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26 QRCA VIEWS SPRING 2 0 15 www.qrca.org The Hitchhiker's Guide to Narrative Galaxies C O N T I N U E D T he following example demonstrates how I used the narrative method for a bank project about consumer loans. The bankers had heard in focus groups that interest rates were the most important factor in the process. However, in the 315 loan stories, only nine partici- pants mentioned interest rates. PRIMING THE CREATIVE MIND The main task starts with a "narrative break-down" of the stories. Each sub- group makes a list of persons, actions and themes on separate Post-it® notes. The list should be as long as possible. CONSCIOUS TASK In the banking study, the groups were explicitly invited to come up with their ideal consumer-loan bank. Participants might start by collaging "the ideal loaning situation," then speak for the ideal brand by capturing what the bank should be offering and saying to consumers. SIDE TASK While workshop participants develop their ideal consumer loan bank, I ask some of them to work alone on subtasks or create newly combined subgroups. In the end, all of the participants work on parts of the side task. Participants collect the Post-its® into separate groups that can be more broadly characterized as persons, themes or actions. They assign stereotype labels to each of the groups and attribute characteristics, both positive and negative, to the stereotypes. Then I ask them to cluster by type of character- istic and to name those clusters. These represent what Snowden calls "contextual archetypes." Invariably, the result is between four and seven archetypes that represent "persons with a set of characteristics." By now, the ideal con- sumer-loan brand has been fleshed out by both subgroups. ILLUSTRATING THE ARCHETYPES An illustrator brings the archetypes to life, according to participants' instructions and without adding his own interpretation. Regarded as a whole, the illustrated set of archetypes gives a perfect view of consumers' less rational tendencies; the archetypes help us see how the target group makes sense of the stories and, therefore, make sense of the subject or category. The illustration above represents an archetype constructed by a sub-group of non-borrowers they named "greedy." This archetype illustrated participants' feelings about people who borrow because they are incapable of postpon- ing their needs. However, the archetypes reveal each group's less conscious thinking, the way they make sense of the world. This process generates deep insights, not only about the consumer, but also about the client's view of the world and how this view connects or disconnects with their consumers' views. In my experience, this type of learning is much more profound than findings elicited from focus groups. In a narrative workshop, clients are con- fronted with shortcomings in their assumptions and beliefs about what con- cerns consumers. In a collaborative sense- making process each participant receives the same contextual information and oper- ates on a level playing field. I always end with a final workshop to be certain my clients can convert the insights into concrete actions. Instead of offering my own recommendations at the end of the workshop, I collaborate with my clients in writing a report that analyzes the find- ings in a meaningful way. Before using narratives in a profound way, you might utilize snippets of these techniques in a traditional setting, incor- porating simple storytelling organized around themes. This approach may give you confidence to adopt the full narrative method, which has the power to trans- form both your business and your clients' businesses. Explicit tasks are an engaging way to co-create ideas such as creating the ideal loaning situation Start with picture picking and collage to enhance creative thinking Then use consumers as 'experts'. What should this brand say,? what should it offer? Useful output, to be compared with a normal creative group setting Starting to create a massive number of post-its with persons, themes and actions Cluster the persons as 'metapersons' and giving those a name, and each person will get a set of positive and negative characteristics Cluster the charac- teristics to a new person and give that a name (the archetype) Illustrate the archetype by an artist at hand, per directions of the partic- pants (representing the subconscious layers of thinking and feeling) Side Task Conscious Task ?

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