We even seem to build our sense of self through our stories—and this likely to take place in particular, when we are working with an appreciative coach. While our body is continually changing and our life events are often in flux, the stories we tell about ourselves provide continuity-the ongoing sense of self. To paraphrase the words of Gary Lopez (1990): the stories that people tell other people (and themselves) have a way of taking care of them. At an even broader level, one might conclude that the stories we tell in our organizations, communities, and societies provide the fabric of continuity. It seems that organizations, at a fundamental level, are nothing more or less than a series of stories (Bergquist, 1993).
We would like to illustrate this important component of Generativity Three by sharing a couple of our own consultative stories. First, one of us was involved in a verbal history project in the State of Montana. This project concerned the history of homesteading in Montana and other prairie states. Pioneering men and women were provided by the American and Canadian governments with a plot of land in an undeveloped and often inhospitable region of Western Northern America. The land was given to them at no change, but they had to live on it and derive a livelihood or at least sustainable nutrition from the land for a specific period of time. Most of the homesteaders were now growing old or had died, without the stories of their remarkable courage and ingenuity being shared and recorded.
The project team went to retirement communities to talk with the homesteaders. As a way of encouraging the recall process and reassuring the storytellers that their life histories were of value, we presented them with a heart-felt and poignant film about homesteading, called Heartland. After showing the movie, we sat with these elderly homesteaders to listen to and record their stories of growing up on the prairie. Their stories revealed much about the ways in which pioneers coped with harsh conditions of the prairie and how they found creative solutions to such problems as insect infestation, droughts, fires and tornados, and a profound sense of isolation. Core values were revealed in these stories, and the pioneering folk felt honored to be asked about their lives. Those of us who witnessed these stories felt equally honored.
Another Generativity Three story involved one of us being indirectly involved in a Chicago-based project. This project focused on once vibrant, but now threatened, ethnic communities. As in the case of the Montana homesteading project, the elderly residents of these communities shared their life stories with members of the project team. In addition to their oral histories, the team collected pictures, 8 mm home movies, posters, newspaper articles and other documents representing the history, values, and aspirations of these communities.
A multi-media display was prepared for each ethnic community, including the voice recordings of the storytellers. The displays were presented in many venues, including storefronts, banks, and other commercial establishments located in the ethnically based Chicago communities. Men, women, stories, visual images, and other documents were thus shared in a very generative manner with those who still lived in these communities. Residents were able to recognize and celebrate their unique heritage and reaffirm their own community values, despite the disruptive social-economic challenges being faced in their community.
The displays were also brought together at the Field Museum in Chicago. The designers of museum displays constructed an accompanying visual commentary about the decay and fragmentation of the ethnic communities. Arching over the top of the displays were large cardboard photos of the freeways that ran through the heart of these communities. The freeway structures served as bridges above and across the communities for commuters wishing to return to their suburban homes with minimal distractions and as quickly as possible.
