Michael Cane was mentored to use the ‘difficulty’ that presented itself as an opportunity. In an interview, he suggested that an unplanned obstacle can fortify the storyline.
We know some efforts are destined to fail over time. But the struggle of keeping them in the scene for as long as possible creates the tension, attention, and struggle that compels others to follow the journey.
How are you using unplanned difficulties to enhance your efforts?
What stories were handed down that supported your work/service at your cause? Which narratives limit your effectiveness?
Multiple new board members have joined a cause and stated they would take the first three or four meetings to get oriented and up to speed before adding their wisdom. How has this mindset impacted the organization? What does this say about the orientation process? What vital contributions are lost during this acclimatization phase?
How has service on boards with a give-or-get policy (raise or personal donate x number of dollars) impacted the team’s mindset? If your primary focus stays on achieving your quota, what opportunities are missed? What is gained? Budgeting contributed income is easier if everyone is responsible for a percentage. The policy might eliminate potential board members who do not have financial resources or access to networks with wealth.
Designating appropriate resources, such as salary for staff, technology investments, and taking a political stand are considered inappropriate in some social sector factions. What stories do you encounter when explain why your enterprise invests so much/so little in staff compensations. What barriers/opportunities are evident when upgrading software? When was the last time your cause met with local legislators to share your legislative agenda? If we see compensation, resource investments, and lobbying as inappropriate for the sector, then what does that say about our help wanted sign? What does that suggest about how committed we are to reach our vision?
Stories may retain essential clues to how we prioritize our approach. How might we pay attention to which ones get the spotlight within our organization?
If we are trying to compose a story, pre-defining key plot points allows us to work the narrative toward these waypoints. We may not know all the details, but we have coordinates as our orientation points. What plot points have you selected to drive your next chapters?
What if we consider our life on a macro scale. There is a birth, some activity, we perish. It is a narrative that has been repeated billions of times. If we change the aperture to a bit finer detail, a person was born in a specific decade, received an education, worked a job, retired, and then died. Not remarkable, but a bit more specific. If we zoom in much further, we could fill novels with an exhaustive list of each second of a person’s life. One speculates that a meta-analysis would confirm that no two people have lived the same life.
How we talk about our work, the impact of our cause and the narrative that defines our quest depends on scale. Too much detail, and we lose our audience. Too little detail, and we are generic and miss detailing our signature superpower.
How might we find the optimal scale to share our story? Some narratives need a sentence and others a page or more. What has worked for you?
What-if-concepts 