We live our lives inside the stories we tell, yet we rarely acknowledge that we are the authors. In the work of building communities, whether those are the neighbourhoods where we sleep or the organisations where we work, the most dangerous thing we carry is not a lack of resources. It is a settled story.

When we say that the neighbourhood is declining, or that our department is hopelessly siloed, we are not just describing a reality. We are creating a world where those things are inevitably true. In both society and business, we often trade our sovereignty for the comfort of being a victim of circumstances. To be a citizen is to move from the role of onlooker to that of creator. That shift begins with the subversive act of questioning the story.

The comfort of the known

Most of our internal stories are designed to keep us safe. If I tell myself that my neighbour is uninterested, or that my colleague is difficult, I am excused from the hard work of invitation. My story justifies my distance.

In this way, our narratives are functional. They serve to protect us from the risk of rejection or the labour of involvement. In the workplace, this manifests as the “us versus them” mentality that justifies a lack of collaboration. We choose the certainty of a negative story over the ambiguity of a new possibility. But citizenship is an act of entering the common space. This is a space that is inherently beyond our total control.

From explanation to curiosity

The dominant culture is obsessed with explanation. We want to know why the community project failed or why the quarterly targets were missed. We want to know who is to blame. But explanation is a passive act. It looks backward.

Questioning your story is an act of curiosity, which looks forward. It asks what I am gaining by holding onto this version of events. It asks what I would have to take responsibility for if this story were not true. It asks who I would be in this team, or on this street, if I stopped believing my own assumptions.

When we question the story, we are not looking for a better explanation. We are looking for an opening where a new conversation can begin.

The citizen’s shift

A citizen is someone who is willing to be accountable for the whole. You cannot be accountable for a community you have already written off. If your story about your organisation is one of scarcity and apathy, you have effectively resigned your citizenship. You have become a consumer of the community’s failures rather than a co-creator of its future.

To question your story is to reclaim your power to name the world. It is the realisation that the truth we cling to is often just an old habit of thought that no longer serves the collective.

The invitation

The next time you find yourself certain about why a civic project will fail, or why a corporate culture cannot change, stop. Ask yourself if this story is true or if it is just convenient.

If we want to change the room, we have to change the conversation. And we cannot change the conversation until we change the story we tell ourselves before we even walk through the door. The future is not something that happens to us. It is a narrative we choose to believe in until we make it real together.

Questions for reflection

  • What is the story I am currently telling myself about the people I find most difficult to work with or live near?
  • If I were to abandon the idea that these people are the problem, what new responsibility would I have to take for our relationship?
  • In what ways does my current “narrative of failure” protect me from the risk of being truly involved or heard?
  • What is one assumption I have made today about my community or workplace that I have not actually verified?
  • If we were to start a new story today about what is possible in this space, what would the first sentence be?

This whole series, which I hope to get through, is in principle inspired by the work of Peter Block.