Narrative Change: How Changing the Story Can Transform Society, Business, and Ourselves

by Hans Hansen

Texas prosecutors are in cases where they seek capital punishment, the defendant is sentenced to death over ninety percent of the time. When management professor Hans Hansen joined Texas’s newly formed death penalty defense team to rethink their approach, they faced almost insurmountable odds. Yet while Hansen was working with the office, they won seventy of seventy-one cases by changing the narrative for death penalty defense. To date, they have succeeded in preventing well over one hundred executions―demonstrating the importance of changing the narrative to change our world.

In this book, Hansen offers readers a powerful model for creating significant organizational, social, and institutional change. He unpacks the lessons of the fight to change capital punishment in Texas―juxtaposing life-and-death decisions with the efforts to achieve a cultural shift at Uber. Hansen reveals how narratives shape our everyday lives and how we can construct new narratives to enact positive change. This narrative change model can be used to transform corporate cultures, improve public services, encourage innovation, craft a brand, or even develop your own leadership.

Narrative Change provides an unparalleled window into an innovative model of change while telling powerful stories of a fight against injustice. It reminds us that what matters most for any organization, community, or person is the story we tell about ourselves―and the most effective way to shake things up is by changing the story.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

Published July 28, 2020

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a pre-publication of this book from Net Galley in exchange for a fair review. Although ultimately a worthwhile read, it takes a lot of patience before Hansen really finds his authorial chops with a drama-laden story about working in Texas to reduce death sentence penalties. His premise is "...we can change the way we think and act, and we can change the way things are done, the way things are understood," by constructing new narratives that can "explain and create deviations from the norm, which is crucial when leading change."

Thankfully, Hansen doesn't pretend that we can just wish happy thoughts or think positively and magically our thoughts will lead to better outcomes and better lives. There is a lot of work that needs to occur before we can adopt a different "story," and approach a thorny problem because "narratives condition us to see the world in particular ways, and how we see things determines how we act or respond." If we can step back and analyze the current narrative and the norms and expectations that created it, we can examine alternative ways to reframe the issue and therefore work to begin changing the story. Hansen does a masterful job as a teacher blending theory and practical examples to demonstrate how this works, and his anecdotes about working on some of these difficult cases was inspiring.

However, Hansen could have benefited from a more stringent editor. In the introduction (and persisting throughout the book but to.a lesser extent) there is a browbeating of repetitive themes. ("Narratives are central to change and overlap conceptually with change."; "Narratives represent our understanding of reality, the way things are, or the way we would like things to be."; "Our shared values are carried in popular narratives that outline the way things are, how they should be, and how we should act."; "Narratives condition us to see the world in particular ways, and how we see things determine how we act or respond."; "To summarize, narratives guide how we think and act." ) All of this is in the introduction!

Additionally, the first two chapters have at least 16 cliches (and I am being generous). {"A voice in my head," "lives were on the line," "arm's length," "fly-on-the-wall," "seeds for change," "hell-bent," "drive us crazy,"...}. And yet, please ignore this ignominious beginning, because once he begins to tell his story about confronting difficult facts, institutional racism, a defacto agreement by publicly-appointed defense lawyers and judges that prevented them from being overly aggressive in challenging judges' rulings from the bench, and the perception of so many people wondering how he and his colleagues could represent individuals who have already been convicted of some admittedly heinous crimes, all while patiently explaining how his team was so successful in preventing death penalty sentences, that the reader is solidly with him and almost cheering for him to be successful.

He also talks about other businesses--Uber in particular, and some of the narratives that existed earlier with its frat-like behavior, and how Uber could go about changing the corporate culture narrative that devalues women, promotes a cut-throat environment and that led to lawsuits and investigations--- along with his personal battle with alcohol, his experience trying to achieve tenure and surreally, the experience of meeting with Hollywood to sell his life story. As a result, this book blend various genres--memoir, business, self-help, sociology, legal--- that probably didn't need to be stuffed within this one book, and this lack of focus ultimately distracts from a story that didn't need any additional digressions.

I want people to read this book as I think the underlying story and the concept of how one goes about changing a habit, belief, practice, etc., is brilliant. I also appreciate the doggedness, humility and courage of the author that makes one root for him. There is material in here that would make for a best seller, but lack of consistent writing and the digressive focus ultimately detracts from the otherwise riveting and brilliant material that exists.

[Alan Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating concept. The author is an ethnography, who was recruited to join a new death penalty team in Texas to help them develop a new narrative of the death penalty—and of their new defense team. It was successful, dripping the imposition of death from 90% wins by the state to less than 10%. Along the way, he discusses how we all use narratives all of the time to make decisions, often unconsciously.

The key point is that you have to first identify the narratives that are getting you to act in a certain way, and then challenge them. Finally, you need to replace them with new narratives.

I dropped a star because I really wanted to hear a lot more about the transformation of the death penalty defense team!

[Cooper Estrada · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hans Hansen is my professor at Texas Tech University, in the beginning I only bought this book because it was required for class. At the time we were required to read it though, I realized why Professor Hansen was implementing it into our lesson plan. It wasn't only because it was his book, it was because everything he was teaching us in class was what he used to change his perspectives, and showed it through this book. I ended up finding the book very useful in my personal life by realizing the real life uses of "Narrative Change". At all points in the book I remained interested as Hans detailed how his perspectives on narrative change helped change his thoughts on the death penalty and many other things throughout his life. This is a great read, Highly recommend.

[Nico Pena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read and finished this book right as I was about to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. And once I reached the summit, I concluded that reading this book was far more rewarding than the climb. I'm just kidding of course, I just wanted to spice up the review.
Yes, we were encouraged to read this and post a review for extra credit, but I read this book with as little reluctance as possible. Basically I treated this book as if I had just picked it up randomly and wasn't told to read it.
This book was very good, and very valuable to the point where I could see myself recalling info from the book into my everyday life. Hansen pulls seemingly abstract thoughts and ideas together to explain, in detail, what he is trying to get across, and it is very digestible even if you are not too familiar with the overall theories.
There are a few points throughout the book that can feel a little redundant, but it did help get the points across, and this may have been more valuable to people who weren't familiar with the ideas and theories going into the book.
My favorite part of the book is the personal examples that Hansen has throughout the entire book, it helped bring life to the book, and created a good dichotomy between the 'teaching' parts and the 'storytelling' parts. Professor Hansen is one of my favorite professors at Texas Tech, and it was pretty cool to read what he had gone through in the past that helped shape what and how he teaches.
Overall, this book is very good, I definitely recommend it if you want to become more 'aware,' and I can definitely see myself applying this knowledge to my life.

[Darya · Rating 4 out of 5]

How Changing the Story Can Transform Society, Business, and Ourselves? How changing what and how you say can influence the situation outcome? Narrative part is very important. Negotiations and big wins in business and life depend on your story content and emotional color.