As mentioned in an earlier post, integrity is manifested through the filters and screens that make up the various affiliations in a person’s life. Some of these affiliations are stronger, newer, and exercise greater influence than others. Because of these differences, integrity is not necessarily central in a person’s affiliation landscape as evidenced in the graphic below. Furthermore, this positioning is not static. As time passes, the filters and screens vary in intensity and significance, and the balance point for integrity shifts.
We humans are social creatures. We have highly evolved language skills and capabilities which we use to communicate with each other through conversation. These conversations convey meaning about us, our situations, our needs, and our aspirations. Essentially, they are our stories.
Stories are structured conversations we have with others about our experiences and the meanings they hold for us. Because of the influence exacted by filters and screens upon us, the stories we tell at one time may be quite different than the stories we tell at another time, place, and circumstance. Stories are contextual. The “truth” they express is relative.
As stated in an earlier post, establishing ground truth is a critical first step for knowledge brokers to ascertain behavior and communication patterns and make relevant responses be they positive or negative. Proclaiming one’s ground truth is an exercise of story-telling. Context is crucial if the reality that shapes a person’s story and truth can be well-understood and acted upon appropriately.
Stories are dependent on the conditions that exist at the time of their telling. The forum — who is in the conversation, where it occurs, when it takes place, and what processes are followed — and the agenda — topics for conversation, expected outcomes from the conversation, and next steps to be taken — are major determinants in how the story is told. Even the same experience shared by many will be related differently depending on the forum and agenda.
Knowledge brokers are concerned about ground truth because of the implications on communication patterns. Repeated over time, stories are reflections of sustained conversation themes and understanding. Changing forums and agendas changes these conversations. Changing conversations leads to experimentation and different experiences. New experiences prompt learning which leads to different stories in an attempt to make meaning out of the new experiences. These new stories influence recurring conversation themes. Told with sufficient frequency over time, stories change the underlying communication patterns and adaptation and evolution occur.
Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Tuesday, September 6, 2005 and updated on Saturday, September 24, 2005
Frameworks for Understanding the World 