Storytelling
Contrast story
Make a transformation visible by putting two states beside each other.
The problem it addresses
Improvement gets described as a list of activities, which leaves the audience unable to see what actually changed.
The shape
- Before
- Turning point
- After
Why that order
The before establishes the original reality, the turning point explains what moved, and the after shows the consequence. The contrast is what carries the meaning.
How to run it
- Establish the original state.
- Name what was not working.
- Explain the turning point.
- Describe the new state.
- State the significance if it is not obvious.
A worked example
- Before
- Our team spent almost two days a week preparing reports by hand.
- Turning point
- We redesigned the workflow and automated the data collection.
- After
- The same report now takes under two hours.
What usually goes wrong
Treating every difference as a transformation. The contrast has to reveal something.
Adapting it
- Interview
- Before, challenge, action, after.
- Leadership
- Current state, desired state, the transformation between them.
Used in
Where this shape does its work in a real situation.
Mostly serves Message, and reaches into Intent, Delivery, Connection.
A framework tells you what shape the answer takes. It cannot tell you whether shape is what you are short of, and for most people it is not. Which one is yours, and whether a framework is the right instrument at all, is what a Discovery Call is for.
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