sdrawkcaB gniknihT - Mind Game or Creative Lever?

Related to my post yesterday about simulated hindsight, this Times of London article notes the value not only of working from a given end-point, but of actually 'telling' a story in reverse.

E.g., the firemen drove away, they packed up their gear, they put out the blaze, they broke down the door, they arrived on the scene, the mother called 911, the boy fled from his room, he screamed, his hair caught fire, he was playing with matches, he stole some matches from his father's desk drawer.

It's not easy to follow--or tell. That's the point in some contexts. Police have found it useful in attempting to catch a suspect in a lie.

Traditional police interview methods were used in the study, and in those that employed the reverse order tactics – described as “cognitive load interviews” – the interviewer asked the suspects to recall a series of events from the most recent backwards.

Officers were less likely to detect the liars when traditional methods were used in the interviews but were more likely to detect lies when the subjects were asked them to recall events in a reverse order.

It's analogous to something good proofreaders know well: spelling errors are easier to catch when one reads backwards. I was tipped off to the Times piece by innovative UK-based consultant Dave Snowden, over at Cognitive Edge. (H/T: Bob Weber) Snowden favors the backwards-telling approach because:

...by getting people to construct history in reverse... they explored more possibilities and were more open to novel discovery

That's all to the good. Snowden seems to position narrative as an improvement on scenario planning however. That's a bit hasty and sweeping.

...if you have strong opinions about what should happen, then it is easy to influence the evolution of a scenario that will support your proposed actions. Its also easy to describe how the past led to the present in such a way as to vindicate your view of history... I drew the ideas [for narrative] from various readings in the cognitive sciences which indicated that reverse time flow was harder, and disrupted what would otherwise be entrained processes. [link and emphasis added]

It's true that traditional (non-modular, non-interactive), 1970's/'Shell-style' scenario planning is particularly vulnerable to influence by strong personalities with political motives and rigid views. Any process can be steered by someone in power uncomfortable with open-ended 'novel discovery' who makes it clear to subordinates and unscrupulous consultants that there's a "right" and a "wrong" answer to the process s/he is paying for. A centralized process is 'breakable' with concerted, centralized influence. Practically every client we work with has taken us aside at some point to warn us of this in one form or another:

Before we get going, you need to know about Mr. Smith, the head of our XYZ division. If he ever gets the floor, he will kill this. Everyone will be forced to go along with his ideas. He's a smart and he'll twist this. He's a bully and a blowhard and he's got the influence to bend people to his will and make this come out his way. Watch out.

And every time, Mr. Smith (and it's usually a 'Mr.') finds himself--in our meeting--in a situation where his personal air-time is far more constrained than he's used to and his contributions are on par with everyone else. Looking for an opportunity to drive the outcome, he instead finds himself sorting through modular scenario piece-parts, unable to know in advance how the collective intelligence of 20-40 people will render them all into an interlocking scenario map.

When scenarios are built in a more distributed fashion from modular piece-parts in the context of a highly interactive, participatory, fast-moving, tightly choreographed session however, any one person's ability to steer becomes minimal. The process is democratizing, taking advantage of emergent 'wisdom of crowds' effects that nobody can see, much less steer until the end when the whole picture is developed. Some hierarchical, top-down cultures (both corporate and national) don't like our process for precisely that reason.

Story-telling is only part of it and teams will often independently elect to build a scenario story in reverse--quite possibly for the reasons Snowden suggests. His process--to my knowledge--takes advantage of similar dynamics. My contrast here is not with narrative but with traditional ('paleo-') scenarios--the kind most people are familiar with.

I've made the analogy before that traditional scenario methods are to mainframe computers as modular, interactive scenarios are to PC networks. It's not perfect, but it holds up for 'hacking' and influence as well: a network of independent actors tasked with constructing a scenario 'map' is far more resilient than a monolithic (e.g., top-down) process.

Markets make for an even better analogy (one of the reasons I continue to link them with modular scenarios). Broadly-based, highly liquid markets (including PMs) are less subject to influence than monopolies/oligopolies (one/few sellers) and monopsonies/oligopsonies (one/few buyers)  .

I don't know Snowden's process intimately, but I've been through some interesting demonstrations by one of his acolytes professional colleagues, Patti Anklam, whom I hold in high regard. Her main website can be found here. [italicized stuff added] Fascinating stuff. Powerful. And different from scenarios. Hardly a substitute for them (or vice versa!). I see two major distinctions:

1. Reverse-order storytelling, because of its "high cognitive load" (my brain hurts!), favors those with greater ability to bear such a load and/or greater experience using the technique. In other words: the same executives liable to steer any process, as well as (sometimes) the consultants. Requiring such an approach may to put a damper on inclusiveness and equal participation. Great for police questioning and trying to trip up a suspect; not necessarily so great when trying to build a team and gain their enthisiastic buy-in to a common vision.
2. The novelty-seeking open-endedness that narratives tend to produce can be just the opposite of what some organizations need. When the problem is completely unbounded (little data; near-infinite possibility; minimal understanding), scenarios are of little use and narrative may be most appropriate. When the problem is more about finding distinct points of divergence and convergence between several "schools of thought" (some data, numerous but not infinite possibilities, modest understanding) then scenarios tend to be more appropriate.

Comments

[Scott Moeller]

Fascinating topic, and I wish that more deals in the business world (mergers, acquisitions, divestitures) would have been initiated with the use of this technique. Being aware of it now, I will look for it in the deals that I see -- and hope to see it in action sometime (perhaps being a catalyst to its use). No reason why adopting this technique couldn't improve the dismal record of corporate mergers!

[shane deichman]

One of my favorite movies of all time is "Pulp Fiction", where Director Quentin Tarantino breaks all temporal conventions by starting (and ending) the movie in the middle of the story. The beginning and the end are in the middle of the movie.

As someone who always solved mazes by starting at the end, I am glad to see many much wiser than me are exploring this field of innovation.

[Art Hutchinson]

The film Memento is another one. It starts with the end and works back to a surprisingly surprising beginning by following a main character with short-term memory loss.