The Power of Archetypes in Creating Meaning My nine year old daughter is an avid reader. She loves the Harry Potter series and reads them repeatedly. This voracious apetite for stories has unfortunately resulted in an anoying "know-it-all" attitude that was driving her parents crazy - the only negative side effect of reading we've noticed. She would whine in utter disdain comments like: "Come on Dad, don't ... you ... know ... who ... made ... the ... philosopher's ... stone?"
One morning at breakfast, after another episode of Potter boasting, I quipped: "you know you're sounding just like Hermione." Her behaviour changed instantly as she quickly compared the characteristics of Hermione from Harry Potter with her own behaviour; she obviously didn't like the result. The Hermione character was rich in detail for her yet it would have been quite difficult for me to explicity and accurately explain these characteristics in a meaningful way without referring to a character in a story.
Stories are a great way to understand complexity and share meaning. In business we tell stories to create reputations (or destroy them), share experiences (retelling someone else's story is the next best thing to being there) and build culture. When working with clients we help them retell their stories and then capture them to be reused as lessons learned material. In place of the individual characters we develop, with the client, archetypes that convey the complex social characteristics that we deal with every day. Instead of Hermione we develop archetypes like Mr Officious Project Manager, Ms Bulldozer or Mr Know-it-all Consultant. Any sound familiar?
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