Symbolic Realities
Igor: Before the break you had a chance to investigate people’s symbolic realities with the unconscious mind how it symbolizes the highs and lows of life, shall we say.
Robin: We’d like to give you some more questions, more ways of extending that.
Igor: But to make it more fun, rather than focusing on a specific life issue the person’s had or an event like that, let’s just use some training wheels that we had back on day one just for the fun of it. Do you remember that strange new world exercise we did, spinning people around and a whole new world comes out? We’ll play with that a bit and to do that we’ll need you to move all the chairs to one side again. If you begin with that we’ll get into the exercise.
Robin: So, you remember the exercise right? You find a partner and spin round and you’re all really fluid already right now in doing this exercise. You’ve done it before a number of different times and when you open your eyes you can look around and start creating this whole landscape.
How do you help people develop that if they haven’t had a nice creative warm-up? These questions are a variation on something called clean language. Anyone heard of clean language? It’s a therapy model, based on the work of a guy named David Grove. It’s very much about exploring people’s symbolic landscape, but that symbolic landscape that represents their problems is also their creative symbolic landscape.
By asking the right kinds of questions, you can help them to step through and around in that model of the world. So go find a partner, two minutes apiece to begin with. One of you spins round, the other is the coach and I’d like you to take them through these kinds of questions.
You can start with what’s that like, what do you see? Is there anything else there? Where are they standing? What’s to the left or to their right and what’s right in front of them? What’s behind them? What happens next? You’re exploring the dimensions of space and time, in which they move in their symbolic landscape.
What you’ll find is that asking those questions once before, what happens next, starts to pull out the elements of the story and introduces different elements. So, on your mark get set go.
Igor: Was that fun? All the stuff, getting pepped up? Good. Let’s do something interesting as an experiment. I’d like you to find a new partner, which means you have at least two more tasks. The second thing I want you to do is to have a little chat with them about some wonderful moment in their life, some happy event, positive event, some victory, something that makes them feel proud, etc.
Talk about that and it can be as simple as, what makes you feel proud? When was the last time something really interesting or positive happened to you? All you can do is chat about that, normal chit-chat sort of stuff for a minute or two. You may hear some of these symbols start to come out and if you do note them, there’s nothing you need to do with them right now. Once you’ve talked for a minute or so, what I want you to do then is to say great, let me stop you there for a second, spin around and see a strange new world you’ve never seen before, start describing it and use these questions to populate it to bring it to life.
So you’re going to have normal chit-chat about something positive. Then you’ll do the same exercise again and notice what happens. Then you’ll switch around and we’ll come back and talk about that. Sound good. Different partner. Four minutes apiece. Off you go. [Exercise starts]
How did that go for you guys was that interesting? How did the first and second exercises compare to each other, the first strange new world and the second where you talked about something positive first? Were there any nice little differences there?
Student: It was much more involved.
Igor: The second one was much more involved right?
Student: Yes, more fun. I got the feeling that she was really feeling and experiencing this and having fun with it.
Igor: Right, she was having fun with it and feeling it. Can I ask you, in terms of the experience you talked about beforehand, we don’t need to know what it was, was there a similar emotion in the positive experience to the one she experienced later on in the strange new world?
Student: Yes it was similar, but the second one was much more intense.
Igor: Absolutely and that makes sense. Thank you for that.
Student: The second time around I ended up in an amusement park, and I’m still a teeny bit nauseas.
Robin: Thank you.
Igor: Very good, I think. So much for the interactive part. Here’s one of the reasons we wanted to start doing this. You probably noticed like you said, did you in general notice that the second set of strange new worlds were overall more engaging, more emotional and more vivid to people? Would that be fair to say?
Group: Yes.
Igor: The reason for that is because they’ve been primed ahead of time. By talking about some positive event it starts accessing all the memories and all the associations with that, including symbols. So you’ll probably find that within these strange new worlds that popped out of nowhere was actually very relevant to the symbolic elements that related to the positive experience we were talking about and so on.
Get the idea? Hence the emotions were stronger, because a lot more stuff was happening. I think I want to talk now about the kinds of metaphors to look out for, the similes that people come out with, because you’ll be able to hear them happening. There are some patterns that repeat frequently.
Robin: Some people found themselves face to face with a brick wall. This is a common one, obstacles. You’ll hear various metaphors come up because they are universal. If you think about that, if you have an obstacle right in front of you than it’s really difficult to move forward in life isn’t it? You might find that you’re pushing and pushing against things and not making any progress.
You might be banging your head against a brick wall. You might not be able to get over, over it. But maybe you need to explore what’s underneath that or find a way round it. Another common one that people come up with is edges. It’s like I’m on the edge of a cliff. Again, they can’t move forward.
It feels like they’re looking down at people or they’re above people. Pedestals is another one. They find they’re standing on a pedestal and everyone is looking up at them, they’re looking down at everyone else, they still can’t move forward unless they step down from the pedestal and come down to earth.
Containers, I’m depressed. People who are depressed are often in a pit of despair. They’re in a pit. So what’s it like when you’re in a pit? Again, it’s probably dark down there. You’re sick of looking up at everyone around you. Maybe you feel like you can’t move in any direction, you’re walking around in circles. You really just need to climb out, but who’s going to help you get a leg up and pull you out?
Do you understand?
Group: Yes.
Robin: Does anyone not understand? Great. So, there are certain kinds of metaphors that you’ll find. For containers by the way, we can also be containers. I’m full of sadness. He’s full of joy. What kind of container is that? He’s just letting off steam. When you find these key metaphors that people are using about where they are… I’m stuck.
Again, if someone is stuck, it might be because they’re on a pedestal. It might be because they’re moving through treacle. You need to find out enough about that particular stuckness, because when they’ve considered all the options, there’ll be some that are left. They might not be able to move forward but perhaps they can take the right path to a solution.
When you begin to understand somebody’s symbolic environment in that way, you can begin to coop their experience. To give you an example, I was doing this exercise on myself recently and it was like I was in a cave. That cave was halfway up a cliff. Sometimes in that cave it’s difficult to see, it’s dark in there and you have the pressure of the rocks bearing down on you. If you can’t go to the edge of the cave you can actually see forward. I can see the sun in front and the wonderful world in front of me, but I can’t move towards it because I’m on edge. So again I have to either, climb down to earth and just join everyone else, but maybe as I climb down I also need to grow up so I can still see what’s ahead of me, the bright future ahead of me.
If you’re in a pit of despair, quite often that’s a good one because people don’t climb out of a pit they grow up and up out of it. So the whole purpose of this little section, and we can only cover it briefly, is to just start to tune your ears to listen out for these kinds of metaphors because once you’ve found them you can coop them and effectively mind read a whole part of their life. Do you understand?
As you begin to explore, as we’ve already touched on earlier, there are whole sets of metaphors that we use about the organizations we work in, about the countries and towns we live in, about life, about what is our life like. What is life like? Is it a battle? Is it a garden?
Igor: Is it a box of chocolates?
Robin: Is it a box of chocolates? Is it a game?
Igor: To add something here, the interesting thing is every group or sub-culture tends to have one or a handful of similar metaphors or symbols they operate by. This will be of importance to you if there’s a particular group you wish to influence, your customers for example. Your children also for example, in an area they will all have similar metaphors which they’re picking up from each other from the language, the way they talk about each other’s frustrations and so on.
To the extent that you can get a sense of what your subcultures metaphors are, you’ll have a much stronger line into…
A- Understanding their behavior, how they feel and why they act certain ways, and
B- To create the kinds of stories that fit them, that will either take them out of this dark hole or actually use the dark hole as the starting point for whatever influence you need to have in that place.
Robin: Let me give you an example of how powerful this can be. I worked with a company in media technology, who were involved and trying to engage their supply chain, because they understood if they got everyone in the room together, basically engaged their supply chain more and shared their market research and ideas of where they were going forward, found out what the suppliers plans were for the future then they would be able to coordinate their activities a lot better.
They could then anticipate what was coming up and eliminate a whole load of wasted effort. They’d been doing this for six to eight months and they kept sending out emails inviting their supply chain, suppliers along to meetings. They were getting hardly any response at all. A couple people turning up weren’t getting it.
They changed two words, supply chain to delivery partner. The metaphor, the way they explained to me what the change was, was the supply chain is like this where people are handing things on and moving like this and it’s very much being led by what’s needed at the end. Then the person over here is really far away from there.
With that one change of expression, delivery partners, the delivery, they were all suddenly handing, it was like they were standing in a circle delivering what they were producing, to the end customer. So they were all a lot closer together, they were partners. Their intention and outcome was focused on the end customer and how their relationship supported that.
It worked completely. Within another four months they built up enough of momentum there that all the other suppliers who were still hesitating knew they had to get on board now.
Igor: There’s another example from General Motors. Some years ago in the 60s/70s, General Motors seem to be going through periods of struggle quite often and this particular instance there was a congressional hearing where basically it was an unpopular thing and they were going to ask for a bailout, some money to help them and it was a politically hot potato.
People were saying no, no more bailouts you sink or swim on your own. That was really the general attitude of the day. It was either the COO or CFO, he walks up to this hearing and really it’s supposed to be a massacre because everyone had made up their mind, but instead of talking about a bailout or handout to help them struggle to get through he just changed the metaphor.
He said this isn’t a bailout it’s a safety net. Just by switching those two words around from bailout to safety net everyone went that’s all right, we can give them a safety net, yeah that makes sense. We’re talking about at a time when billion dollar investments, which now would be trillion dollar investments, but regardless we’re talking about a lot of money being handed out because a metaphor changed.
So begin to appreciate a little bit of why we spend so much time doing this right now, because if you want to influence others, whether it’s therapeutically, business-wise, socially and so on, if you don’t appreciate the metaphors from which they’re operating unconsciously, they themselves don’t know. Notice how we started the exercises quite harshly this morning and it was difficult right, and now it’s getting easier because you have more of a sense what we’re trying to do with it.
Consciously we’re not used to thinking these ways and yet unconsciously it’s still happening anyways, and to the extent that you can get to the symbolic level and understand where they’re operating from, you can have a sense of okay, do we coop the story they’re telling and then infuse characters that fit or do you help them transform the story they’re telling so that a better metaphor emerges that will help them more and of course serve you more as well?
Robin: In order to illustrate this further and give you some examples we’re going to run quickly through some of the simple images we’ve come across in organizations. There’s actually a book called Images of Organizations by Gareth Morgan. It’s very handy. It’s a bit out of date now but is still useful for the insights it gives.
My work as a consultant and working for companies, and when you go in there one of the first things we look to establish, because often we’re going in as part of a change management program. There’s always a change going on, somebody is buying somebody, some merger is happening or a market is changing. They have to find something for all these managers to do, basically. Am I being cynical? Sorry.
One of the most common metaphors we find is that change occurs because we tell you what’s going to happen.
Igor: We’re going to lay down the law.
Robin: Interesting. There are two ways we can go with that. There’s the law, well it’s command and control. Basically it’s rules and regulations, command and control, often military metaphors. In that kind of organization you’ll find battle, fight, people are going to work with their armor on and they’re coming home at the end of the day bruised and battered.
Igor: And they’ll look for ways to attack whatever’s coming, they’ll want to get their preemptive attack in otherwise they feel they’ll be attacked, their positioned gets weakened.
Robin: And unfortunately because of the way organizations work, often they’re involved in friendly fire skirmishes going off all the time.
Igor: Do you see how these things will naturally evolve? Anyone here work at a senior managerial level or been in that situation? This is not uncommon is it? These metaphors actually get literally talked out like that you don’t even have to search for them, they get thrust upon you.
Robin: The second most common metaphor we come across is it’s a marketplace. We’re going to sell the change. We have to get our employees to buy into this new way of working together. They might give you a menu of choices. It’s still actually a very much top down approach there. There’s a central supplier of items for the marketplace.
The metaphor is all about this buy-in, how do we message them? How do we brand this change effectively?
Another frequent metaphor is, we’re going to roll out some ideas but we’re going to test them first. This is the organization is the science project or experiment. It’s coming towards the machine metaphor. This is a system we can understand, we’re going to test and gather results and we’re going to do some experiments.
It’s still very much a top down approach and when you get into the whole scientific world view of an organization it will be about optimizing performance.
Igor: If you think about some of these metaphors you’ve heard so far, just think about the two different positions. You have the management structure on one end and the employee structure at the other. How do the managers feel?
Well, I’m in control. I’m the experimenter and you’re my lab rat. Essentially that’s the idea isn’t it? Or, I’m the vendor and the only place you can buy is from me, so it’s red, red or red which do you want? Maybe it’s I’m the commander, do as you’re told or you’ll be fired. How do you think the lab rats feel about that? They’re going to be really enthusiastic about the change that’s going to come aren’t they? Oh great, we get to choose between red and red again, yay! So you begin to see how misunderstanding the symbolic landscape can create all kinds of issues, and of course, the manager is going to be like I don’t understand this, we’re selling them change it’s good stuff. Of course it is if you’re the one with the goods.
If you’re the one running the experiment it’s great. We should do that sometimes right, go into university, get all the experimenters and stick them in a maze and make them hunt the cheese. It’s not so much fun then is it? It’s important that you understand what these symbols are implying for everyone involved, because you can probably predict all kinds of problems that arise and also places where influence will be easy based on that particular model.
Robin: As a consultant going into an organization, what am I doing? I’m consulting. I’m having a consultation. What am I a doctor? Is the organization my patient? I’m the expert still, still this top down approach, I’m the expert. I’m going in and consulting with people. I’m asking them what they think. Hmm.
They’re telling me their problems. I’m going away and creating a solution. I can fix this. The way we always tried to work, because we were a big bunch of hippies was co-creation. With consultation, ultimately you end up going in there, ask the questions, gather the information and then you go back to the center and move to either, tell, sell or test mode.
Co-creation is more like a…
Igor: A village.
Robin: A village working together.
Igor: You’ve heard the expression a global village? That’s because the big players are going oh, well you’re the CEO and I’m a CEO, I can’t look down on you because that would be looking down on me, so we’re in part of a global village. We work together.
Robin: That’s right. We’re in it together.
Igor: But of course, with our village not the lab rats. Do you understand how a lot of the issues can start coming out this way?
Robin: Some very simple obvious ones, organizations is machines. In that situation it’s easy to throw a spanner in the works or for those non-English, a wrench in the machine.
Some of those organizations will be well oiled.
Igor: Some will get a little rusty.
Robin: This machine, we only really need to tinker with it a little bit and it will run fine for ages. It’s running smoothly, why change things. Organizations can also be creatures, organisms, you know, there’s the head and the heart, the kidneys, the liver. They’ll all be mapped onto different parts of the organization.
Brains is another one. Organizations is brains. Interconnected networks of neurons cooperating with each other. That’s a little image and insight to get you noticing.
Igor: For those of you thinking, what does this have to do with me I don’t work in an organization and have no desire to? It’s a simple way of looking at any collection or group of people that identify with each other. If you’re working with troubled teenagers they’ll have their own symbols. They might be the Lost Boys, the rejects.
I know many of you are hypnotherapists, so you’re community that you’re serving, if it’s blue collar workers, white collar workers, if it’s very affluent or middle class, each one of those areas will have a different mindset, a different set of symbols they aspire to. You already know this right?
In America they keep talking about this is an Italian community or African- American community. What they’re really saying is that there are certain metaphors and symbols that these people believe in that will shape the story of their lives and your interactions with them.
If you’re an influencer with people, understanding what those are will be very useful and having a tool to get what those symbols are will help you. For example, if you were to just chat with the client you have or the people you’re going to influence and you talk to enough people, you’ll notice that there is a general pattern, a lot of people who run similar things.
Now, to use for example the military metaphor, some will see it more as a struggle. Some will see it about being in control. Some will see it more about authority figures, but they’re really saying the same thing just from a slightly different point of view. By understanding that you will be able to influence them and do something with your stories to help along with that too.
Get the idea? Useful stuff? Shall we do something practical with it?
Practical Use Of Symbols
Igor: Let’s do an exercise. Let’s do this in pairs and talk to your partner the same way you did this morning about a particular issue that you could help them with. Let’s orient them towards something. You can even role play if you like. So, for example, what kinds of people do you want to influence? Give me some ideas so we can use something that fits your metaphor. Let’s grab the kinds of people you need to influence so you get an idea of what we’re talking about and then we’ll start pulling out the symbols so we can start using them practically.
Pamela: My French in-laws.
Igor: So your in-laws who happen to be French. If anyone here knows the French very well you can start role playing them or you could even role play for them because you’ll have some instincts about how they think. You might actually want to be your in-laws and have someone else pull the metaphors out so you can see them, because you’ll have a lot of instincts about them.
What other groups of people might you want to influence?
Student: People that need help with chronic pain.
Igor: People in chronic pain. What area are you?
Student: In my case it’ll be pain for sickle cell anemia, which creates a lot of pain around the body.
Igor: So people with sickle cell anemia sure, so with a disease or certain condition and there’ll be some ideas around that. Who else has a specific idea in mind?
Stefan: Colleagues and co-workers at your place of work.
Igor: Fantastic. You can look out for a lot of the metaphors you’ve already heard because there’ll be in there somewhere. You get the general idea of what we’re talking about right?
Student: Teenagers.
Robin: The Lost Boys and Lord of the Flies.
Igor: Everyone’s going oh yeah. Exactly. I think the easiest way to do this exercise, and actually a fun way of doing it is to reverse roles. If you play the audience you want to influence. Have your partner talk to you about what it’s like and see if you can map it out around you. There’s a hole here and a wall there and a gun over here and all together I’m really in a bad place.
Have them pull out, because you know those people already you’ve already talked to them and have some instincts about it, so chances are you already know more about their symbols and metaphors than you realize, so this might be a nice useful way for you to get at that. What we’re looking for is… you don’t have to get the whole story right now you just need enough that we can use it usefully when we get back to the idea of storytelling. Do you understand the idea of the exercise everyone?
Robin: They’re looking for their weltanschauung.
Igor: Yes. Let’s take five minutes apiece, 10 minutes total, really think about a context where you want to be influential and then place someone you already know who is in that context so you can let those symbols emerge in a relatively close proximity to reality. Off you go. [Exercise starts]
Are you beginning to have more fun now playing with these symbols? I know it’s a bit of a slower start this morning, but are you getting into this whole gear of it? Judging by the volume of the room, some bigger stuff is coming out now right? Did anyone surprise themselves that you were channeling the group, either teenagers, colleagues or so on and someone would go yeah, this is probably what they would say and stuff starts coming out where you were almost surprised?
What kind of groups and symbols did you discover just now?
Arthur: I didn’t particularly discover any symbols, but what I did, I wanted to see how I could influence my employees better so we got down to one group of employees and as I began thinking what they had to go through by putting myself in their place, I was thinking boy they really do have a hard job.
Igor: It’s useful to understand that right?
Arthur: Yes.
Igor: So if you were one of your employees, one of your nurses, what would that be like?
Arthur: There’s lots going on, lots of responsibility and people coming at you from every direction.
Igor: Right, so when there’s lots of stuff going on and lots of responsibility…
Robin: People are coming at you from every direction…
Igor: What’s that like?
Arthur: A pressure cooker.
Igor: It’s like a pressure cooker and the pressure just mounts over the course of the day right?
Arthur: Yes.
Robin: And unless they need some way of releasing that it might explode.
Igor: Yes.
Robin: It’s probably a good idea if sometimes they get to let off steam a little.
Arthur: Not in the office.
Igor: Well, you do realize that steam drives steam engines. That’s one of the ways… you can see by looking at Arthur’s face… there are locks I didn’t even know I had tumbling into place right now. It’s not the complete intervention now but it’s a great big door it’s like explain further. Well, let me illustrate with a story and suddenly we’re into a transformational story with a teaching tale.
Do you see how useful this stuff can be now? A very simple snapshot can take someone from no, they can’t explode in the office to, oh maybe I can harness that energy to be something useful. But I could tell that to them logically and say yes let’s take all their pent up frustrations and harness it to something useful and productive in the office and it’s going to go are you crazy? Are you nuts?
As opposed to, now you’re thinking how could I harness the pressure that’s building up? Do you understand the value of this now? We haven’t even gotten into how to build this into your stories yet, we just want you to go to lunch with an appreciation that you actually have a very potent tool here when applied with a little wisdom. Thank you for doing that Arthur.
Student: I was thinking about a potential client of mine who would not really believe hypnosis would help him. It was like being in a crowd watching a magician up on stage and suddenly everything falls apart and he becomes ridiculed.
Igor: Would you be the magician for this client?
Student: Yes.
Igor: Again, there are many ways you can play with that and say well, what makes you think this is not a comedy magician. Would you not be entertained? Really, as long as you’re entertained does it matter whether or not you see through the trick? Again, do you see how they’re giving you the reframe there?
Another version might be, so why on earth are you coming to see a magician if you don’t think the trick will work, if you expect it to fall apart?
Student: Right.
Igor: That will tell you more about the metaphor. So again I’m not giving you solutions as much as giving you some food for thought about the metaphors you discovered or the symbols.
Student: I was thinking about trying to influence a lawyer on how to solve the underlying disputes that might be a mediator or using negotiation techniques…
Igor: Great.
Student: … Instead of going through the legal motions. When we spoke I go the feeling this is a big box I’m carrying and people try to steal stuff out of my box.
Igor: It’s almost like a kid, I’ve got my toys, don’t take my toys.
Student: Exactly. Then the next thing, Ollie asked the question, what if you want to change the content how would you do that? My solution was, actually I can become a mediator myself and let’s make a legal profession out of it and that’s what’s happening in real life. It was very insightful.
Igor: Right. So now you understand. Of course, the more people you talk to in terms of the legal field the more you’ll understand what the global metaphor is, but you now have some ideas and people are doing this constantly. Great salespeople are constantly talking in symbols and metaphors. Sometimes they impose their own, but the wise ones just understand the ones everyone else is thinking about. It’s probably like, think of a child with their box and they’ve been protecting their toys and so on. After a while it’s the same old toy it gets boring. How about figuring out how you can change these toys and get a brand new set of toys in there so every day is like Christmas. Have you heard me change the metaphor? I’ve gone from a kid being possessive about toys to Christmas, which is about receiving more. Of course, the underlying implication being is that there are ways to get more business by doing something where you think you might get less. Are you beginning to see some value here folks? Anyone else want to share theirs?
Student: I found the metaphor of a smoker going into hypnosis like being prodded by the world to go into a dark forest. This dark forest has the reputation of creating zombies. My coach was kind enough to point out that zombies aren’t so good because it’s like dying but sometimes there are parts of you that just need to die, like cancer.
Igor: That’s a very powerful metaphor. I love that because you’re doing my job for me. We’re thinking about, let’s give them some reframes and things like that, and you’re going no we’ve got them already. Thank you for doing our job for us.
Student: I’m a business consultant. I’ve always gotten the impression/feeling that I’m an adult and my clients are like kids playing in the sandbox. They are sometimes fighting, grabbing from each other, and just looking from the highest perspective down. I’m trying to teach them. Now I realize that I should go down to be together with those kids and play with them, than the results will occur.
Igor: Because you won’t have the same kind of resistance with authority and that stuff. You won’t have naughty two-year olds you’ll have cooperative ventures. Thank you.
Robin: Those kids can only grow up when you set them free to do so.
Rita: So tomorrow I’ll be working with a group of managers who have asked me to think with them about a change management process in the company, so I put myself in the shoes of their employees and George was very good at pointing out what they would be thinking, so I was going we’ve done this before, we’ve traveled down this road so nothing new is going to happen.
Igor: That’s one symbol there, traveled down this road before.
Rita: That was the one I was still hooked on and thinking, how could I reframe that one so they can appreciate the new road they’re going down?
Igor: Right. People who live in the same place and same town have basically walked every single road at least once. The question is not whether you go down the same road it’s how far you keep going. Unless you keep going, how will you ever get anywhere else?
Robin: You’ll never leave town.
Igor: Right. Your choice.
Robin: Sometimes of course we can go down the same road everyday on the way to work in a kind of trance and then something happens that jars us and wakes it up and it might be that we suddenly see something beautiful or…
Igor: For example…
Robin: … if we’re lucky. If we’re unlucky we might crash before we notice what’s going on.
Igor: … I used to take the same bus to school every single day. Do you see where we’re going with this right now? I think that’s enough food for thought. I think you get the hint about the metaphor and what this matter is for.
Robin: I want to reassure you because I know you’ve been very busy for the last 11 days.
Igor: You worked hard.
Robin: It’s a long road.
Igor: In this seminar and others as well.
Robin: And some of you are probably thinking, looking for to opening the front door and going into the other room
Igor: Ah, my goodness, so much stuff.
Robin: And really have you got what it takes
Igor: Where do I put it all?
Robin: To absorb any more information
Igor: The fact is
Robin: We’d like to reassure you
Igor: That it is simple
Robin: This afternoon
Igor: Will get easier
Robin: We’ll just be doing a few short and easy
Igor: Fun exercises
Robin: To give you the opportunity to consolidate what you’ve learned
Igor: And realize it’s quite powerful
Robin: And go away with a bit of a bang
Igor: Right.
Symbolic Influence
Igor: Welcome back everyone, how are you feeling? We’re in the last run, the final run of the day. This is the time to pull out of the bag, get those stories ready, get your engines running and do something. Are you ready? Dress yourself. I think he went to the coffee shop today. Don’t hold it against him he can’t handle his drugs.
Let’s start again. How is everyone doing?
Group: Yay!
Igor: Hope you had a nice lunch. Before lunch we talked about symbolism in terms of people’s personal metaphors and how those apply to cultures and so on. You can understand that you have personal metaphors and we have cultural metaphors that we can buy into unconsciously within the groups or social groups we engage in.
They can be useful and helpful for the influence process. Many of you already started to play with the idea of taking the metaphor that’s emerged and basically hijacking it. So, where they’re getting stuck with something, Arthur’s example was great with the idea of the pressure cooker and you can let off some steam.
The concerns come out metaphorically but not in the office. Then you’re asking yourself, how can I use this metaphor to actually turn things to a positive event, whether it’s how far down the known path do you have to tread before you find new ground, the kind you’re looking for? Or, it’s reminding them that steam powers railway engines and get lots of work done.
Robin: Because you need to keep a lid on things for the steam pressure to build up, to have enough pressure to actually get the thing moving. But then steam engines have a governor, that little device that spins out as it gets faster and faster which lets out steam gradually and just at the right pace, so you get the ideal pressure.
Igor: So nothing else, they can all start whistling and work. (whistling) What I’d like you to do is a simple exercise just now and that is getting together with a partner and now that we’re used to this kind of language, see if you can start drawing the metaphors out a little more conversationally. Get a new partner. Let’s focus on simple issues, something light we don’t want to get too heavy right now.
Your main job is that once you’ve got a little bit of the symbolism out is can you somehow hijack the symbol to make it something more pleasant so it can become a useful metaphor for change. Does that make sense? The same way we had here with the pathway and so on. Does anyone have a question about it? Again, this is simpler to do than to talk about, so unless these looks are those of eager anticipation, go for it.
Let’s take that as a sign that it’s time to do an exercise. Please find a partner you haven’t talked with yet. A simple small problem. Spend a minute or so just chit-chatting to see what symbols pop out. When you get a nice symbol like I’m stuck or there’s a lot of pressure then just zero in on it, what’s that like? Is it like a banana peel and you slip on it? No, it’s like a pressure cooker with pressure building up.
Once you get that out, reframe it back to them and see the impact it has. You don’t have to go anywhere with it you just have to see the impact it has. We’ll show you right after this how to use it in a more storytelling context.
Robin: Please do change partners.
Igor: Change partners, change problems and change everything else you want to change. Five minutes apiece. Off you go. [Exercise starts]
How’d that go guys? Who enjoyed that? Who is starting to see and experience the value of this symbolic way of working with stories as well?
Student: It’s interesting. We were talking about problems dealing with teenagers. Basically, you want to chunk the crap out of them and shake them loose.
What do you shake loose? Then we said if you look at a fruit tree, you shake it and you get fruit out. Then he says what if you get the fruit and give it to her. So if I say something nice first and…
Igor: Then you shake the tree. Isn’t that nice. How does that make you feel, given that situation when someone says oh, that’s another way of looking at it?
Student: It’s interesting. It showed me that maybe the problem is more mine than someone else’s.
Robin: It’s interesting often, if you remember the mirror story I told earlier about the guy and the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree does it?
Student: Guess not.
Igor: Do you see the mileage you can get out of these things? Thank you for sharing.
Let’s take the next step now. I know someone who’s a friend of mine who’s a salesman and he had a terrible time working. He was metaphorically constantly battered and bruised, because going on a sales trip was like going to war zone for him. He would turn up battle a client, sometimes he’d win sometimes he’d lose, but whether he won or lost there’s always going to be a scar for the interaction.
He would come back exhausted, exhausted being exhilarated from the sale or exhausted and depressed at the humiliating defeat. One day his boss came in and said look Brian, I understand why you’re making life so hard for yourself. He said what you don’t realize is that all the people we’re sending out to see these potential clients, they need what we have.
You’re both sitting in the same boat and someone has to be willing to pick up the oars and row. So it’s up to you, you can fight each other or you can start rowing. What are you going to start doing?
Robin: Because the thing is we can’t all steer the boat.
Igor: Too many cooks spoil the roast… So you get the idea that you can take those very metaphors that are underlying and start weaving them into your stories so that the transformational moment is actually presented in a story metaphorically and symbolically at the same time. See how that works? If someone wants to be really clever here’s what you can do with this. Do you remember the picaresque adventure from yesterday, where you tell like a shaggy dog story or you have a genuine story with lots of little things? Well you have your loops and your little adventures, what if a side adventure was Brian’s sales problem or whatever the story is you want to throw in there, but then you go back to the main adventure of figuring out what’s going on in this monastery.
You’ve just created a very simple, very covert bit of transformation haven’t you? The idea sinks but before they think of it too much, you carry on the story and they’re like tell me more about that and it sits in the backs of their mind where it belongs. Because it addresses the very question that someone over here was asking at the start of the day, which is, if you look at the stories children read and you look at your life, aren’t you really living out the same story?
Group: Yes.
Igor: The reason you’re living it out is because you forgot to think about it. It just became an assumption you made about life, a symbolic assumption that you recreated. So now we give them a symbolic way of transforming that. Do you understand the idea of this?
Robin: Can I tell a little story?
Igor: It’s a storytelling seminar so be my guest.
Robin: Just on that issue of overt and covert, because you can use these things directly and also be a bit more subtle. I did one piece of work with a client who was working in a very rural bound IT department. He wanted to encourage creativity and to shake things up a bit, get people to realize they could step outside the rules they’d created for themselves and be a little more adventurous.
He didn’t think that the direct approach would work, so what we ended up doing was to collect together newspaper articles, magazines, stories, the kinds of things that were lying around the office that you could point out and say read this story, the kinds of things you could leave on a bulletin board and not comment on.
To give you an example of the kind of story we were looking for, there was a newspaper article about a fireman who was being punished, reprimanded in front of a work tribunal because he’d disobeyed his line manager during a fire fight. This huge building was on fire and he’d disobeyed and obviously in that kind of situation that’s a very dangerous thing to do.
He was reprimanded and fined. The tribunal pointed out in their judgment that they’d taken into account the fact that going into the building enabled him to save the life of two young children who were trapped there. So it was an example of a situation in which breaking the rules was the right thing to do.
Igor: Do you get the idea?
Student: Your example of converting the war metaphor into a boat seemed rather juxtaposition to me. Is that still okay?
Igor: Remember, you’re doing this in story form right now. You can do it more smoothly if you want as well. Because you’re doing it in story form you’re not necessarily going straight like now, now you told me that your relationship feels like a war zone great. Now, let me tell you a story about someone else who had a relationship that resembled a war zone. That’s exactly what I’m not suggesting.
So you have a little longer to do this exercise precisely because you’ll tell a little value story, maybe a mind reading story and then a teaching tale and one of those may become your picaresque adventure. Inside of that you don’t even talk about necessarily a relationship being like a war zone, you’ll talk about some other event being like a war zone.
The fact that you’re using the metaphor, in this case a relationship that’s like a war zone and in the story it’s the salesperson treats it like a war zone, that’s the bit where you catch their attention. If you want you can put in a resolution where you thought about it and maybe it pops out later on in another picaresque adventure much happier. That creates that transition point.
Robin: There are a number of ways to go also. Navy’s take part in wars and during the First World War, horses had to pull together to pull the canons and guns forward to the front lines.
Igor: There are many ways you can take it, we’ve just illustrated how you can take what you just did very directly as a reframe and put it inside a story. Let’s put it this way , recall yesterday you were sitting there at the edge of your seat really listening to people’s stories and getting all excited by them. And you probably weren’t thinking too much about them other than they were very entertaining. Once you have someone there, that’s when you tell the story and it becomes a smoother transition. Then you move on to other parts of the story. Remember the open and closed loops once again, that becomes a useful thing to do there.
It’s just another way of using a transformational story now that you have tools to build it in a different way. Does that help? Any other questions? All right. Let’s spend five minutes apiece with the same partner that you’ve already talked to a little bit about the metaphors so you’ll know where it’s going. You don’t necessarily have to elicit it now, just start talking to each other telling a personal or value story, some other thing and somewhere in the third or fourth story embed your reframe story, your transformational story and then finish up your stories in whatever way you want.
So a five minute simple set of stories that you’re throwing in, one of which somewhere in the middle will be the one which handles the actual symbol they gave to you, like the fruit tree, pressure cooker and so on. Do you understand the exercise? All right then, off you go. [Exercise starts]
Final Exercise
Robin: In a moment we’re going to do another mingling exercise and we’re going to ask you to move from partner to partner and exchange a little bit of information.
Igor: Shall we move the chairs first?
Robin: Make sure you move around. Go up to people who you’ve worked with, who you’ve spent time with during the last three days, last 11 for some of you and get a chance for those people to really connect and share this information.
The kind of information we would like you to share is simply like this… what I liked about what you did. What I enjoyed about working with you. I loved it when you did that.
Igor: And if you want to add a simile along the way, it’s a bit like…
Robin: You’re some kind of storytelling ninja.
Igor: Now, the important thing here is you will probably, in your journey around the room, bump into one or two people you haven’t really had interaction with in terms of stories and so on. You know what you do then? You tell a lie. You pretend you’ve had this amazing time because let’s face it, there is no contradictory evidence.
Robin: I’m sure there will be universal principles, universal experiences that you can draw out. Igor, what I’ve really enjoyed about working with you is re-igniting our rapport on stage and I love that we can be a little competitive and banter and neither of us feel sulky or upset about it. I admire your ability to stay absolutely focused on these guys learning for 11 days in a row, working 10 hour days. I love it when you show your human side, when you laugh I think you can be really funny.
[Applause]
Igor: My thoughts Robin I have to say and it’s very true. What I really enjoyed is the way that we can interweave stories and pick up where the other person left off. There aren’t a lot of people who actually have that kind of flow so that’s a real pleasure. As always I adore your stories. I’m sure these guys will agree with me when I say that just sitting here watching you perform them is like theater.
It’s like wow, sit back I haven’t paid for this I’ll just watch. It’s phenomenal and every time I see you perform like that and every time I see you train I actually learn more of myself. It’s like going into the smoothie bar and having all the worst things in one drink only they’re not being good for you and I like that. It’s a private moment.
[Applause]
Do you get the idea?
Robin: So, 10 minutes.
Igor: Off you go.
— How are you doing, did you enjoy that exercise?
Group: Yes.
Igor: Did you hear some nice things? Dare I say did a few little stories start coming out just because you couldn’t help it?
Robin: Did anyone get feedback that surprised them in a nice way?
Group: Yes.
Robin: Excellent.
Igor: Very good.
Robin: Just that exercise I’ve run on four different continents in corporations and I always get the same feedback at the end of a session, which is, that was the best thing we’ve done all day. We never get a chance to do that in our work. That’s a tip for the consultants in the room.
Final Thoughts
Igor: We’re coming to the tail end of the day now. You have worked hard. I know you’ve worked a lot of things. As we know when you come to the end of an important journey usually people like to leave you with a last thought, idea or image. I’d like to do the latter. I’d like to leave you with one very important idea that hopefully you’ll take with you when we finish here. The idea comes more in the form of an image. If you imagine a monastery or abbey on top of a hill and inside there somewhere is a crypt, and if you follow a long series of tunnels you’ll get to a door. Behind that door lie all the stories you never told. I think it’s time to open that door don’t you?
Robin: I started off talking about a windmill I bought for my mom. When I came over here I was wondering how I could keep in touch with my daughter while away and just relay how do I get her to relate to the experience that’s going on? So Paddington Bear smuggled himself into my suitcase and I have photos of him peeking his head out of the suitcase, looking out the airplane window. Me, being surprised to find him in the hotel room. Us cuddled up in bed together. Him on a bicycle in Amsterdam by the canal. Sipping a bear by a famous bridge. Training with Igor Ledochowski.
Igor: Why thank you for…
Robin: I also told you a story about a picture frame. For me that story really encapsulated very simply, the real power of story. It’s just a picture frame right? It’s just a few dollars. But the story attached to it makes it priceless. So, on that note it’s time to close your book and close the book on this training.
Igor: It’s usually easiest to do with flat feet on the floor
Robin: And with your hands positioned comfortably, perhaps on your laps
Igor: Eyes closed usually enhances an experience
Robin: It doesn’t matter whether you take a deep breath in right now
Igor: Or simply relax
Robin: And allow your breathing to happen naturally
Igor: As your thoughts circulates naturally, one
Robin: The ones you feel
Igor: Lazy idea to another
Robin: Your breathing changing now
Igor: And there are so many things you’ve experienced
Robin: Let your attention play
Igor: So many stories you’ve told
Robin: Only on those most pleasant sensations
Igor: So many stories you’ve heard
Robin: Those feelings of relaxation and comfort
Igor: You’ve been touched
Robin: In a deep way
Igor: And moved
Robin: And you can still feel the weight of your body on the chair
Igor: By all the experiences
Robin: And you can feel the temperature
Igor: That others have shared with you
Robin: On your skin
Igor: In the form of stories
Robin: You can hear the sounds in the room
Igor: And there’s that woman’s story and truth
Robin: And you can review the experience of the last three days
Igor: Making one more palatable to the general population
Robin: And you can imagine
Igor: Important truths
Robin: Whether you’re sitting in that chair
Igor: Coming from your story
Robin: Of who you are or another chair
Igor: What you value. And there are so many different ways to experience comfort
Robin: That chair
Igor: Could be any chair in the world
Robin: Could be an armchair
Igor: It could be a rocking chair
Robin: It could be a throne
Igor: It could be something you’ve sat in many times before
Robin: Or it could be a chair you’ve only sat in once
Igor: If you sat in a chair
Robin: In a house
Igor: In a clearing
Robin: In a wood
Igor: And waited comfortably
Robin: Waiting for somebody to come visit you
Igor: An important task
Robin: A story to tell
Igor: Something that only that individual needs to hear
Robin: And they’ve traveled on a long journey
Igor: A long way to be here
Robin: To find you waiting for them
Igor: And there they are by the doorstep
Robin: Here
Igor: Walking in the room. Sitting down and looking at you expectantly
Robin: As you begin
Igor: The story
Robin: To tell them
Igor: What they need to hear
Robin: Right now
Igor: In the cloak of story
Robin: And whether it’s a long story or a short story
Igor: You have all the time you need
Robin: Whether it’s the seed of the story
Igor: In the next few moments
Robin: Or the completion
Igor: To expand time inside
Robin: Of something left open
Igor: To make it fit
Robin: It’s a story that’s really important for you to hear
Igor: The exact you’re telling. And notice the emotion. Feel how your words touch
that person
Robin: Hear the sound of your own voice
Igor: Change them
Robin: As you tell that story
Igor: Frees their own voice
Robin: Using all the new skills you’ve learned
Igor: Frees their own movements
Robin: See the impact it has on them
Igor: Releases the stories trapped inside
Robin: Feel that connection between you both growing there together
Igor: And you’ve done so many things now
Robin: Have you not
Igor: You’ve achieved so much now
Robin: And you’ve learned
Igor: And you can achieve even more. As the story finishes, a bigger one begins
Robin: And it’s a story you may know the beginning
Igor: Far away from a house and a clearing and a forest, there is another life
Robin: Another place
Igor: That awaits someone
Robin: And you all know the way home don’t you
Igor: There are so many things that await you and the stories you have to tell
Robin: And as you travel
Igor: Will you experience it on a plane or a train
Robin: On a car or a boat
Igor: A bus or a bicycle
Robin: As you continue on your journey
Igor: Collecting stories and sharing them
Robin: What diversions and detours will you take
Igor: Who will you meet
Robin: In the airport
Igor: Who will you tell a story too
Robin: In a café
Igor: How will you know what story needs to be told next
Robin: At work
Igor: When something occurs
Robin: At home
Igor: And a person simply has a need to hear a story
Robin: You’ll know
Igor: That you have
Robin: Just the story
Igor: To share now
Robin: That they need
Igor: A lifetime awaits you
Robin: A lifetime and we don’t know how it ends
Igor: We don’t know where it’s going to go
Robin: We only know the journey continues
Igor: It’s full of stories
Robin: And that story unfolds forever
Igor: Every moment
Robin: Each of our individual stories
Igor: Every beat of your heart
Robin: Interweaving and intertwining
Igor: Every dream you have
Robin: Each of us
Igor: Every obstacle you confront
Robin: Each person you meet is the hero in their own story
Igor: Every person you meet
Robin: And make sure you’re the hero in your own story
Igor: Every river you cross. Every goal you achieve
Robin: Because if you’re not taking
Igor: Every person you help
Robin: Authority for that journey
Igor: Or simply sharing a good moment
Robin: Than who is
Igor: With another human being
Robin: And now you know so much more
Igor: You can sit in any chair in the world
Robin: You could be sitting in an armchair
Igor: You could be sitting on a throne
Robin: You could be sitting on a chair in a training room
Igor: You could be sitting right at home
Robin: Or you could be sitting right there in that chair
Igor: In an office or a plane
Robin: Feeling the weight of your body on that chair
Igor: And knowing that there’s a story to be told
Robin: And getting ready now to return
Igor: To bring it all together
Robin: Only as quickly
Igor: As all that rest insides you now
Robin: And as you take a nice deep breath
Igor: Your eyes can open
Robin: Enjoying taking that feeling with you and knowing
Igor: And you can look on the world
Robin: As you open your eyes
Igor: As a true storyteller now
Robin: When you’re ready to do so
Igor: Doesn’t the world look a little different like this
Robin: You’ll have a new view and a new perspective
Igor: That’s really where stories come from isn’t it?
Robin: It’s been fascinating to share this journey over the last three days. I’ve had a wonderful time.
Igor: I have too. Thank you Robin.
Robin: You rock mate.
Igor: You too.
[Applause]
As with most things, neither of us could have done any of this if this room was empty. I want to thank each of you for participating and throwing yourself in. I know it hasn’t been easy at times and it’s been a lot of energy required of you. We’ve seen you really transform and your stories have become fantastic.
I want you to appreciate yourselves and each other for becoming the storytellers you’ve become. Give yourself a round of applause. [Applause]
Robin: And just in case we forget, the assistants at the back.
Igor: All these fine people without whom…
Robin: Thanking especially our camera crew who has captured every word for you.
Igor: We have our all important sound engineers without whom you would have heard nothing. I think the last clap should be to all the people you will be telling stories too to thank them in advance for listening and sharing moments with you.
This story is over, now go home and find some new ones.