Joan Didion’s essay “The White Album” begins with an often misquoted line: “we tell ourselves stories in order to live.” This phrase is often used to talk about how important storytelling is to our lives: that it helps us make sense of the world and our place in it. This is a true sentiment, but it is not the sense in which Didion wrote the sentence. What she meant by “stories” we might be able to replace with “lies that placate.”
The paragraph continues: “We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”
In other words, Didion argues that we use stories or narrative to construct meaning out of facts to keep moving when the truth is too hard to handle.
Stories are important. Good stories can defamiliarize us with our daily lives in order to see our reality more clearly. But they can only go so far. There is an end, or a limit, to what stories can do.
Moment of Truth Tool
In our lives as leaders, we will need to resist the temptation of narrativizing facts and jumping to story before we know reality. The Servant Leadership tool of the Moment of Truth exists to help us slow down and figure out the fact (what happened) before moving to story (why it happened).
You can use the Moment of Truth with yourself, to work with someone to help discern how your miss occurred, or to discover the truth about a miss you witnessed. The Moment of Truth occurs in four stages: fact, story, plan, and feedback.
Fact
Before moving to story, we start with fact: what happened. For example, I turned in my essay late, you have not delivered the report, I raised my voice with the kids, or we were late paying rent this month.
We often want to jump to story because we want to explain the reasons, or excuses, for why the miss happened. But in order to fix a miss and make it less likely to happen again, we have to understand what happened. Otherwise we won’t know what needs to be fixed! You have to know the problem to find the solution.
This stage can be uncomfortable because it involves owning up to your mistake. But remember, in a Create-Something Culture, as opposed to a Don’t-Make-A-Mistake Culture, misses are viewed as opportunities to grow rather than reasons to be punished. A Moment of Truth should not be abount finding a scapegoat, but about finding a way forward.
Story
After finding the facts, you can then move on to story. The goal of this stage is to discover why the miss happened.
We shouldn’t jump to this stage and skip “facts,” but it is crucial for making a “plan”! It’s not enough to just say “turn your next essay in on time.” If the essay was turned in late because of a family tragedy, that will have different ramifications for the next essay than if it was due to poor time management.
Understanding the story helps us to see the facts in context and react appropriately to the mistake.
Plan
With the understanding of both what happened and why it happened, we can now move on to the “plan” stage. This is where we think ahead to consider how we can help minimize the probability of the mistake happening again.
For example, if the student turned in their essay late due to poor time management, the plan could be for them to meet with a tutor a week before the deadline to go over an essay draft together.
Most of the time, misses happen because of insufficient structure in place. In the “plan” stage, make new structures to help streamline workflow and help details not fall through the cracks.
Feedback
Finally, after you have put the plan in place, arrange to meet up after a specified period of time to check back in about how the plan is going. Do this whether you’re having the MOT by yourself or with another person. As we walk along the Path, we need to act, learn, and adjust based on decisions we make and obstacles that come across our plate. It’s important to assess whether the plan put in place is adressing the need, or whether it needs to be adjusted.
Stories do not give us the whole picture. We need to assess the facts and make a plan in order to move forward along the Path. Use all the tools at your disposal, but remember that they have limits.
Gracie McBride is the Content and Systems Development Coordinator at The Crossroad.
