Your Story is Your Strategy
For a writer, a story is a constant work-in-progress. As a leader, your organization and its strategic initiatives are continual works-in-progress. There are any number of decisions that can be made for any number of reasons, each of which will lead to a different branch in your strategic story and a different variation of the story’s ending.
Most stories are essentially the same.
They follow a similar pattern that makes it easier for us to relate to them.
A main character has a destiny, a happily ever after they must get to. In getting to that happily ever after, they make plans that often go awry and lead them into adventure and occasional setbacks.
They meet all sorts of interesting characters along the way, some who even join them for the rest of the journey. FInally, the main character arrives at the story’s end. Not exactly in the happily ever after they’d hoped for, but having learned and grown along the way and in a much better place than they were at the start of the story.
Doesn’t that sound a lot like how your last strategic program or major initiative turned out? Does it not describe the constant daily adventures and setbacks of trying to achieve your organization’s mission and goals?
For a writer, a story is a constant work-in-progress. As a leader, your organization and its strategic initiatives are continual works-in-progress. There are any number of decisions that can be made for any number of reasons, each of which will lead to a different branch in your strategic story and a different variation of the story’s ending.
How do you make these decisions quickly and in a way that shows the ever-evolving narrative of your strategy, but still leads to a satisfying (if not expected) ending?
Why Story Makes Sense for communicating Strategy
Unlike traditional communication, story-based communication lends itself to communicating strategy. Traditional communication tends to center more on the sender of the message and what they want to communicate. There is little to no room for interpretation.
This makes it more suitable for directives and instructions.
Storytelling is more audience-centered. It focuses on what the receiver will get out of the story and allows the receiver to participate in interpreting the story’s meaning to them.
As strategy is constantly evolving, there is a need for a communication style or approach that is similarly evolutionary. Like a story, a strategy is meant to inspire those who receive it to own it for themselves, to participate in bringing the strategy to life.
Terrence Gargiulo, former Chief Storyteller at Accenture, highlights the differences between traditional and story-based communication. His findings are illustrated in the following table.
“Like a story, a strategy is meant to inspire those who receive it to own it for themselves, to participate in bringing the strategy to life. ”
Ways to Bring A Story-Based Approach to Communicating Your Strategy Internally
Share behind-the-scenes of strategic planning sessions
Create low- or no-text visualizations of strategy / key initiatives
Publish strategy updates & team stories on internal social platforms
Invite strategy feedback / comments
Hold town halls to share stories / questions about strategy & strategic initiatives
Encourage team storytelling rituals on strategic initiatives
The 4-Point Story Model for Telling Compelling Stories
Any change or transformation story can be broken down into the following 4 parts.
What makes a story compelling? What is it about some stories that make us want to sit up and take notice or even take action?
Often, it’s stories of change or transformation that we find most inspirational or compelling. When we see a main character experience and learn from something it reminds us of our own growth experiences and can even give us a role model for navigating moments of change in our personal stories.
So, if you want to tell a compelling story. Tell a change story.
Story circles are visual structures for change & transformation stories.
www.kishasolomon.com
Story circles are perfectly suited to help structure a change or transformation story. The 2 most popular story circles are Dan Harmon’s story circle and The Hero’s Journey. Each shows how a main character goes through a series of steps to undergo a personal transformation. These story structures are the foundation for many popular books, tv shows and films throughout history.
They are, however, a bit cumbersome and difficult to remember. For that reason, I like to rely on a slimmed-down version of the story circles to help me structure compelling stories. For me, it’s the simplest way to tell a story.
The 4-Point Story Model - The Simplest Way to Tell a Story
Download my free ebook to learn how to use the 4-point story model to tell your signature story.
Download My Free Storytelling Ebook
Don’t know what story to tell or how to tell it? Learn a simple method for telling compelling impact stories. Create a draft of your own signature story. Download Now.
Any change or transformation story can be broken down into the following 4 parts:
Start
Decide
Learn
Transform
Using these 4 parts, you can quickly and consistently structure a story of change about yourself, your team, your customer or your organization.
One universal example I like to use to illustrate the use of the 4-Point Story Model is the movie The Lion King.
In it, the main character goes through a transformation that can be mapped using the 4-Point Story Model.
01 START
At the start – the main character exists in an unchanged state (zone of comfort or lack of awareness).
In the Lion King, this is when Simba is a cub protected by his father Mufasa.
02 DECIDE
Then something happens – It forces the main character to make a decision / to move away from the comfort zone / toward greater awareness.
In the Lion King – this is when Mufasa is killed by Scar and Simba runs away to live a carefree life
03 LEARN
But before they can get there – there’s a price to pay or a lesson to learn. Usually as a result of failure or setback.
Back home, Simba’s family suffers drought & starvation at the hands of the cruel leader Scar. The wise Rafiki reminds Simba of his responsibilities.
04 TRANSFORM
Finally the main character returns – a different & more expanded, mature or aware version of who they were at the start.
With his new friends by his side, Simba returns, defeats Scar. He becomes the new king and a father to his own lion cub.
When to use the 4-Point story MOdel
The 4-Point Story Model has been useful in a number of situations where I needed to relay a story of how someone or something went through a process that resulted in significant or measurable change.
I often use the story model to help me bring more interest to storytelling scenarios where there’s a lot of context to be conveyed, and data alone won’t do. Below are a few examples of when I’ve used the model:
Team retrospectives, lessons learned
Leadership bio / team summary
Project start / update / closeout
Team member intro / exit
Performance assessments, 1:1 sessions
Product (svc) launch / feature release
Strategic decision-making
Customer interviews
Common Growing Pains for Teams
When your team is called upon to do or be something different, how do they respond?
There will come a point in your team’s journey where you recognize that what got you to the current level of success will not get you to the next level of success or growth that you desire.
In order to ‘level up’, you’ll need to take a long, hard look at the habits, behaviors and mindsets that your team has developed, and determine which ones are blocking you from achieving the next level of growth.
The longer you delay or put off that process, the more growing pains you are likely to feel.
Here are some of the most common growing pains I’ve seen my own teams and my clients’ teams experience on their journeys to growth and change.
Common Team Growing Pains
Lacking a clear vision of where the team is headed or what success looks like
Too focused on ‘the way we’ve always done it’
Difficulty shifting from leader-driven to team-driven
Team members’ responsibilities are undefined
Difficulty showing or measuring what the team accomplished, how much progress they’ve made or how close they came to the goal
Unable to turn long-term strategy into an actionable plan
Team members are more order-takers than decision makers
How many of these growing pains is your team experiencing?
IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR FUTURE
CHANGE YOUR STORY.
Create A Strategic Story To Map Your Future In Times of Growth & Change
5 things you should know before taking a big leap in life
If you’re preparing to take a big leap in your life or career, here are a few mindful tips to help you get your head right for the adventure ahead.
If you’re preparing to take a big leap in your life or career, here are a few mindful tips to help you get your head right for the adventure ahead.
The trick for dealing with change?
Embracing what it can teach you. This, of course, is easier than it sounds. Fear and doubt always seem to show up whenever you’re thinking of making a major life change. An endless loop of worries and worst-case scenarios play in your mind. This ‘monkey mind’ loop can keep you chasing your own thoughts down a spiral of anxiety, and ultimately, inaction. more>
Telling your own story is an essential life skill.
When you define yourself for yourself and become the writer of your own story, life’s major changes, setbacks or shifts become one-of-a-kind opportunities for you to evolve from victim to hero. more>
Taking a big leap involves risk.
A risk of failure, of looking silly, of hurting yourself. Big leaps involve stepping out into the unknown. Going off the one-size-fits-all plan. They require you to trust yourself more than you ever have. They are an exercise in faith. more>
Personal mastery is the reward for overcoming fear…
…shifting your mindset from ‘one-size-fits-all’ and taking worthwhile risks.
It all starts with the small, everyday habits and behaviors you practice BEFORE you take a big leap, make a major life change or face an unexpected life challenge. Until you ‘get your mind right’, your potential for growth and self-mastery will be limited. more>
Your work and relationships are a reflection of what you think of yourself.
As you evolve, the way you relate to your job and to the people in your life - family, friends, significant other - will evolve too. At some point, you may feel the need to graduate. This can be a literal leaving behind or a ‘leveling up’ of the way you engage and the effort and energy you give to these experiences.
IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR FUTURE
CHANGE YOUR STORY.
Write your next chapter with a story-based strategic framework that evolves as you do.
Common Growing Pains for Leaders
There will come a point in your leadership journey or in your team’s journey where you recognize that what got you to the current level of success will not get you to the next level of success or growth that you desire.
There will come a point in your leadership journey where you recognize that what got you to the current level of success will not get you to the next level of success or growth that you desire.
In order to ‘level up’, you’ll need to take a long, hard look at the habits, behaviors and mindsets that you have developed, and determine which ones are blocking you from achieving the next level of growth.
The longer you delay or put off that process, the more growing pains you are likely to feel.
Here are some of the most common growing pains I’ve experienced and that I’ve seen my clients experience on their journeys to growth and change.
Common Leadership Growing Pains
Lacking a clear leadership vision that articulates your perspective as a leader
Feeling stalled in your career or business, but not sure how to start the next chapter
Not focused on performance management or unsure of how to help your team members learn and grow
Unable to identify or groom emerging leaders on your team
How many of these growing pains are you experiencing?
IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR FUTURE
CHANGE YOUR STORY.
Create A Strategic Story To Map Your Future In Times of Growth & Change
3 Organizational Responses to Change
When it comes to change and uncertainty, there's usually three responses. And two of those responses are growth limiting responses. While one response is a response that allows for growth in the face of uncertainty and change.
Video Transcript:
When it comes to change and uncertainty, there's usually three responses. And two of those responses are growth limiting responses. While one response is a response that allows for growth in the face of uncertainty and change.
So the first response is the ostrich response. And if you know about ostriches, that basically means when change or uncertainty occurs, you put your head in a hole, you ignore it. You shut it out, you block it, you don't pay any attention to it, and you just pretend like it's not happening. So it's like, put your fingers in your ears and go, la la la, la, la. No change, no change, no change. And that's the ostrich response.
The roadrunner response is to run. So when you see change or uncertainty happening or some sort of difficult change or uncertain state of affairs occurring, you run from it. You move from that place to a place of greater comfort that probably looks more like the old place did before it started changing. So you just run from the change and go back to someplace that represents an unchanged state of being.
And then the final way is Wiley. And Wiley Coyote, if you know from the cartoons, is someone who is constantly innovating, trying new methods, new tools, new techniques, new approaches. But never stops. Like every day, gets up and tries again, tries a new product, tries a new technique, tries a new method. And it seems like there's never going to be a point where Wiley can succeed or will actually be able to grasp what he's going after.
What we see in the cartoon is Wiley is constantly chasing this Roadrunner. But he's always getting outsmarted or evaded in some way. But then we also recognize part of why Wiley keeps getting up and chasing the Roadrunner is not because he wants to catch him, it is because he enjoys the process of the chase. He actually enjoys trying out new tools. He enjoys innovating, he enjoys coming up with different methods. He likes the paces that it puts him through because it keeps him entertained and, and probably quite fit.
So I think those three approaches to change really represent the natural responses that people or teams, or organizations have when change is presented. One is to just ignore it, and those who ignore it run the risk of basically getting bulldozed by that change. If you stand in one place while change is hurtling towards you and you just dig your head in the sand or dig your heels in, then what's gonna happen is you're gonna be knocked over by that change. You're gonna be in some way devastated by it because you're never prepared for it.
The people who run from change in the short term, they find that it feels good. They find themselves back in a place of comfort. But the challenge with running backwards is that you never get ahead. If you're constantly running to something that is pre change or represents an unchanged state, then basically you're starting from scratch or you're always behind the curve. You're always behind the state of progress that is happening in the environment. So that looks like you either standing still or regressing.
And then the final one is really evident of, well, when you're responsive to change by being innovative and iterating your approaches and trying different things, what may happen is you find that once you've actually adopted the change, you're like, okay, well what do I do next?
Now I actually have to think of something else to do because after all of this trying and learning and experimenting, I actually got through the change. And throughout that process, I've actually learned and grown a lot. I've learned a thousand ways that didn't work just to get to the one way that did work. And so the next time I'm going through change, I can actually probably get to that change a lot faster than I did before.
So these are three approaches, and I think the first two are approaches that very clearly limit growth. And the Wiley approach is actually the one that is going to help you succeed even before you're actually fully able to master the change.
How does your team or organization respond to change?
IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR FUTURE
CHANGE YOUR STORY.
Create A Strategic Story To Map Your Future In Times of Growth & Change
A Masterplan Is Better Than Goals
Goals are pretty good as a to-do list of of things you want to accomplish or achieve. But when you're in a leadership position and you have all of these moving parts to orchestrate, goals alone aren't enough.
Video Transcript:
When you start to reach a certain level of self-development or evolution or even when you're in a position of leadership, whether that just be self-leadership or leadership of others, I think you start to recognize that goals are not enough to drive how you're going to move from the current level to the next level.
Goals are pretty good as a to-do list of of things you wanna accomplish or achieve. But when you're in a leadership position and you have all of these moving parts to orchestrate, goals alone aren't enough to encapsulate all that needs to be considered as the person who is sitting in the middle of all these moving parts and having to be the orchestrator of all those moving parts, or having to be the one who maintains the constant vision.
For that, you need a masterplan. And the master plan it's a term that I borrowed from civic design in that a master plan is basically a strategy for a physical place. For a physical location. So it's a community or a neighborhood or a block and the civic designer develops a master plan for that physical geography to say that this is how it exists now, but over a period of time, this is how it's going to evolve, and this is what the future vision of this physical or geographic location is gonna be.
If they just were like, here are the goals for this plot of land, or Here's the goal for this community, that's a little too simple because when you're transforming physical geographic space and it's a huge amount of space with a lot of moving parts, there's infrastructure, there's neighborhoods, there's homes, there's commercial areas. A lot of things have to work in concert to make this vision a reality within this physical space. And that takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of negotiation, takes a lot of conversation, it takes a lot of campaigning, it takes a lot of re-explaining the vision over and over again. Sometimes you may have a priority for the current year that maybe the budget isn't there, or you ran into an infrastructure roadblock and you've gotta deprioritize and come up with something else that still pushes towards that full master plan vision.
And so when we find ourselves in leadership positions, and that position of a leader is really that same idea of having to transform something that is comprised of a lot of moving parts. Transform that over time from where it is now to what it will be when it's this future vision, then you have to have a master plan, even if that thing that you're evolving over time is you as the leader.
So this is why I promote not only having goals, but also having a master plan that stretches over a period of time, and that is flexible enough to evolve and adapt as the situations change. As you encounter roadblocks, as budget or resources are not available or are available, you can have this overarching master plan that you can refer to over and over again to recenter yourself on the long-term future vision while still having all of the pieces you need to do on a day-to-day, month-to-month, year to year basis, to keep progressing along a timeline that will lead you to that vision.
Do you manage your team or business using goals or do you have a masterplan?
IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR FUTURE
CHANGE YOUR STORY.
Write your next chapter with a story-based strategic framework that evolves as you do.
the sacred bundle: unwrap your team’s backstory
Learn an indigenous storytelling technique to help you and your team reconnect and remember the moments that mattered most in your journey to ‘happily ever after’
While I was doing research for my paper on storytelling & school discipline, I came across a concept called ‘the sacred bundle’.
The sacred bundle is a reference to an indigenous American storytelling practice, where a tribe would place objects that represented key moments in the their history into a bundle.
from, ‘The Sacred Bundle: Unwrap Your Team’s Backstory’ www.kishasolomon.com
The sacred bundle is a reference to an indigenous American storytelling practice, where a tribe would place objects that represented key moments in the their history into a bundle. This bundle was kept safe by 1 or 2 ‘keepers of the bundle’ - usually 1 male and 1 female from the tribe. The keepers of the sacred bundle had the responsibility of remembering a specific song or story that related to each object in the bundle. At certain tribal celebrations or gatherings, the keepers of the bundle would remove the objects and recount the stories to the rest of the tribe. This was done as a way to preserve and pass on the moments that defined the tribe’s culture and their shared histories and futures.
Organizational consultant Peg Neuhauser extended the concept of the sacred bundle into teams and organizations, and posed the idea that, much like a tribe, teams and organizations have key moments that define their history. She posited that there are 6 organizational sacred bundle stories that every organization has:
How We Started
Our People
Why We Do What We Do
What We Learned in Failure
How We Succeeded
How We Will Change the World
I was so inspired by this idea of sacred bundle stories, that I decided to use them for a year-end retrospective with my product team at Ford. I asked each member of the team to share an object or image that represented each sacred bundle story. Later, we gathered as a team and took turns letting each team member share their object or image and explain what it meant to them.
The exercise was so well received, that I also decided to use it for my own year end review for 2022. I shared my own sacred bundle objects and stories on Instagram.
The 6 Sacred Bundle Stories of a Team
1. How We Started
2. Our People
3. Why We Do What We Do
4. What We Learned in Failure
5. How We Succeeded
6. How We Will Change the World
Why Use Sacred Bundle Stories?
The sacred bundle exercise made for a much-needed alternative to the typical year-end review or retrospective. Instead of only focusing on what tasks we completed or what I personally achieved, the sacred bundle stories allowed me and my team to look back at the moments that had the most meaning for us over the past year.
By sharing them with each other, we were all able to get deeper insight and understanding to what those moments meant to the the people we work with every day. We went deeper in our conversations than we had in our other team-building sessions or our quarterly OKR reviews - we shifted the focus to our journey together, how far we’d come and most importantly… how much we had all changed and grown. It was also a great way to honor and say farewell to a couple of members who were transitioning out of the team onto new projects.
The Importance of Backstory
Understanding what brought the main character to this point is really a pre-requisite for writing stories that will engage your audience. Before we can emotionally invest in the main character and her journey, we need to understand where she’s been, why she makes the choices she does, what happened before that has shaped her into the person we see today.
The same is true when you’re preparing to write the next chapter of your personal story or your team’s story. You want to re-engage with and celebrate how far you’ve come, you also want to be sure that you won’t forget the lessons you learned so that you don’t run the risk of repeating them again. There’s also the need to re-center on your values and remind yourself what has the most meaning to you - this is how you will avoid getting distracted or caught up in trivialities as you continue to journey towards ‘happily ever after’.
the trick for dealing with change
You wanna know my surefire trick for dealing with change? Here’s a hint: It involves using your imagination.
how do i know what my purpose is?
This just might be the simplest answer to one of life’s biggest questions.
Audio Transcript:
I used to feel like, 'Oh, my purpose is something that I need to really clearly delineate and get exactly right. This statement that's 100% correct. And, I feel like this is it. It's unchanged. I've defined it, it's finite, it's in stone. This is what I'm about.'
And that's not it. I don't think that's what purpose is. I think the very fact of having a big why is in itself the big why. The desire to find purpose is in itself a purpose. So I think this need to wanna get it just right is this sort of old way we're used to relating with ideas of highest self or higher beings, or religion or callings or all of this is that there's a right way and a wrong way and you gotta get it right or else you're wasting your time or you're not gonna reach enlightenment or whatever it is.
But I think when you really look at any of the ways of living, the religions, the philosophies, whatever. They are, just that. They are ways of living. So when we're even thinking about purpose or something like that, that is also a driving force, a guiding North star in our lives, it's not so much about what you're doing, it's about how you're doing. It's about how you're living. Not 'am I doing the right things', but, 'am I having the right experience?' Am I doing these things in a way that represents all of my values, my goals, my role models? Am I doing my life in a way that aligns with whatever the tenets of my innermost religion are?
So I think when it comes to the 'big why', resist the temptation to get hung up on clearly and precisely defining it to the Nth degree or with a very specific set of words. Now, if you're able to do that, hallelujah. That's great!, But also be open to that, changing every 5, 7, 10, however many years. It may not stay the same for the entire of your story, and that is fine because that would suggest that you are still an organic living, volatile evolutionary being.
storytelling is a core leadership skill (audio)
Why leaders who develop the skill of telling good, strategic stories have an advantage in career and business.
Audio transcript:
Storytelling is a key, but I think often overlooked domain of leadership. Managers give directives, leaders tell stories. And I think the difference in giving directives and telling stories is that giving directives is something that is not participative.
The people that you are giving a directive or instructions or objectives or whatever that you're giving that to are receivers. They receive their instructions and they carry them out and they report back to you and tell, tell you, what they did and you tell them how good they did or how good they are.
And it creates this hierarchy. It doesn't lead to a relationship of equity between the leader and the follower. And I think some people think, ‘Well, there's not supposed to be equity there. I'm the leader. I'm higher up. They're supposed to look up to me. I'm supposed to be better or higher or more powerful or on a different level than them,’ which is true organizationally, but I think all real leaders recognize that their leadership is not based on the title or the position they hold in the organization.
The organization's titles and positions are specific to that organization only. And a leader is a leader no matter where she is. So if you're a leader in an organization by title, this doesn't mean that as soon as you leave that building and that title is not there on you anymore, that you stop thinking, behaving, and performing like a leader. That's very unlikely for someone who is truly a leader versus someone who just holds a title. So leaders know that the primary way that they influence is through relationship. And there are a number of ways to exist in a relationship with others. I think a lot of us think of it purely as this idea of networking. Like I go into a room and I press the flesh. I amass a whole bunch of people, then I call them and I have coffees and I go on golf dates with them. This is what we think of when we're, when we usually think of like networking or relationship building in terms of career or work or business.
But relationships are built on all kinds of interactions, and storytelling I think is one of the first ways we learn to build relationship with others.
As children we hear stories. Maybe an elder in our family is telling us stories, or maybe we're getting read a bedtime story, or maybe in school we have story time, but what we start to understand as kids is these are one of the few times when adults, the people who are bigger than us, come down to our level and actually engage with us, and ask us where we want to go next. Or have us say, Well, what happened next? Or, Well, why'd they do that? We're in a conversation in a more equitable level than we've probably ever been with an adult in our lives.
And this is the relationship that stories allow us to build between and among each other. And as leaders, it's kind of that same idea of if you're living in the leadership stratosphere all the time. Storytelling is this activity that allows you to sit down and look eye to eye at everyone across your organization and engage in an act of co-creation with them.
So you may be telling a story, but if you've really learned how to be a strategic storyteller, you recognize that every story you tell is not a story about you per se, even if it is, it's a story that's about the person who's receiving it. The point of you telling the story is so that the person receiving it can identify themselves in this story and then see themselves as the hero by the time you're finished telling it. You're telling stories to your people so that they can see, 'Oh. This is an achievable idea, or this is a relatable experience. Or if this person has been through it and I can identify with them, then I can possibly identify with this story and see myself going through it as well.'
I think this is why, for me, storytelling is such a core discipline of leadership. It's also a wonderful way of knowledge transfer. And I think another part of leadership or what leaders are maybe not always consciously thinking of, but definitely unconsciously leaders are always concerned with legacy.
'What am I leaving behind that represents me even though I'm no longer here?' And stories are one of those things that are wonderful ways to transmit legacy. And I think those two benefits or those two outcomes of really good and really strategic leadership storytelling: the ability to build equitable relationships and the ability to transmit or transfer leadership legacy; I think storytelling really is so powerful, , in accomplishing those two objectives or delivering those two benefit. And it's highly accessible. It is accessible to anyone in an organization who sees themself as a leader and wants to build relationships and leave legacy.
How to Deal With a ‘change blocker’ at work (video)
These 7 strategies will help you deal with a difficult coworker in a way that makes you a shining star on your team or in your organization.
Picture this.
You're new to your job or team. You’ve specifically been brought into the team to help bring new ideas and ways of working as part of a larger transformation or change initiative already underway.
One day, while sharing an idea in a meeting with another team member who has been in the organization for quite some time, that team member pipes up and says, "I liked it better when the other guy was here," referring to ‘the other guy’ who was in your role before you arrived.
What do you do?
I actually had a similar scenario happen to me recently at a client that I was working with. And, believe it or not, this wasn’t the first time something like this has happened, nor the first company it’s happened at. As someone who often comes into an organization as part of a change initiative or a huge transformation, I've experienced similar moments more times than I care to admit.
I even have a sort of nickname for the type of team member or co-worker who would make such a statement.
I call them: Change Blockers.
Change blockers resist change by resisting you - the agent of change.
So what happens when you encounter a coworker who is a change blocker? Aka, somebody who's trying to block you at work, or somebody who's throwing all kinds of shade or drama your way, and is making the working relationship close to impossible, and definitely very uncomfortable.
How do you avoid the feeling of being in constant conflict with this person even when you're not quite sure what the problem is?
The short answer is: Avert your energy.
Going toe-to-toe with a change blocker rarely results in anything other than more conflict and more frustration… for you. Which is exactly what the change blocker wants. A person who is resistant to change will consciously or unconsciously do anything to keep change initiatives from progressing, while making themselves out to be either victim or hero.
I’ve developed a few strategies for dealing with change blockers and other similarly difficult team members. These strategies have worked very well in the past and have kept me focused on what it is that I'm trying to do or what I've been hired to do while negating, navigating around or completely disarming the change blocker.
If you've had a similar experience and are looking for ways to navigate around a change blocker or other negative or difficult coworker, check out my tips in the video below.
Digital Storytelling & School Discipline: New Book Release!
The author proposes the use of digital storyteling to create student-centered counter-narratives that can shift the bias in school discipline and interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.
I’m thrilled to announce that my chapter, ‘Digital Storytelling’, in the book, “Approaching Disparities in School Discipline: Theory, Research, Practice, and Social Change” is now published!
Both e-book and print editions are available for purchase and instant download (for e-book) on IGI Global’s website.
You can even read a free preview of the chapter to get a glance at what the chapter is about.