Читать книгу The Power of Narrative Intelligence. Enhancing your mind’s potential. The art of understanding, influencing and acting - Арсен Аветисов - Страница 8

Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we’re all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories. ― Alan Kay

According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the system of concepts that exists in a person’s mind, and therefore in his or her thoughts, is determined by their language. Our behaviour, in the end, is a sequence of our actions in relation to the world around us. It is a kind of programme that we follow under certain circumstances.

These programmes are executed through their internal interpretation. We remember such interpretations and accept them as necessary responses and sequences of actions for certain circumstances or tasks. Every time we retell this algorithm of actions to ourselves, we reinforce it so much that we do not notice or pay attention to it. We can equally follow the algorithms that our surroundings have interpreted for us. These programmes are our internal executive narratives.

Let us explain this using a simple illustration. Answering the question ‘How do you cook scrambled eggs?’ respondents tell us what they need, in what quantity, what they do and in which particular order. They give comments – why exactly this or that ingredient, in this or that sequence – and, finally, describe the result, in which they explain the significance of each action. Some respondents may note the differences between their own cooking preferences and the generally accepted ones.

All this sequence of actions and the purpose of each stage, as well as the ingredients of the dish, are not improvisation. People tell exactly what they had done many times before. And if you wake them up at night and ask them to cook scrambled eggs – they will do them just that way.

But what we are interested in lies elsewhere. There are always those who have never cooked scrambled eggs, but they, although in a simpler way, will tell you how to prepare the dish. Without lengthy gastronomic comments and interpretations of culinary secrets, but they will tell you.

There are hundreds of thousands of such sequences of actions that lead to the desired result stored in our memory. And they are not about scrambled eggs at all. ‘What to do when…’ or ‘What to think about when…’ and so on. When some circumstances change and lead to others, the brain determines this, associates it with similar ones, and selects the most appropriate programme of actions from the existing ones.

If you are hungry, you make scrambled eggs, if it is raining, you take an umbrella, if the boss shouts at you, you duck your head. The brain uses ready-made programmes and does not create new ones. Why is that? Because it saves energy, and this will be discussed further.

The sequence in presenting facts, events, and actions, as in the case of scrambled eggs, which has its cause and result, or its meaning – is a narrative.

The term ‘narrative’ (from the Latin narrare – to tell a story) in a general sense refers to the description of interrelated events in the form of a sequence of words or images, or both. The term was first introduced in historiography and, in particular, in the concept of the so-called ‘narrative history’. It considers historical events not as a result of the conformity to natural laws, but in the context of their description and in conjunction with their interpretation.

Contexts and interpretations are very important since they express the fundamental idea of this approach – they can be used to bring subjective meaning to the statement, to insert in the narrative something that, without distorting the facts and actions, can radically change their perception.

You should distinguish between narrative and story. A story is a sequence of events based on the actions of characters. There is always a plot in it. Narrative is a way of telling this story and includes the story itself.

Recently, the term ‘narrative’ has acquired an additional meaning – ‘a statement that contains a world view or prescription’. To paraphrase, this is a programmed action that is determined by some strategic meaning.

Narrative bias, literally meaning 'distortion of the story’, is a human tendency to link together information from different sources and establish cause-and-effect relationships. An innate human need is to give everything consistency, regardless of whether the resulting story corresponds to reality or not.

With the help of such stories, a person can organise their own experience, which is a description of their activity, and fill all this activity with meaning. The way a person builds and organises their narratives gives an idea of what behaviour they prefer and how they see this world and their life.

It is easier for us to perceive our own life according to the laws of the plot. Because life ‘by itself’ does not exist. Since childhood, we form ideas of the world based on the stories told by people who are important to us. Step by step, we imitate, learn, and build our world view, our library of narratives. And this is a very important ability – by retelling narratives, to determine the goals and meanings behind events, as well as another one – to change them and create new ones.

Our children readily forget their parents’ moralising, but without hesitation they quote fictional characters from numerous Disney and Marvel stories. A person is brought up and trained on narratives. It is more convenient and familiar for our brain to perceive knowledge processed in stories than to memorise regulations, forms, and lists that lack the qualities of a narrative.

Adults have their own forms of narratives. The methods of relaying narratives may differ depending on the occupation. They are different for consultants, politicians, directors, journalists, and coaches… You can continue this list yourself.

Narratives, meanings, and goals are all tied in one powerful, tight knot. The more often we examine them, the more accurately and correctly we define our goals as well as those of our surroundings. Narratives ultimately determine the reality we want to have. And people prefer the reality in which their narratives take place. It does not matter how real this reality is. We believe that there are points of no return in life. There is always a choice, there are no situations without a choice. Even when there is no choice, there really is one: just NOT to choose. But we choose all the time. Fortunately, our choice is not determined solely by our instincts. It is defined by our narratives. The choice of narrative is the choice of behaviour, and therefore the choice of one’s present and future.

Graduates of an American university, who were on average no more than 25 years old, were asked the question: ‘How do you imagine yourself at 40?’ The vast majority told what they wanted to have when they were 40. A few told who they wanted to be at this age. Which of them do you think will do better?

Intelligence is a rational assessment of the world, a judgement, a concept. Emotional intelligence (EI) is an irrational and subjective assessment of the world. Separately, they are the cause and formal grounds for a person’s actions. Narrative intelligence is the place where rational intelligence and irrational emotional intelligence combine to form a dualistic matter, i.e. human behaviour. It, like many compilations, fits into scenarios that are understandable for the person involved, but sometimes inexplicable in general.

Overall, our effectiveness does not lie in taking tests, doing mental calculations, and staying cool. It is about what we do and how we do it – our behaviour. This is the end product of our brain activity.

Narrative intelligence is a set of such abilities to determine behaviour, create new narratives and use them to solve problems and exercise influence. Narrative intelligence is the ‘assemblage point’ of our behaviour. By and large, a person is a moving collection of all their narratives in space and time. Although this movement itself is also a narrative.