edge talk transcript from 7 october 2016

[Remi.Coordinator is Live]

JANET WILDMAN:

We are going to talk today about public narratives, and this is part of a series of the edge talks run by

Horizons in NHS England.

If this is the first time you are joining us, welcome. Please make use of the chat room today. Please

also make use of our twitter handle, #EdgeTalks or join us @TheEdgeNHS. Let us know your views

via the chat room and also on the #EdgeTalks hash tag.

I will talk to you today about the hash tag, but this is very much part of the School for Health and Care

Radicals which has been going on for some time now.

If you want to join in, you can also join in by using @School4Radicals as well.

My name is Janet Wildman and I am the chair today. I will be your host, but we are also joined by Paul

Woodley and Dom Cushnan.

Paul will be looking at the chat room, and Dom will be monitoring Twitter, so we will come back to

them during the session to hear what has been happening in the chat room and on Twitter.

So, today, I would like to introduce you to our key presenter, who is Kathryn. She has a very

interesting background, in fact. She was a visiting fellow at Harvard University, and she has a

background as a barrister.

She was also the national director of the award-winning social enterprise Movement for Change, and

we are delighted to have her in our team leading transformational change.

She will be talking to us today and going through a masterclass in drafting public narratives and its role

in leadership development, building capacity and strengthening our own resolve to act effectively with

others to drive change.

The aim of this talk is she will talk a little bit about the use of the talk, but just quite quickly, it is around

inspiring and giving confidence so we can start to use our own narratives to support change.

Without further ado, I would like to welcome Kathryn and ask her to take us through this masterclass

on public narratives.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Thank you very much for that introduction. Hello, everyone, and good morning on a grey morning here

in London, and by the looks of the chattering all over the country. Masterclasses a strong way of

putting it for a 60 min session, so what I will do, with the help of some of the activists, is to give an

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overview of public narratives and give you examples which I had are inspiring.

I am doing this through the lens of fab change day, which we have coming up later this month, the

world's largest randomised coffee trial, a chance for people across the NHS to get talking, get

connected and build networks, which Horizons is leading on.

We have a number of Horizons team members on the call so get chatting if you want more details

about those.

Janet gave me a very generous introduction. What I would say is those are things I have done rather

than them being me. What I want to do is really focus on who we are rather than what we do. And how

that links to our ability to move people to action.

In order to make this a collaborative effort, I'm going to suggest that if you want to make a contribution

to the chat as we go along, if you use these hash tags at the start. If you want me to say more on

something or one of the other participants to say more, please add that hash tag. If you want to make

a comment, flag it, and if you want to ask a question, you can do that. As you can see, it is a very

complicated system… What would help me is to get an understanding of the level of interest,

knowledge and experience on the call.

If you are in the chat room, please indicate whether you are a samurai in public narrative knowledge,

that you consider yourself an expert and you can wield the tools freely and with grace.

Please indicate if you are practising, if it is something you have covered through the school or on an

online course, and you think you have a handle on the basic and suppose but you need more help.

If you are a newbie, you are welcome. Let me know so I can pitch the content at the right level.

Can I hand over? Paul, what sort of comments are we getting back where people feel they are at?

PAUL WOODLEY:

The comments are just coming in now. We are getting a mixed, but the majority of people are at the

practising level as things stand.

KATHRYN PERERA:

We are so British. I'm sure most of you are Samurais but you are telling me you are practising because

you are being self-deprecating.

This will be a basic session to explain to you the structure of a story. What I want to do is get into

understanding the psychology of public narrative, of stories we use in public to move people to action

with us.

Public narrative, or storytelling, is about creating stories which explain moments of choice, which

explain incidents that people can connect with emotionally in order to make sense of the world to other



people.

We might not have the same experience, but through sharing an emotional value, if you like, we can

link lived experience.

One of the key aspects of public narrative that makes it so compelling as a tool is as a signalling

action.

Public narrative, storytelling is a way of creating hope and of turning peoples'reactions from perhaps

an initial reaction of fear to a certain size of uncertainty to hope.

I will give an example of that. Janet mentioned I used to be a barrister which was true. I used to have a

lovely week which was very extensive and a big, black gown and I went all over the country

representing people.

Imagine it is 2010, and I am in a courtroom in central London, and I am going to represent a big bank.

This big bank have sacked a woman, and we will call her Mary. The circumstances look pretty unfair

on paper.

Mary is sat there on her own because she cannot afford representation herself, which is fairly

common.

She is holding back tears and has a tiny file in her hand. We get talking. She explains to me that

because of being sacked by this bank, she lost her marriage, she is in arrears on her mortgage, but

what she really wants is not a "Sorry" or to win the case. She would like £500 from the bank to

acknowledge the fact that they have caused her.

Rather than pay her £500, this bank paid me £500 to go to court to represent them to get her claim

knocked out on a technicality.

I sat there before I went into court holding Mary's hand and explained to her what was about to happen

and the legal duty I have to represent my client in that way. We went into court together. I had her

claim knocked out on a technicality.

I walked away from court, back to my room and Chambers, and I sat down and wrote my resignation

letter. That was the day it crystallised for me that I was done with being part of a system that I didn't

really believe in, that had been niggling away at me because it was about pretending that the grey

area of life is black or white.

I wanted to be part of the solution, the grey, the complexity, the joy, the misery of being involved in

actually changing things rather than just apportioning blame.

I left and had no idea what I was going to do next, and six years later here I am. I hope that story, short

as it is, prompts you not memories of being a barrister or sitting in court necessarily but possibly a



moment where you have to face a choice, where you have had to do something that was difficult for

you but you knew was the right thing.

In a nutshell, I hope it is an example of how stories can be used as tools in order to unlock our shared

values and shared source of what is called emotional resource in order to build the capacity for us to

act with other people.

It's a way that we can explain why we do what we do and, crucially, I think, why we don't do what we

don't do.

I would like to invite you to think of it as a craft. It is a mindset. It's about trying to open our minds to the

idea that these sorts of techniques and tools can be practised.

Nobody is born brilliantly telling stories. That was an example of me doing some practice, and for all of

us it can be daunting, but over time we can get better and better as we learn through doing it.

I am just going to say a quick bit on why I think it matters, and then I am going to open it up for some

discussion and other peoples' contribution to the why of public narrative.

Why do I think public narrative and connecting to people's emotional resource matters?

We are at a moment in time, and Horizons has talked about this often in our events, where there is a

clash and a shift happening between ideas around old power and new power of that old power is about

hierarchy, command and control, doing as I say and not as I do, and getting things done through that

system.

But that system is becoming less and less relevant, and social movement theory puts at its heart this

idea of new power, that change comes through the combination of many, that we pull people in and we

do that through relationship, and stories and emotion and the root of the word "Emotion" is "Motion".

Stories using emotion are how we get people to make change.

Organisers identify, recruit and develop leaders so we can build community around it. Without those

emotional bedrocks for public narrative, it's very hard to create a sense opportunity where we are

acting with people rather than for them.

Ultimately, this is about action. Stories matter because they speak to the heart and not to the head.

They speak about why we do what we do in order to motivate rather than focusing on what we do in

order to analyse.

Another way of putting that would be that they generate the energy for change, the social energy,

spiritual energy, the psychological energy that we need in order to make change rather than relying

solely on the intellect.



I will pause at that point and invite contributions from the chat and also, Paul, if you want to bring

anyone into the conversation. It might be a good chance also to introduce Lucy and Ian.

JANET WILDMAN:

Thank you so much. Over to Dom. What is happening on your side?

DOM CUSHNAN:

People are sharing some of the great narrative and storytelling that Kathryn has just given around

what she has done with her career and the reason why leaving law has affected a lot of people. Thank

you for sharing that story.

[Max.Uk.Captioner is Live]

JANET WILDMAN:

Thank you. Anything from you, Paul?

PAUL WOODLEY:

No, there isn't a lot in the chat. People have been too busy listening to be able to write their own

stories. It is resonating about the power of storytelling with people, the people are not sharing their

own stories yet. Give them time.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Alex is one of the activists who have been working with Horizons, and he is working towards change

day. I had the pleasure of having a conversation with him last night, and we were talking about this

idea of who we are rather than what we do, and the importance of getting beyond roles, that stories

are a key way of getting us to access other people's emotional resources.

Alex, would you like to make a contribution?

SPEAKER:

I think…

KATHRYN PERERA:

I can hear you.

SPEAKER:

Wonderful. Yes, basically, I was telling a story. I have long-term health conditions, but I am also a

commissioner. I was sat in a room with other commissioners recently, and a few patient

representatives and some GPs were with me, and I asked how many patients were in the room, and

the two patients put up their hand but that was it. Then I asked how many people were registered with

a GP and everyone put up their hand. So, why did you call yourself a patient?

People like to put themselves in boxes. It makes people feel safe. But commissioning is what I do not



to I am, and the last thing anyone would call me is a patient.

So, it is more about who you are and that is where your story comes into play. The power of stories

are incredible. There is a Chinese proverb that says, "Beware of your thoughts, they become your

words. Beware of your words, they become your actions. Beware of your actions, they become your

habits. Beware of your habits, they become your character. Beware of your character, it becomes your

destiny."

If you can give somebody a different viewpoint with a story, it can help make them think differently, and

culture change is defined as the transformation of relationship, and that is where change happens for

me personally. We have to be careful because those boxes turn into stone very easily, and I am

plagiarising this from somebody who is on the call, Alison. She can explain this much better than I can.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Thank you, Alex. If she would like to contribute, I will get her to come in in a moment. I would like to set

a framework for public narrative, so is it just a case of me saying, "go and tell stories." Absolutely not.

I think it is important to say there is a methodology which is being developed right now in terms of how

we do this work in a structured way. The new economics foundation is part of that, Nesta, Horizons. I

also owe a debt of gratitude to Marshall Ganz who is working on this.

The way he comes to look at this is in three parts, a story itself, of us, and a story of now. For those of

us who are new, I will break that down.

Story of self, that starts with you as an individual, and articulation of your own values.

The story of us is about the values we share within our community and what links us to other people.

The story of now is an urgent challenge to those values which requires us to make a choice.

So, how to write have a story about me and the law that makes it a story about systems that we all

understand, and then make urgent so that everyone will act with us?

The story itself is a self regarding one, what causes me to lead and why? What we are looking to do is

access stories from our own past which are personal and not private. We do this in order to turn them

into tools which we can use to help us organise with others, and I will invite Dani, another activist, onto

the call at this point.

I have asked her to give an example of a story itself, and I set her the question of thinking about why

she became a nurse. Dani, are you with us?

DANI:

Yes, I am.



KATHRYN PERERA:

She and I have had some conversations, and I will ask her now to share an example of a story itself.

Dani.

DANI:

I care deeply about the NHS. I have been a carer most of my life. I am an only child and my mum and

dad ran a pub, so we lived in the room above and I spent a lot of time on my own. When I was nine

years old, my dad came home with a dog. He slept in my bed and he was my constant companion.

He taught me a lot about friendship and compassion. It is no accident that I started my professional

work with animals, but something happened which changed the course of my life. At 24, I became

pregnant.

Despite the joy of becoming a mum, there were dark times, but it gave me a front row seat into

nursing. Through my front row seat, I saw nursing at its best and worst. I was chatting to expectant

mums and young women, and we were sitting there with a 15 year old girl who had just had a

miscarriage. There were no other rooms available.

I listened to the nurse, and I felt that I could do the same thing of them, not better or worse.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Thank you very much, Dani.

I want to take a moment to reflect, and this works better when we are all in the same room and we can

see each other's smiles and eyes. I would like you to reflect on that story, or think about a moment for

yourself or you have seen something that has led the seed, changing the course for what you have

done.

Did you have a challenge to overcome? Who inspired you?

You could also think about what brings you to be sat in front of a computer on a cold October morning.

What is that passion?

That is a good moment to pause, and we will come to Janet and Paul to see if we have any more

comments.

JANET WILDMAN:

Thank you so much. This is challenging me personally around my own story. I am learning lots from

hearing from all of you, and I think we are onto something special.

I would like to go to the chat room. What is happening, Dom?

PAUL WOODLEY:



Hello, Janet. People have been talking about vulnerability that can come out in storytelling. Alison says

that when she shares her difficult stories, it gives permission and safety to share theirs, so sometimes

being vulnerable is a strength.

KATHRYN PERERA:

There is an idea of reciprocity. If you think about it, we have to be vulnerable first in order to allow that

to happen. There is no point me going in and asking someone to explain why they do what they do

unless I am prepared to share that with them first. That sets the space in which other people can

respond in kind.

JANET WILDMAN:

What about you, Dom?

SPEAKER:

I saw a tweet from Elizabeth who says that storytelling can render meaningless data meaningful, which

turns the tables around a bit in terms of how we capture the impact of what is happening.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Yes. I would like to see if Lucy or Peter have anything to say about capturing data in a different way,

using social media theory as a way to change the narrative around what is possible in health care.

Anything you want to add?

Paul, shall I move on?

PAUL WOODLEY:

Which name and I looking for?

KATHRYN PERERA:

Iain and Lucy.

PAUL WOODLEY:

There is more than Ian.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Ian Burridge.

I was just saying, Ian, that you were trying to make stories to come up with a different way of thinking

about health care.

SPEAKER:

A lot of this is about data in public services where we are OK with using data. We aren't so good at

bringing it to life using real stories and aggregating that. I like the quote I saw on twitter about how

stories are data with souls, and this is what it is about.



Commissioning can be quite a cold process, and we want to think through what it takes to bring that to

life for people. We wanted to be a responsive and informed process.

PAUL WOODLEY:

Lucy should also be able to speak there as well.

LUCY:

Sorry, I am a bit technophobic.

KATHRYN PERERA:

We were just talking to Ian...

LUCY:

I was listening. With social movement, what has been really important is very much the starting point

which is not about to leap into action in order to solve problems, but how we listen to stories. In

Stockport, they were talking about listening to stories, trying to hear what is already happening,

hearing from people what is going on, not just in terms of the issues, but what is working as well,

drawing out the practical support.

They are also talking about asset mapping, but that is really just another phrase for making sense of

stories to that you can go back to them and use them in different ways.

These things come through, but I think a lot of people feel pressure for action, so having the

confidence to hold back the juggernaut and say, "things are taking place, but it is not about moving

forward straight away." That is an important part of the process.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Thank you, Lucy. That is an example of other organisations who are using these techniques. I know I

got to list yourselves as samurai and newbies, but I am feeling like a ninja.

So, I want to look at the story of Self. It is self regarding, the big events, the moments in our lives and

how we can turn them from something that we maybe implicitly understand to something we can make

explicit for people, helping them find points of connection.

[Remi.Coordinator is Live]

Stories of us asked the question, "If I am just for myself, then what am I for? If I am only for myself,

then what am I for?" In other words, a story of us is asking us to make explicit the idea of a collective

endeavour.

That leadership brings shared moral resources. It's not about lone wolves, people going off and doing

things and then putting other people around it.

While the goal of a story of self is to enable other people to get you, the goal of a story of us is to

enable us to get each other.



I'm going to invite Dani back into the conversation to follow on from her story of self and explain to us a

little bit about a story of us from nursing. What does it mean to craft a story of us as a nurse?

DANI:

I have never met a nurse who came into nursing to waste time. We all come into nursing to have a

direct impact on the lives of those we care for, but too often we have a sense that the system prevails,

so we can't make a difference when needed. Horizons is a Trinity which keeps me going. We share

ideas, we support each other and build relationships with other front-line staff.

As activists, we have felt resistance in the system many times. On a hospital ward, I once tried to

introduce small improvements. My idea was to move the handover staff away from the desk and

involve the patient directly in the handover of their own care. I tried to persuade my colleagues but

there was huge resistance.

We tried a new approach. I designed a new system with the team. I support them to tweak my ideas

and give them support to put it into action. We got a lot further. With our new approach, we had cut our

handover times by half and increased contact times with patients on the Ward 100%, and we did it

together.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Thank you. Listening to that, it occurred to me that you might have had a similar experience to me.

When I first started using stories and organising, I did not know there was a whole world of a

methodology behind it. I was fumbling my way through and found that it was effective. Does that sound

like your experience?

DANI:

Yes.

KATHRYN PERERA:

You make it up and find that it works. Are we getting questions in the chat room? I'm keen to get an

idea of things people are struggling with all things people want to challenge.

JANET WILDMAN:

There was a comment that someone was saying that in terms of introducing this to senior managers, it

is very difficult because sometimes they don't get it. Any top tips you could help this person with?

KATHRYN PERERA:

Fantastic question.

One way of looking at this is, often, we asked the question, "Why don't people join in?" Over the years,

I have found that the better question is "Why would people join in?"

Often we look to senior people in the hierarchy and we expect them to get it on our terms, in our



language, what it is we are trying to do because in our experience and in our heads what we are trying

to do is self-evidently an improvement.

Part of it is understanding the self-interest of other people with as much precision as we can, and by

self-interest I mean what is it that motivates people to act? Why would they listen to me? How do I

craft what I'm saying in a way that will allow them to take notice?

In other words, it is a reflective question more about my behaviour than about starting with their

behaviour. So often we can focus on the other person's behaviour. Why don't they understand? Why

do they block things? Rather than think what is it that I am not communicating here? How am I

communicating that is so far outside of their experience that they can't access or understand what it is

I'm trying to do? A good example from earlier would be the story are shared on law.

I'm not expecting other lawyers to be on the call, that you have been to court, but what that story

hopefully does is break down tensions in the room that might exist through a misunderstanding, and it

uses a story to form some kind of emotional connection across experience.

That is where stories are really great. They allow us to cross the boundaries of experience, but that

doesn't take away from the fact that it is challenging work, and communicating up and down through

hierarchies can be very difficult.

Did anybody want to add anything on that?

PAUL WOODLEY:

I will chip in. As with any database of stories we tell, stories are much more than just the story being

told. It's the person behind it who has that power and knowledge we are trying to tap into. Our stories

used in isolation loses a lot because you need to know the person telling it.

Although we might pigeonhole ourselves, the stories can break those walls down and show people

your true self.

KATHRYN PERERA:

It is a great point, and it also speaks to another power of stories as a tool which is a credential. Stories

can be a useful way to credentialise ourselves. Not just in choosing our status but the fact that we

have had a particularly experience, that we know something about a topic deeply from our own

emotional experiences and learnings, and that can have far more power than presenting statistics or a

presentation.

It allows us to get to the heart of the matter.

So, the third part of those three – just to recap – the framing of a public narrative tends to, but not

necessarily in a linear order, follow a structure of a story of self, a story of us, a story of now. The third

part is a story of now, and that is essentially how I make this moment real for other people.



How do I invite people to come with me and face our future together? How do I crystallise that any way

people can understand now?

A story of now is about articulating an urgent challenge or an urgent threat to the values that we share

and that demands action now.

Key within that, which I think many of us struggle with, is making demands for a concrete response.

The difference between public narrative as a tool and stories is that whereas all stories are designed at

some level to teach through emotional resource, a public narrative is designed to drive people to

action.

In order to do that, we need to ask people to act with us. It can't just be implicit. A public narrative

demands a concrete response.

Dani, I will bring in one last time to talk about what you are doing for fab change day and make

demands on us right now.

DANI:

There is little support for mental health for mums and dads where I live in Southport, but mental health

difficulties are one of our biggest killers. Change day is an excuse for us to say, "Stop whining and

change it."

We reached out to all mental health support we could find in Southport and we are bringing them

together. Let's start the conversations. We need to show people the support is there for when people

need it. We are all part of a network of support across our community, so I'm asking you to help make

it a success.

Press your hands up key if you will tweet me today. Press it if you can commit to having a

conversation about mental health in your community this week.

Thank you for your support, and it means a lot. Our opportunity is now, so let's make it happen!

KATHRYN PERERA:

Fantastic. Thank you, Dani. I will give you a virtual round of applause because it can be scary to do

this stuff, and part of this talk this morning is about as practising and us showing that it is about doing

and craft and trying and failing and eventually getting to the point where we can tell really strong public

narratives.

Generally, in real-time, Dani has booked a room in Southport, she is filling it with everyone she can

think of who has something to offer for mental health services for parents. She has dozens of parents

coming on 19 October, so that is genuinely happening now. Please pledge right now on the chat if you

are prepared to re-tweet a link from Dani to spread the word about that event in Southport, or

otherwise to do something similar in your own community.



Paul, I will hand over to you for a second.

PAUL WOODLEY:

OK. The chat is going along quite nicely. People are really chatting. It must be something to do with

the storytelling you are talking about. People have been contributing a lot today.

They are talking about the language we use and how that can be a tool as well in itself. You need to

talk to the people in a language they understand. If you pitch it at too high a level, it might go over their

heads.

What you are trying to resonate with is the emotion, not the intellect.

KATHRYN PERERA:

That is a key point. I think that the intellect for many of us, particularly in our roles, is our safe space. It

is the space where, in the absence of a feeling of certainty, we retreat to in order to feel comfort. That

is true for me and for us and for most people.

A public narrative is challenging because it is asking us to take a leap into the unknown and to try to

call other people out into public life.

In order to do that, we need to be very clear in our minds that people with ideas and drive and energy

are on every street, in every corner, in every part of the world, and what they need is someone to

reach out to ask them to become involved with other people. And that is the essence and heart of

organising, and stories are the ways in which we reach out, grab people and invite them to become

involved in public life.

JANET WILDMAN:

Fantastic. One of the comments coming into the chat rooms around how we can mainstream some of

this into professional development of managers or frontline staff. How can we take this to the next level

and start to integrate this into professional development?

KATHRYN PERERA:

What a good question. Can you indicate on the chat if you have experience of doing that and we will

bring you in on the chat. I have a few ideas, but I bet some people have done it already.

JANET WILDMAN:Fantastic, thank you. Shall we ask Dom about twitter?

KATHRYN PERERA:

Yes, Dom?

DOM CUSHNAN:

It is synthesising what is being talked about in the chat room. Some of the comments I'm seeing is

around how we can work together to practice our stories in a safe space so we can tell it in an



articulate way to those who want to have an impact on.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Yes, a good piece of feedback from Horizons, that we might create some of those spaces.

PAUL WOODLEY:

We have had a couple of people. Lee and Marion who have both responded. I will just unmute Marion.

MARION:

I have integrated this approach into programs, and the positives have been a six-month long or a 12

month long program which enables people to set some trust within groups and then develop a shared

story of self.

I have to say that we do it about every four months, and every single time the person speaking starts

crying. These are senior clinicians who have never had the opportunity to say why it is they have come

into their job. So, this story of why I am here always centres around an incident with a particular patient

when they first started, or a challenge.

What it does is launches a human connection with everybody. The key for me is it has to be within that

trusted group. And there are tissues around straight away so we can bring some humour into it. We

need to let people grieve and cry and share whatever it is. And then hold them afterwards. This is an

emotional connection and an emotional release with people who are not used to it.

They started to call it the therapy group, but then I said, "This is something you need to learn how to

instigate, manage and spread. But with a safety net as well." Because then I would have people asking

to speak to me about things.

It absolutely works when we establish a beautiful environment. Where it hasn't worked is the sudden,

"Write your story and bring it to the group." I did it once and it was a complete disaster.

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My lesson is to make it safe, put some structure in, and then surrounded with humour and

humaneness.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Thank you. There are so many rich strands in that. My goodness!

One thing I want to pull out is around framing. It is really key, if we will use these in professional

spaces, that we frame this correctly, that we frame this for people who won't immediately share our

passion as to how narrative works. A key part of that is humour which is often used to defuse narrative

as therapy or some form of work which isn't appropriate for a professional environment.

Tackling that in the framing is really key to success. This is not about private information. This is about



us making explicit emotional resources which are implicit in all of us in order to use them in public to

make us better at the work that we came into the health service to do.

That sort of framing, that sort of language that moves away from thinking of this as something fluffy or

uncomfortable moves into unlocking its power as a professional tool. That is really key.

Paul, I think you had a second contributor.

PAUL WOODLEY:

We also have Leigh Kendall. Leigh, you are welcome to speak.

LEIGH:

I wanted to talk about the workshops. We share stories with women that have all sorts of experiences,

and I start the session by describing my own story. We can get together in groups and talk about the

various stories, and they are very emotive. We have mums, dads, professionals around the table, and

because the stories are so real and raw, it does help the professionals.

In health, we can hide too much behind data, but there are human beings behind stories, and this gets

quite emotional. Professionals are able to look behind the data and connect with those stories, and it

helps them take away something real to go and change when they go back to the department.

It helps galvanise them. One thing I have found is that negative stories should still have a message,

something to take away. It is really thinking about those stories that touch the heart, taking it away

from the intellect.

We hit people with big sticks when looking at data, but when people are exhausted with targets and

deadlines, we have to take it back to the human level and think about why we do it.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Thank you. That is a good way to dovetail back into Dani as far as pledges of action. I will ask Paul for

an update on that.

But before we do that, for the newbies, I want to close off this question about the structure of narrative.

It has been fairly introductory around the purpose of narrative in terms of unlocking resources; the

story of self; the story of us, looking at others acting in connection with me; and also, connecting

agency.

So, in using this tool, we seek initially to craft stories of no more than 90 seconds in length. That

sounds easy but it is quite a challenge to distil thoughts to a point of clarity, so that is the challenge

that I will lay down on a virtual plate and invite you to pick up.

Think about your moments of choice that inform your stories for whatever you are organising for

change day and beyond, thinking about how you can communicate those in 90 seconds.



I will ask Paul for an update on the chat and any responses to Dani's plea that we get involved for

change day.

PAUL WOODLEY:

Thank you. If people are interested in feeding back to Dani, her details are in the chat. You can

approach her after the session.

In terms of pledges that have been posted in the chat, because I have been muting and unmuting, I

have fallen behind.

KATHRYN PERERA:

You can't do five things at once? Come on!

PAUL WOODLEY:

We will save a copy of the chat so none of your messages will be lost, and we will be going through all

of them.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Dom, I will come over to you.

DOM CUSHNAN:

Alex, Alison and a few others have been making some really good comments, so I am going through

this chat conversation at the moment.

KATHRYN PERERA:

OK. Can you indicate with a '!' If you haven't yet spoken and would like to make a contribution. We

only have 5 minutes left, but I would like to hear from the newbies who haven't contributed yet.

Paul, anyone?

PAUL WOODLEY:

Not yet.

KATHRYN PERERA:

Then I feel my work is done.

JANET WILDMAN:

One thing has come up in the chat room about story fatigue and tokenism. Do you have any thoughts

about that?

KATHRYN PERERA:

I would need to know more from the contributor to understand the context of that. "Story fatigue."

There can be a scepticism around stories being used as an instrumental tool, that they can be used in



a manipulative manner, and that is a valid risk for people to keep in mind.

For me, that tends to be a question of self reflection. How am I using this story? Am I telling it fresh? It

can have its roots... Well, it is a dynamic practice. The story I shared at the beginning about law, that

story will change. It may become less or more relevant to my actions, and I am constantly refreshing

and probing myself to see where my stories are at.

If somebody has story fatigue, we are probably going through the motion of telling old stories, rather

than taking time to reflect on stories of now and what is important to us in our current understanding.

JANET WILDMAN:

One more point for me. People have mentioned the use of humour and poetry in storytelling. Any

thoughts?

KATHRYN PERERA:

There is a whole module we could offer in terms of the content of stories and humour is really key if

used authentically within our personality. Visualisation as well, because stories are designed to unlock

our imagination in order to generate hope. Visualisation, concrete details, the colour of the wig, the

flow of the long black gown, the fact we are sat holding bunches of paper, all of these things will stay in

the memory. That is probably too big a question for us to unpack right now.

Let's bring Alison into the call.

ALISON:

This has been a great chat. I have spent a long time telling my story, so I will probably bore myself, but

there is a difference in how I approach this. The key is not just a story but how I present it in such a

way. I can sense that people are starting to identify that, particularly professionals, but it often seems

to happen after I have finished, who people who come up gingerly and want to share something from

their own experience.

That can be incredibly powerful, particularly those who were brave enough to do it in the public group.

There is something about the way the story is put forward.

Those of us who work as education leaders or whatever, we have had a lot of training and experience

in how to do this, so think very carefully about bringing in people like myself, looking at how we can be

part of creating conditions were it is more about dialogue and people have permission and are in a

safe place.

Horizons is a great way to look at that, so that is what I am taking away, thinking more about how we

can spread this idea and make it happen less by chance.

So, thank you for letting me contribute. I was probably waffling because I am on medication.

KATHRYN PERERA:



Not at all.

Janet, I think we are out of time so I will hand over to you. I wanted to finish by saying thank you

because I really enjoyed being able to do this as a club to process, rather than just me speaking from

on high. It is a lot more fun and I get to learners welcome say thank you.

JANET WILDMAN:

Thank you. A big applause to Kathryn.

A number of people have put their hands up, and I am sorry we didn't get to you. I hope you look back

at the chat room notes and stay with us, so let's continue the conversation on this.

So, have a fantastic weekend and thank you so much from the team in Horizons. Take care, goodbye.



edge talk transcript from 7 october 2016

Healthcare