ABSTRACT
This incident could have occurred in any contemporary organization. One person sends another a comment, a note, or an e-mail, intending to discharge some annoyance or frustration. Each of the people involved-whether directly or peripherally-formulates a narrative to make sense of the incident. For some the incident appears to be simply an interpersonal issue. Others see it as a misunderstanding produced by patterns of behavior rooted in historical relationships among different identity groups, groups to which we have different connections such that some are “my group” and others are “your group” or “their group.” In short, everyone has a story not only about what happened and what it means, but also stories about their own and others’ stories (Wasserman, 2005b).
