According to Alan Deutschman’s article “Change or Die” in Fast Company Magazine, these are the latest findings in psychology and neuroscience. Stories can change a person’s “frame of view” much more powerfully than dry concepts.

Instead of fear-based facts told in conceptual form, offer people a compelling, positive vision for the future told in narrative form to open minds and motivate new behaviour.

For example, instead of only telling people that your organization will go under if the numbers don’t go up, try painting a picture in people’s mind of an ideal circumstance for your organization to move towards.

Being a great storyteller will make you indispensible on the job

In his groundbreaking book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink suggests that understanding how stories work will help you become more indispensible on the job. He talks about how our culture has now shifted from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. The Information Age valued the Left Hemisphere of the brain, the side that deals mostly with logic, language, math, structure, and rational thought. He notes that now in order to survive and thrive in today’s work culture you need to use the Right Hemisphere of the brain much more often, or a kind of thinking that involves creativity, playfulness, story, design and synthesis.

Why Right Brain dominant people will rule the future

Pink also says that the three forces at work in this shift from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age are Abundance, Asia, and Automation.

Abundance refers to the fact that people in North America now have an abundance of choice. There isn’t just one mp3 player, there are hundreds. There isn’t just one type of shampoo, there are thousands. The wide variety of choices now mean that many jobs will require someone to act as a highly creative matchmaker between the wide variety of choices and the needs of the individual end user of a product or service.

Asia refers to the fact that many of the logical, linear left brain jobs have now been outsourced to Asia.

Automation means that many tasks once done by humans are now done by technology. That means that what’s left for people here are jobs that can’t be outsourced or automated, which tend to be jobs involving the Right Hemisphere: design, synthesis, reframing, or jobs with a need for high emotional intelligence.

Here is a summary of the top traits you need to develop to be an Artist of Change:

1. ACCEPT PARADOX: To accept paradox is to see an issue from many different perspectives. It means being vastly empathic not just towards people but towards circumstances. For example, seeing how to improve customer service even though you have just been told the budget is being cut.

2. DESIGN AND RE-DESIGN: The ability to Design is now a form of workplace literacy like knowing how to use Microsoft Office. If you can’t Design then you need to take a crash course. Design is a multi-faceted skill that involves envisioning a new possibility, then re-configuring existing information, tools and resources so that it’s usable to others. For example, instead of accepting that your industry will always be high turnover, you might envision the possibility of attracting stable employees. Then you would re-design your recruiting strategy for an entirely new population segment.

3. THRIVE IN CHAOS: The Conceptual Age is filled with possibilities that point to no single “right way” anymore. Breakdowns, turnovers, mergers, acquisitions, upgrades are all happening more frequently. At the beginning of any change process you will always find chaos.  People who get stressed and resistant when chaos reigns will lose out. Those who can thrive, and even enjoy, chaos will be able to stay in higher performance states and therefore be better able to carry on and get the job done well.

Bottom Line

You’ll have to be creative to stay employed. But who doesn’t want to be creative? It’s inherently more rewarding to be creative than to be an information drone.

By the way, you can only transform if you develop on-going practices or habits that allow those traits to flourish. For more ideas, tips, workshops, staff development programs, keynotes and products go to The Artistry of Change website

You should be suspicious because change is not the issue anymore.

Unless organizations make quantum leaps now, they will be unable to cope with what’s coming.  Check back tomorrow when I will explore the habits we need to cultivate to thrive in the new Economy.

We are now in The Conceptual Age

Traditional Change Management strategies were born in the Information Age. We are now in the Conceptual Age according to Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind. We need transformational leaders rather than change management scripts. We now need people at all levels of an organization to think in transformational ways rather than only be good at giving or receiving orders.