ANDREW MELVILLE

I’ve just finished reading The Checklist Manifesto. It was a book that was hard to put down, and the astonishing thing was that it was all about writing checklists. What an amazing example of weaving stories around something that from a distance would seem the most mundane and humdrum of activities; writing checklists.

Surgeon and writer, Atul Gawande strings together some fascinating stories about how checklists have saved lives, and assisted in the completion of complex tasks ranging from building immense buildings to safety features on large aircraft.

Gawande combines statistical evidence, and descriptive stories to make his point. And that is quite simply that today’s professional world requires people to deal with greater and greater complexity, and frequently the simple steps and disciplines that are required to achieve successful outcomes are overlooked.

For me, this came hard on the heels of an amazing experience at a Vipassana 10 day silent meditation retreat working as a server cooking each day for 100 people. It is interesting that the same approach that Gawande takes was operating here. There was a very detailed checklist and set of recipes for the kitchen so that a voluntary group with no kitchen experience could cook for up to 100 without effort. The trick for the kitchen as for The Checklist Mainfesto was a combination of very specific tasks and at the same time protocols for communication. Time after time we turned out perfect meals. The catch cry when anyone was in doubt, was ‘Follow the Recipe! But supported by the principles of Vipassana, which was to work with one another without ego, or judgement, or fixed ideas on how to do things.

Great story telling and I think evolution for humanity at the highest level is all about the combination of practical and disciplined steps underpinned by powerful values and a commitment to serve and communicate openly and honestly with one another.

Down under here in Aotearoa New Zealand, it is always a slow start to the working year. It’s hot, humid, the taste and smell of the beach and the bush and the barbecue is still overwhelming any interest at sitting behind a desk.

I had ten days no where near a phone or computer. It was bliss. But I’m easing myself back into the world of work. What has struck me powerfully is how easy it is to instantly be drawn into a sense of overwhelm. New software, trends to check out, new networking opportunities. As soon as I started checking a few blogs and websites, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In etc, I felt the sense of ‘overwhelm creep.’ I started to think OMG, there is so much I need to keep track of. Then I paused, and remembered the power of great story. Just telling it like it is.

This year I am going to work with people more and more about dealing to the fear of the blank page and self expression. I have a sense that the introduction of more and more new social media software for networking inside and out organisations, personally and professionally will very quickly outstrip many people’s ability to communicate clearly, comfortably and convincingly. Content will always be king, and great story is Ace.

We can frequently either default to fairly trivial ‘weather conversations’ or splutter and cough our way through some posts that don’t tell a great story.

I believe we are all capable of great story sharing, we do it informally every day, so it doesn’t have to be a great leap to investigate the information we share from the news, from gossip, from conversation, and get to grips with what makes this shared information stick.

The simplest things can trigger memories and stories. Our refrigerator blew up yesterday. It has sat in our kitchen for the past 18 years. So of course on one level it is just an inanimate object. But it is an appliance from a bygone era having lasted that long. I don’t think there is much else in this house that is that old. Most items die or become obsolete in a very short space of time.

But it is more the social function of the fridge that was interesting. It has a colourful collection of fridge magnets accumulated over many years. Invites to weddings, funerals, birthdays. Children’s art, teenager art, graffitti art, tags, shakepearean fridge magnet words, poems and one liners dreamed up by many friends and family as they doodled with words during conversations.

The Fridge has groaned with food and drinks year in year out. It has been raided at all hours of the day and night. What hastened its demise I think, was the fact that the back of the fridge had become a home to a family of mice. Pulling the fridge out from the wall, a very obvious little hole in the floor showed the route for may be more than one family of mice.

We bought this fridge 25 years ago, when living in a community surviving on welfare. It was a huge purchase, Jane bought it on Hire Purchase from the now long gone Farmers Trading Department store in downtown Auckland.

This appliance sure had a great patina. But despite the death of the fridge, and the memories and stories it evokes, I wont miss it at all. It’s seals had perished long ago, it leaked, iced up, and I think chewed far too much power. There is a gleaming white new model in its place now. It makes ice, has lots of useful compartments, and so far, no fridge magnets. The manual says you can’t put anything on the top. So the collection of Stuff that used to inhabit the top of the fridge, has gone.

RIP old fridge, and welcome you gleaming new beauty (o00pps my appliance fetish is raising its head!) I do wonder though if this new one will be here in 25 years time…..

We are often likes moths round a flame when it comes to stories of conflict and adversity. It is like we are hard wired to be attracted to disaster. I know I want to hear about tragedies, and as much as I get annoyed with a news media focus on conflict, I still tune in. And the other thing is, no matter how reasonable I try to be, I take sides. There will be a good guy and a bad guy.

I believe we have been hard wired to desire conflict in the stories we tell and listen to as part of our survival mechanism. Unconsciously almost, we use a bit of fear to raise our children, if you do this or that, something bad will happen. In ancient times, we learnt to survive through fear. That rustle in the bush might be a predator or it might be the wind. Our myths and legends all have a fear factor. Many children’s stories can be downright scary.

I think we extend this fear factor in stories to decide who we like and dislike in the world. We write people off. So and so is hopeless. Can’t stand them. That guy I talked to at a call centre was just a complete a******.

I believe it is time to play a bigger game with the stories we tell about people. Sure the best stories are a journey through good and bad times, good and bad behaviours. But to have the world be a better place, these stories we tell about each other have to be underpinned with love. Who are we for one another in the stories we tell ? How often do we write people off? I know I do it and I see it as my job on this planet to raise the ante, and catch myself as often as I can and take a closer look when I tell a story, even to myself about how bad someone is.

I loved it. I hung out for every minute I could login into a talk. I’d join what was quickly forming as a community of people from across the globe. We talked in a live chat throughout each talk, adding value to presenters, to each other. Twitter ran hot at the same time.

I confess until now, I had thought the multi tasking, live chat world was really mostly for geeks or dating. But this was something of interest to me personally, and it was a global conversation with energy, that had the intimacy of a group of fired up people face to face in a room.

The conversations bounced, challenged, inspired and moved me. There were specific tips to act on, stories to reflect on, and a community that was pulling threads together for a better more connected world.

When I spoke, I talked about the New Zealand native bird, the Kokako, it’s beautiful song, and it’s place in Maori mythology Quick as a flash, someone in the Netherlands posted a link to a New Zealand site where you could hear the bird sing. I love that. It was playful and enriching.

There was a new dynamic to the conference, it wasn’t static, it was an evolving, revolving conversation, where there was also a tangible, palpable energy and authenticity. I feel I have formed as stronger friendship and connection with participants as I have when I have met people ‘in person’ at an energy rich conference or gathering.

The giving and taking was equivalent, and the live theatre with technical blips just simply added another dimension. Unplugged and live is the new polished performance!

So now I am comfortable with my media ecosystem, this blog, occasional tweets, facebook, I turn up as often in these spaces as I can and want to and do not worry about getting it right. It is organic, and as with a great story, powerful heart felt and inspired narratives trump over planned, calculated and manipulation infested communication every time.

In the early 1990s, I gave up journalism to work for an Auckland city council. I was attracted to a vision for a great future. Waitakere City will be familiar to New Zealand readers but for those further afield, or ‘overseas’ this little city declared itself an eco city, and led by a charismatic mayor, Bob Harvey embarked on a ‘sustainability agenda’ inspired by the Rio Earth Summit.

Trouble was nobody on the ground new what sustainability was.

But I loved the concept and as an eager storytelling radio journalist, set out to bring sustainability to life, in stories, video, cartoons, newsletters, illustrations, you name it.

One idea struck gold. I created and played a character, a TV reporter called Spud, who had crazy glasses, looked like a nerd, and constantly stuttered over the word suh… suh… suh… sustainability. The reports were humorous but told underlying serious stories about environmental, social and economic sustainability issues and solutions across the city.

It was an internal staff video, designed to build a culture in a divided organisation, full of a conflicting mix of visionaries and sceptics.

But people loved the video and the character. And still talk about it 15+ years on. It broke the ice, let people laugh at themselves and each other, from CEO to cleaner, and helped build a culture and a sense of family in the organisation.

It was an early experience for me about the power of story in building an organisation’s culture.

And a quick lesson about humour and its often hidden depths.

The experience of staying at a marae involves everyone sleeping in the meeting house on mattresses around the room, and conversations and oratory occurs in the middle of the room. An elder spoke to us to start the session. Students were lying on their sleeping bags around the room. The first thing he said was: ” Don’t worry if you fall asleep, you will have learnt what you need to.” The students went: “huh” ? Fresh from the lecture room, under pressure to study hard to get their degree, being told to go to sleep on the job was a bit out there.

At the end of the visit, students said it was one of the most profound experiences of their course, and they had learnt so much about Maori culture.

As I take part in the online Reinvention Summit I am reminded of this. Sometimes the audio is not good, sometimes the technology is distracting and there is a delay on the line, but between live chat, blog links, tweeting, and sharing, I am getting the full picture. As one participant said, it is like live theatre the unplugged and unpolished nature of it is all part of the experience. I could leave the room for a cup of coffee, and never lose the thread.

A trusting way of learning, where the experience is already profound from the forum created. The ‘deeper’ levels are always between the lines; not always linear, not always logical, so I’m thinking I’ll schedule siesta as part of my Summit attendances.

Last week I dropped my mother at the airport. She has heard me talk a little about my interest in story. She told me about her Christian discussion group and how they had been talking about how narrative and metaphor had been lost in Christianity and been replaced by doctrine. She found it sad that the magic and learnings from bible stories was often misinterpreted and turned into narrow sets of rules for living. There had even been emotional debate about Jesus and whether he was completely divine and a God, or a fallible human. We both agreed that these sorts of either/or conversations are really just academic, and that there is no right answer.

I wonder if people are often frightened about whether stories are right or wrong. As a recovering journalist and PR Consultant, I now reflect on the years I traded in stories that were supposedly all about facts. The truth is they were always a perspective. I think we have shut down storytelling in many walks of life, opting for the so called rational and objective and pragmatic approach to information.

The truth as far as we can get it right is important, but it will always only be a perspective. It is time for us to look at what lies beneath a story, a communication, a narrative, a conversation, and listen to the intention of the speaker. The variations on facts and figures will often be there, but through conversation, collaboration and cooperation we can collectively gather facts and figures and the truth to go forward together.

We reinvent ourselves every morning, and the stories we tell ourselves, listen to, watch, and share will always be subjective, varied and flawed. We can find accuracy in the physics of nature, the elements and forces beyond our control.

Where I live is a small island in the South Pacific. New Zealand Aotearoa has a small population, although our lifestyle often seems just like that of places such as Britain, Europe, the US or Australia.

It is a country of settlers of many cultures who found their way here by sea, all over long distances. Sea journeys and stories are rich throughout all our cultures from Maori, to Polynesia, to European and beyond.

Navigation in nature and in life is a powerful metaphor. How do we gain some wisdom about navigating pathways to take in life, on land and on the sea?

On the eve of the Reinvention Summit, I am thinking a lot about navigation and reinvention.

The ancient schools for Maori leaders were called wananga. Young men chosen as leaders were given a white stone, Hukatai, when they arrived and placed it in their mouth and symbolically swallowed it. This represented sea foam made by the bow of a canoe, and stood for knowledge as facts picked up along a sea journey, an unorganised set of ideas. When the student graduated, he would place a red stone, Rehutai in his mouth. This represented seaspray from a canoe heading into the sunrise. Seaspray throws up a prism of light where all the colours of the rainbow can be seen and represents knowledge being transferred into wisdom, and an integration of heart, mind and body.

The ancient navigators reinvented themselves daily with wisdom as every day nature would throw up a new set of circumstances to meet.

I think now through creating deeper stories, we can use our narratives to grow our wisdom, and reinvent ourselves ongoingly as we move through forever changing circumstances.