I have started to use this term more and more as time goes on. It is a term that I learned from the Outcome based thinking crowd that defines Boundary Partners as anyone that the project influences. I like to bring it a little closer to home and define it is anyone that will assist in the co-creation of use. It is that Service Dominant Logic thinking.
One of the areas that I have found in creating a change effort is that we first must craft a vision from a meaningful dialog with these partners. It is that extension of our vision that is so imperative. The secret is creating a compatible vision with others or our boundary partners. Few of us have enough influence or power to dictate a vision for everyone to accept. The dilemma is just not changing our vision for every boundary partner.
In Annette Simmon’s book, The Story Factor (2nd Revised Edition), the author states:
A good story helps you influence the interpretation people give to facts. Facts aren’t influential until they mean something to someone. A story delivers a context so that your facts slide into new slots in your listeners’ brains. If you don’t give them a new story, they will simply slide new facts into old slots. People already have many stories they tell themselves to interpret their experiences. No matter what your message, they will search their memory banks until they find a story that fits for them. Inevitably, the story they pull up will support their current action or inaction—whatever it is you hope to change.
So how do you create a story that creates meaningful dialogue, but still keeps your vision intact? I rely on an old time test method from the book Protocols for Effective Advocacy and Protocols for Effective Inquiry, 1994, the authors outline a 7 step process which I paraphrase in the italics. :
- State your assumption (Vision): Here is what I am thinking.
- Describe your reasoning: Here is how I arrived at this vision.
- Give concrete examples: Let me explain how this has worked for others.
- Reveal your perspective: Let people know what viewpoint you are taking, where do your facts come from?
- Anticipate other perspectives: Many of you may think…get a few of the objections out on the tables how people you emphasize with their feelings.
- Acknowledge areas of uncertainty: Present something you would like their opinion on, it is easier to solicit a reply from an open-ended question, show them you value their opinion and solution.
- Invite others to question your assumptions and conclusions: Ask for their opinion and how they may view what you said differently.
If you review these 7 steps to create your story, you may find that you created new slots for facts to slide into. You may have prevented many of the objections that you would have encountered without telling the story in this way. Explaining your vision or even a change effort in this way creates a great opportunity for others to become part of the discussion. It enables responses versus hindering them. I view it not from the perspective of manipulation, rather the analogy of not starting with a blank piece of paper.
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