Changing our story is hard

Last week, I worked with an executive team struggling to bring more sustainable productivity into their culture. The past three years required one heroic act after another to save the company (and thousands of jobs). They were exhausted.

We were exploring themes and stories from this period, and one that came up repeatedly was, "We are at our best in a crisis." Indeed, they had an almost superhuman ability to rise to the occasion when circumstances demanded.

It was a source of pride- a signature strength. But this story became the team's dominant narrative and squeezed out all the other ways they created value. It was a team in perpetual pursuit of a crisis (mostly unconscious).

We had a great conversation about their story's gifts and costs and self-authoring a more expanded team narrative. I set up an exercise where they had 40-minutes to self-organize and come back with an MVP (minimum viable product) draft of three different stories about the value of this team.

They promptly gave themselves a fifteen-minute break, which extended to thirty, and then scrambled for the last 10 minutes to complete the task. How you do anything is how you do everything!

We laughed about how they again fell into their dominant narrative - even during a task designed to escape it.

Change is hard.

During the closing, I read the poem below to remind them that changing our stories (personal and collective) requires determination, resilience, and a lot of self-compassion. A good sense of humor also helps

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