Changing the Stories We are 'in'

This chapter is about the way we make sense of situations with stories about what (we think) is happening. At times we can get trapped in these stories in ways that contribute to feeling more powerless than we actually are. The chapter examines two approaches to shifting self-limiting assumptions. The first is through retrieving purpose, the ‘why’ of our organisations which can get buried under the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, particularly in the current target-culture. The second is using organisation-in-the-mind as a tool to bring into view elements of our experience that were previously out of awareness, and thus make new stories – and therefore new options for action – possible. Examples are drawn from a range of public sector organisations.