Antenarrative Double Spiral Theory

David Boje, Ph.D. Aug 2, 2004

Red spiral - organization storytelling system antenarratives

Blue sprial - virtual leader construct antenarratives

Figure 1 - Anternarrative Double Helix

This site is about an advanced Double Spiral Theory of antenarratives in storytelling organizations. It begins with imagining, if you will, a two spirals interlaced (see Fig 1) wrapping around one another, like two vines around a tree. Each spiral is the storylife of the enterprise. I am basing the theory (metaphorically) on the double helix in physics:.

There is a metaphoric relation to the discovery in physics. James Watson and Francis Crick proposed their double helix theory of DNA in 1953 (perhaps the greatest science discovery of the 20th century), for which the got a Nobel Price in 1962. Rosalind Franklin, (i.e. her photograph 51) definitely played a role in the discovery and theory, but died of cancer in 1958 at age 37; in 1951 Pauling published a paper proposing the a-helical structure; in 1953 Pauling proposed a triple-helical model (Watson & Crick did a 3-helix model in 1951 – having mis-remembered Franklin’s talk, and then switched to the 1953 double-helix model). The Watson, crick & Franklin basic model is two complementary helices; the two (anti-parallel) strands spiral around each other, connected by molecular bonds. The two helixes are thought to be held together by weak thermodynamic forces.

Antenarrative double helix of storytelling organizations has these features:

• It contains two antenarrative strands wound around each other.
• Strands are series of narratives and antenarratives.
• Antenarrative strands are rehistoricized and otherwise restoried over time.
• The two strands are "anti-parallel"; that is, they run in opposite directions (past restorying present; present restorying past).
• The two strands can have discontinuities, gaps in the strand, followed by continuities.
• The double antenarrative strands revolve around the axis of the helix.
• The double antenarrative helix is the carrier of organization’s collective memory.
• There are major and minor spirals; minor spirals are quickly forgotten, but major ones are long-remembered.
 

Fig 1 - The double spiral of antenarratives is two interconnected chains: (1) the spiral of the antenarrating of a 'storytelling organization; (in Red) and (2) the spiral of antenarrating of Virtual Leader constructs (VLCs) in the sucession of leaders (in Blue). Together the two interlocking spirals form the "Antenarative Double Helix."

Storytelling organizations develop around sites of performaing experince in sotries. stores are knowledge of experience and as a system thay become storytelling organizaitons. The stories are intertextual to one another. some storytelilng is in the form of nnarratives, but more often it is done in antenarrating.

Each spiral is an anternarrative series, that intertextually forms a trajectory through time-space. Each sprial is the morph of material expereince spun into stories. The Red Sprial (storytelling organization) spins stories of the present through the lens of the past. The Blue Spiral (VLC) spins sotries of the past through the lens of the present. This is defined as the anti-parallel relationship between the two spirals (i.e. they spin stories in opposite directions).

The Antenarrative Double Helix is continuous, it is unfinished and unvinalized at either end. the present keeps unfolding; the past keeps being restoried (or rehistoricized). An antenarrative is a storyteller's bet that a pre-story (an improper story) can change the system. Antenarratives are spun on a bet that they can change the meaning of past, present, or futuer to their audiences.

Antenarrative double spirals embed story fragements with context. The antenarrative double spiral also jettisons fragments as the intertextual antenarratives form a spiral that traverses time-space. Olf story fragments get restoried or exchanged for different ones.

Story researchers tend to capture parts of a spiral, and assume it is the entire narrative or some terse story that is told in code. A more comprehensive view is the some antenarratives and some narratives chain together to form the predicted spirals. At each story event, the stories get spun and the new meanings of situated context become embedded or removed from each spiral.

Loops in the spiral may appear to represent closure, however stepping back, there are traces of prior antenarrating and the unfolding of further story spinning events. There are two theorizedtypes of spiral alignment:

Close Alignment - There are antenarratives that get spun that do become epic (cohesive & full-fleged) narratives. These epic narratives, for example, of an epic leader, reverberate in the storytelling organization long after the leader has retired or passed away. During the epic performance, the VLC (segment of Blue Spiral) becomes quite a dominant influence on the Red Sprial (storytelling organization). The two spirals during that time frame, can be said to be in "close alignment."

Open Alignment - There can be time periods when the two spirals (e.g. the dissolution of an epic narrative Red Spiral) spearateds and has less influence on the storytelling system (Blue Spiral). Vice versa, the storytelling organization can veer off from the influence of the leader (past or present). In both cases, a sort of dissassociativity between the two spirals takes place.

Spiral Heterogeneity - Each spiral is a series of interconnective antenarratives. For example the Red Spiral might be thought of as a succession of leader stories from the founder to the present day. A the Blue Spiral (storytelling organization) could be various segments of organizational history. A leaders such as Walt Disney or Ray Kroc has left an impringt on the storytelling organization (Red link to Blue) depiced by the first Green line. However since the VLC of a Disney or Kroc continues to have significant influence for long periods of history, there can be new leaders that become CEO who are overshadowed by the ghosts of past leaders. A founders' helix may be short-lived, as in the case of James McLamore (Burger King) or long-lived such as Ray Kroc, Colonel Sanders, or Dave Thomas (Wendy's).

Fig 2 - Broken Spirals

Broken Spirals - There is no need to assume antenarrative contintuity. The double spirals can have gaps in the telling, breaks in each spiral can occur. For example, a leader that has not been able to get out from under a founder's shadow, or some phases of history (in the other spiral) get forgotten (or remembered too well). In short, both spirals can be considered as broken lines (a series of gaps and antenarrative segments in each spiral).

A more hybrid spiral would be when a tenured CEO such as Colonel Sanders sells his shares in the corporation, and then returns to play himself (i.e. an imitation of himself by himself). After he passed away, there were look-alike Colonel contests, but these did not prove successful in representing BK. Then the animated colonel was created, but without his "virtual" leaderly qualities; the result was the succession of Colonel VLC (tenured-hero, theatric VLC, & animated VLC) becomes a dim copy of the Colonel.

There is a second way the Red Spiral can fade and go dim. Organizations with rapid turnover of CEOs (9 in 15 years at Burger King) can make it difficult for the Red spiral (leader VLCs) to have much impact at all on the Blue Spiral (storytelling organization).In the case of Wendy's, after Dave Thomas retired, like the Colonel, he returned to play himself. In fact, Dave Thomas once worked for the Colonel, and did dress like the Colonel (for a time), before opening Wendy's. So this tells you Dave Thomas was theatric, and he clowned around in his ads for Wendy's after he retired. Wendy's has yet to develop a successor to Thomas, and its VLC could grow as dim as that of the co-founder of Burger King (James McLamore).

The the case of McDonald's, Ray Kroc's VLC over-shadows the VLC of the founding McDonald brothers (Richard & Maurice). In reading the McDoanld's website, Ray Kroc is the heroically narrated leader. After Kroc retired he worked on his autobiography, and his legend grew. It grew brighter than the VLC of his successors. Jim Cantalupo 16 month turn around of the sagging McDoanld's stock, his increase in same store sales, and his drive to shake off the fatty food image by getting a trimmer Ronald, more salads, and the "Get Moving with Ronald" and "Go Active" Happy Meal campaign, get magnified by Cantalopo's dramatic death on April 19th, 2004, a few hours before he was to take the podium and tell his success story ---> all this magnified Cantalupo's VLC. From that day, McDonald's web sites and press releases have been spinning antenarratives of Charlie Bell as the choson one (chosen by Cantalupo), and the anti-thesis of McJob (Bell is the kid who flipped burgers at McDonald's in Australia, then goes on to be manager, VP, and now CEO).

Antenarrative Double Helix Systems - Be it close or open alignment, continuous or discontinuous strings of antenarrative spirals, or ones that fade and become more luminous, the point is that antenarratives form trajectories: spirals that intertwine with one another. Antenarrative Double Helix is how the storytelling organiztion accomplishes corporate transformation, how it morphs, rehistoricizes, restories and renews. It is also how leaders develop an antenarrative after life in their corporaitons; ones that easily overshadow their successors.

The Red and Blue spiral are inextricably tied to one another, though they may drift at times into separated story spaces. Storytelling is alsways a social situation. The storytelling organizaiton is the system of actualizing situated context, retelling expereince in situ.Story can be antenarrative or narrative. Stories are told in social contexts in organiztions, in ways that form two psirals that are inextricably intertwined.

The medthod question is how to study the interaction of narrative and antenarrative forms of storytelling? the research challenge is to gather stories told in situ so that traces of double helix antenarrating (& narrative segments) can be analyzed. I think that closer analysis will show that a variety of story forms (terse, antenarrative & narrative) are constituted and performed in storytelling organizations. I suspect that antenarratives are in a dialogic, rather than a dialectic or hermeneutic releationship to narratives. In a hermeneutic relation, antenarrative is just prestory, a prelude to becoming (or not) a full fledged narrative (with beginning, middle & end). In dialectic theory, antenarrative is the anti-thesis of narrative, and over time there becomes (sometimes) synthesis. But, in dialogic theory, the antenarratives juxtapose and cluseter with narrative forms, and the kinds of spiraling effects hypothesized in the Antenarrative Helix, should be traceable.

The Double Spiral is influenced by its performative context. Across time-space (history & geography) stories are antenarrated differently, and as well, different versions of narrative get performed.

Antenarrating can occur in a variedy of mediums - verbal, written, visual, and theatric-gesture. The spirals can become more diverse in the types of story medium (in what Bakhtin, called sytlistics).

The elucidation of Double spiral is the work of the storytelling in the storytelling organizations. Double spiral is a problem in mutual delimination and "dialogical debployment" (Bakhtin/Volsinov, 1973: 38). Mutual delimination of the sprials continues during spiral-gaps (broken antenarrative chains).

Not every narrative or antenarrative becomes part of the collective memory of the storytelling organization. There can be many narrative and antenarrating events in various medium that never adhere to the Antenarrative Helix Spirals. Storytelling is a social intercourse in organizations. Storytelling organizations are about collective memory, including collective forgetting and rehistorization. Stories convey ideological orientation. And each of the proposed spirals can oscillate with competing ideological orientations (or points of view on particular ideologies).

It is feasible (even likely) that in more complex storytelling organizaiton systems, there can be triple-helix, or some infinite number of intertwined helix-strands, and that these spiral together in some kind of aggregate dance of mutal delimination. And it seems appropriate to propose that the story space goes through some periods of differentiation of spirals, and into a coalescing into just two or three. It is possible that spirals evolve and move into dead end story spaces. It is pssible that instead of the Double Spiral, there is just a succession of Double Spirals, forming out of thefragmented remembrances, then dissolving into forgetfulness, or morphing into some new spiral doublet.

In sum, I hypothesize two spirals in dialogical interplay. They move closer and further from one another in time-space. They have disputed beginning, or no tracable origin; they absorb and reject context impressions, they shift in scope and orientation. The dialogic interplay of the blue and red spiral has not attracted the attention of organization storytelling ( organization narrative or antenarrative) researchers.