50 Myths&Legends, Hopes, Fears and Taboos

Myths&Legends, Hopes, Fears and Taboos Executive Version

Myths&Legends, Hopes, Fears and Taboos Executive Version

The purpose or the ‘WHY’ of the M&LHTF process (Myths&Legends, Hopes, Fears and Taboos) is to construct a comprehensive and shared understanding of the context and dynamics of a complex situation. It is an ideal process to enable senior leaders, decision makers and influencers to collectively ‘shape’ thinking and create a future mindset. Conflicts, the ‘unspoken’, and models for future action, emerge from the process. All in a short intense time frame.

The psychological dynamic is that we get to see, read and reflect on the thoughts of others about the state of a given team, initiative, strategy and even industry.

In the ‘HOW’, we gather Individual insights. We share and enhance by working teams, and then share, reflect. ‘peel’ and then synthesise.

The ‘WHAT’ entails Let’s exploring the Taboos, the ‘unspoken’, the Myths and Legends of a context, the associated Fears, and finally the Hopes of the context. The final stage of the process is the ability to create a collective and shared momentum.

The exercise is powerful, useful and sets the scene for change!

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It is quite cathartic in that we get the maybe ugly stuff up and out, share it, and potentially move on. The power is that the unspoken becomes spoken, and teams and especially leaders, can deal with it. When enough people participate, and when trust exists, then there is a collective sense of relief. When organisations need to change, I find that this part of the exercise helps us to ‘move on’, since it has been said, it is up on the wall. And of course, the dynamic and principle is that we then work to deal with the taboos.  And of course a taboo once stated, is less a taboo!

We do need to take care in places where blame and retribution are part of the culture.

Next Myths and Legends. Every organisation has ‘stories’ about how we do things. Some are real, some are stories from ages ago, some are helpful and some are not. Here is a slightly disguised example. I was recently working with a very cohesive and productive team, that seemed to have a real block and fear of change – which partly came also up in the ‘fear’ section. With more conversation the name of a person kept coming up, in the Taboo section. As we shared and chatted, it became clear this individual had been very powerful, successful and controlling.  What was so interesting to me happened when one team member said they had never met this person – it became clear that this person had left 4 years ago! Yet here they were, alive and not so well, today in this team!

Fears are usually easy to surface in this exercise – fear of job loss, cuts, new ideas, business as usual – important and powerful stuff.

And then hopes. Hopes are about the future – the kind of place we want to work, how we want to work, and how we want things to be. These are always powerful, generous, and uplifting. The mood changes, the feeling during the exercise is so strong and present. You can literally ‘feel’ the power of the team.

The basics of the process are simple, and must be handled with extreme care. The effect is incredible.

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We have everyone work on their own insights, using one thought or idea per mental post-it note. We ask people not to share, to work in silence, and to be completely honest. We stress that sharing is completely by choice, and that team members ‘own’ their notes. We then put aside 15 minutes for small groups to share and discuss. We also encourage folks to add to their post-it note collection. Finally we get one person from each team to collect the notes from their peers – the ones that folks want to share, and post them to the MHFT wall. No names. Finally there is a shared conversation in front of the Wall.

A further step is to share the wall with others, especially our boards and others in our stakeholder landscape! That is a telling moment.  Clearly there are processes and privacy approaches that we have in place. I have given you the idea basics here. I can say that the exercise is powerful, useful and sets the scene for change!