My book focuses on the passion of the explorer – an insight that emerged from research into environments where we see sustained extreme performance improvement. Despite the diversity of those environments, all the participants had this specific form of passion.

The passion of the explorer has three components. First, people who have this form of passion have made a long-term commitment to a specific domain – it could be anything from gardening to sales. They’re not just committed to being in the domain, they’re committed to achieving an increasing impact in that domain over time.

The second component of the passion of the explorer is a questing disposition. People with this passion are excited when confronted with an unexpected challenge. In fact, they’re constantly seeking new challenges as a way to achieve increasing impact.

The third component of the passion of the explorer is a connecting disposition. When confronted with new challenges, the first reaction of people with this form of passion is to seek out others who can help them get to a better answer faster. They are extremely well connected with others.

Why it matters

We live in a world of mounting performance pressure. That world generates fear within more and more people. While understandable, that fear is very limiting. We need to cultivate emotions like hope and excitement that will help us to move forward in spite of our fear so that we can achieve the impact that is most meaningful to us.

The passion of the explorer generates excitement, not just in the moment, but over a lifetime. That excitement cannot be under-estimated. It turns pressure into opportunity that we pursue to achieve more of our potential.

This passion also cultivates a learning or growth mindset. No matter how much they have accomplished, people with this passion are eagerly seeking to find ways to achieve even more impact. They are never complacent or satisfied with the knowledge they already have – they are always wanting to learn more.

Equally importantly, the passion of the explorer drives each person to connect with others, not just in a transactional, exchanging business cards kind of way, but in a way that builds deep, trust-based relationships because they are very willing to express vulnerability. No matter how smart or talented any individual is, they will learn a lot more and achieve much more impact if they can find ways to build this kind of deep relationships with others. It will also help them to overcome their fears, because they are connected with others who share their passion and who will energize and support them through the most challenging of times.

Push back on passion

I often receive a lot of push back from people regarding passion. They say to me that some people are capable of passion, but most of us just want to be told what to do and have the security of a paycheck.

I resist that push back. I believe that we all, as humans, have the potential to find and pursue our passion. While relatively few children have found their passion of the explorer in terms of the domain that they want to commit to for the rest of their lives, they all have a powerful questing disposition and connecting disposition.

I also use the example of Toyota where they redefined work in their factories and told workers that their primary job was to identify problems and to solve the problems. Worker passion levels went way up because they were now not just cogs in a machine, but making a difference that matters by finding problems that no one else had seen before.

Our environments need to change

I believe we all need to find our passion of the explorer, regardless of how old we are (I was in my 50’s. before I fully connected with my passion of the explorer), if we’re going to make the journey beyond fear. My book outlines some of the approaches and actions we can take to find our passion of the explorer based on my own personal life experience and broader research that I’ve done on the topic.

But I’ve also come to believe that we’ll be much more successful in this quest if we live in environments that encourage and nurture the passion of the explorer, rather than seeking to crush it. Unfortunately, most of the environments we live and work in today are driven to crush this passion. It’s one of the reasons that, based on a survey I did of the US workforce, only 14% of US workers have this form of passion in their work.

In an institutional environment of scalable efficiency, we’re taught that the key to success is just to read the process manual, follow the instructions and deliver the anticipated results reliably and efficiently. Passion is viewed as deeply suspect. Passionate people ask too many questions, they take risks and they deviate from the script.

And our school systems are explicitly designed to prepare us for work in those institutional environments. As young people, we’re told that if you have a passion, pursue it on the playground or at home, but don’t bring it into the classroom. We’re also told to focus on finding a career that pays well and has high status, not something that we’re passionate about. Many parents also echo this message with the well-intentioned desire that their children do well in life.

If we’re all going to achieve more of our potential and have impact that’s meaningful to us, we need to come together to evolve our environments in ways that encourage and nurture the passion of the explorer for everyone. My book helps us to understand what those environments will need to look like.

Drawing out our passion

But we can’t just wait until our environments evolve. We need to get started now so that we can overcome our fear sooner rather than later and find a more fulfilling life.

In my book, I outline the role that our personal narrative plays in shaping our emotions and our lives. We need to make our personal narratives explicit (they are implicit for most of us) and then find ways to evolve our personal narratives so that they begin to focus on opportunities that are truly exciting to us. As I indicated in my previous blog post and in my book, I have a very different definition of narrative than most people do, so that’s key to understand.

And sooner rather than later, we need to find a small group of people (not more than 15 in total) who share our desire to move beyond fear and who will both support us in our efforts as well as challenge us to have even more impact.

The key is to move beyond conversation and focus on action that will help us to connect with the opportunity that excites us the most and learn more as we go.

As we begin to focus on the opportunity that excites us the most, we also need to take steps wherever possible to evolve our personal and work environments so that they support us in our quest to address the exciting opportunity.

My passion

As I share in my book, my passion of the explorer focuses on the opportunity to help people make the journey beyond fear and to develop platforms that will help to deepen their excitement, accelerate their learning and connect with more and more people who share their passion.

That effort starts with this book, but it doesn’t stop there. My intention is to set up a new Center that will offer programs based on the book and support people over the long-term in their journey beyond fear. I’ve started to develop some pilot programs on this front, but I’m still at a very early stage in determining how to best support people in their journey. I will learn as I go and I seek help from others who see what an exciting opportunity this is. If you’re interested in learning more about this initiative and perhaps interested in helping me in this effort, please sign up here for updates.

Bottom line

The passion of the explorer is something that we all have within us, waiting to be discovered and nurtured. If we want to make the journey beyond fear, we need to make the effort to find that passion and pursue it, not just on nights and weekends, but in our day jobs. It will help us to turn a world of mounting performance pressure into a world of exponentially expanding opportunity.

I invite you to join me on this journey – it’s an exciting one that will help all of us to achieve more and more impact that is meaningful to us.

  • 23
    May 21
  • 0

Narratives Shape Our Emotions

Category:Collaboration,Community,Emotions,Fear,Growth,Movements,Narratives,Opportunity,Passion,Potential

My new book, The Journey Beyond Fear, that will be released on May 25 suggests there’s a significant untapped opportunity to be addressed with narratives. It explores the role that narratives can play in helping us to move beyond fear and cultivate emotions that will help us to achieve more impact that’s meaningful to us.

But, to address that opportunity, we need to embrace a very different definition of narratives. And we need to craft narratives at multiple levels – for individuals, institutions, geographies and movements. We can make progress at each level, but it’s only when we find ways to align narratives across all these levels that we will unleash the full opportunity.

What is a narrative?

Most people view narratives and stories as synonymous – they mean the same thing. I believe there’s an important distinction that can and should be made. Stories are self-contained – they have a beginning, middle and end. Also, stories are about the story-teller or some other people, real or imagined, but they are not about you in the audience.

In contrast, the way I define narratives, they’re open-ended. There is no resolution yet. There’s some kind of big threat or opportunity out in the future and it’s not yet clear whether it will be addressed. The resolution of the narrative hinges on you – the people being addressed by the narrative. Your choices and actions will help to determine how the narrative plays out.

Why are narratives so powerful?

By looking out into the future, narratives can play a powerful role in shaping our emotions and actions today. Threat-based narratives feed our fear. Opportunity-based narratives, in contrast, help to cultivate hope and excitement about the future and motivate us seek out the opportunity. The most powerful opportunity-based narratives become catalysts for finding and drawing out our passion of the explorer. As I discuss in my new book, the passion of the explorer ultimately holds the key to helping us turn mounting performance pressure into exponentially expanding opportunity. We need to do whatever we can to unleash that passion and to pursue it.

Narratives also are powerful because they are a call to action to others, so they bring people together. If it’s a threat-based narrative, it brings people together in fear, and amplifies the fear in each person. In contrast, opportunity-based narratives bring people together who share excitement about the opportunity ahead. Collective excitement draws out even more excitement, and we are encouraged to act even more boldly in our quest for the opportunity. That’s why I focused on narratives as one of three promising pillars that can help us to make the journey beyond fear.

In a world that is increasingly enveloped in fear, we need to become much more active in crafting opportunity-based narratives that will help us to move beyond fear.

Personal narratives. Narratives can be crafted at multiple levels, starting with each of us as individuals. Personal narratives are about our view of our future and they are about our call to action to others. We all have personal narratives that are shaping our lives, but few of us have made the effort to articulate this narrative, much less to evolve it so that we can have even more impact.

To address the untapped opportunity of personal narratives, we need to ask ourselves some difficult questions:

  • Is our view of the future primarily about threat or opportunity?
  • Are we really focused on an opportunity that is the most exciting for us?
  • Are we calling others to join us in addressing this exciting opportunity?

In my book, I share how my own personal narrative has evolved and how it has helped me to move beyond fear. We all have a need to do this.

Institutional narratives. Beyond personal narratives, institutional narratives also represent an untapped opportunity. Few institutions at this point have crafted a compelling narrative. The key in these narratives is to focus on framing a really big, inspiring opportunity that is meaningful to the customers or other stakeholders of the institution – it requires expanding horizons beyond opportunities for the institutions and focusing on opportunities for others. And it also includes a call to action to these customers or other stakeholders – what actions will they need to take that will be most helpful in addressing the opportunity?

One example of the power of an institutional narrative is provided by Apple back in the 1990’s. It condensed the narrative into the slogan “Think different.” The narrative indicated that digital technology in the past had taken away our names and given us numbers and made us cogs in a machine. Now, for the first time, there was a generation of technology that could enable us to express our unique potential and individuality in the future. But it wouldn’t happen automatically – we needed to think different. That was the call to action.

Institutional narratives, properly framed, can draw out significant excitement from customers and other stakeholders and pull more and more people in to address the opportunity. At a time when we all have a hunger for hope and excitement, this can become a catalyst for those emotions.

Geographical narratives. Moving up the stack, there’s another level of narratives – narratives for cities, regions and even countries. I’ve lived in Silicon Valley for over 40 years and I’ve come to believe that a key to its continuing success has been a geographical narrative that focused on the opportunity to change the world by harnessing the exponential improvement in digital technology. It has been such an inspiring opportunity that it has drawn people from all over the world to Silicon Valley. Few people realize that the majority of successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley were not born in the U.S., much less Silicon Valley itself. It’s a key reason why Silicon Valley sustains a culture of optimism – everyone is excited by the opportunity.

My book looks at the role of geographical narratives in helping to build the growth and prosperity of cities, regions and countries around the world. Unfortunately, again, these opportunity-based narratives are few and far between.

Movement narratives. But there’s more. I’ve studied movements for social change throughout history and in many different parts of the world. Despite significant diversity in these movements, the most successful movements have one thing in common. You guessed it! Opportunity-based narratives.

The classic example is provided by Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, DC. These narratives focus on the amazing and wonderful things that can be accomplished if we all come together and act together to address new opportunities. Yes, they certainly acknowledge the challenges and obstacles along the way, but the focus is on a really big and inspiring opportunity. That motivates people to come together and act now because now they are tapping into hope and excitement that enables them to move beyond fear.

My book explores the potential that current movements have to achieve much greater impact by crafting more inspiring opportunity-based narratives.

Bottom line

We all need to focus on crafting and evolving narratives that can help us to move beyond fear and cultivate emotions of hope and excitement – and ultimately unleash the passion of the explorer that exists within all of us, waiting to be drawn out and nurtured. If we make this effort, we will tap into exponentially expanding opportunity.

But, there’s a challenge. If the narratives at all the levels I’ve covered are not aligned, we’ll limit our potential for impact. If we’re able to evolve a more compelling personal opportunity-based narrative, but we work in institutions that are driven by threat-based narratives and we live in geographies that are driven by threat-based narratives, the fear of others around us will limit our ability to achieve more of our potential.

What we need are movements driven by opportunity-based narratives that can become catalysts for the profound changes we need in all of our institutions and our communities. If we all come together around opportunity-based narratives, the sky’s the limit in terms of what we can achieve.

The book

There’s a lot more to explore on this topic in my book, The Journey Beyond Fear. In addition to narratives, there are two more pillars that can help us on that journey – the passion of the explorer and learning platforms. But that book is just the beginning – once you’ve read it, reach out and connect with me so that we can continue the journey together.

I’ve scheduled some virtual (and free) launch events next week that will help to introduce some key themes in the book.

My first launch event on May 25th will be with Jean Houston and will explore how we can achieve more and more of our potential when we cultivate emotions of hope and excitement. You can register for this event here.

My second launch event on May 26th will be with Quentin Hardy and the focus of this event will be on the untapped opportunity in the business world to cultivate emotions that can lead to exponentially expanding opportunity. You can register for this event here.

My third launch event on May 26th will be with Dale Dougherty and here we will focus on how movements can significantly increase their impact by focusing on positive emotions, rather than playing to our fear. You can register for this event here.

I invite you to join me in any or all of these launch events to learn more about the ground that my book covers. I would also deeply welcome any and all help you might be able to provide in increasing awareness of this new book within your networks. I believe it’s very timely and very much needed by all as we strive to make a difference that matters.

  • 20
    May 21
  • 2

Peer Into Fear

Category:Emotions,Fear,Growth,Learning,Poem

It’s there,

Within more and more of us,

Waiting to be seen

And acknowledged.

But many of us

Are afraid of our fear.

We view it

As a sign of weakness.

So we hide from our fear.

But until we see our fear,

We’ll be ruled by it

And it will limit our potential.

We need to look for it,

Explore it,

Understand why it’s there,

And how it limits us.

That’s the launchpad

For moving beyond our fear.

It will move us

To draw out emotions

That will help us

To act

In spite of fear.

That’s the paradox –

We need to see the fear

To move beyond it.

 

<This poem marks the launch of my new book, The Journey Beyond Fear, that can be purchased here>

  • 21
    Apr 21
  • 3

Growth of Both

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Exploration,Growth,Learning,Potential

As physical beings,

Our growth slows

And then stops,

At least in terms of height.

But within us,

We are meant to grow

Without limit.

We have unlimited potential

To have more and more

Impact that matters

To us and to others.

And it’s not just us as individuals.

When we come together,

We find we can have

Even more impact that matters.

Our growth can

Accelerate and expand

When we connect with others,

Including animals, plants,

And the broader ecosystem

That supports the growth of everyone.

The more we include,

The faster and farther

We can grow together.

But we need to cultivate environments

That encourage growth from within

And growth together.

We’ll unleash extraordinary growth

When we finally find ways

To pursue

Individual growth and collective growth

And recognize that one

Supports and accelerates

The other.

NEW BOOK

(if you've read the book, click here)

My new book, The Journey Beyond Fear, starts with the observation that fear is becoming the dominant emotion for people around the world. While understandable, fear is also very limiting.

LEARN MORE
BUY NOW

The book explores a variety of approaches we can pursue to cultivate emotions of hope and excitement that will help us to move forward despite fear and achieve more of our potential. You can order the book at Amazon.

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Copyright 2020 John Hagel  Developed By Double Loop Marketing LLC