Kia ora from Jess,
The dust has settled on the landslide victory for the Labour party. It was a long campaign for everyone, especially the politicians and their families I imagine. The kids and I did appreciate the lighter moments provided by creative billboard graffiti. This one near our place was declared the winner by my seven year old, with points awarded for both commitment to the idea and bold word play.
What does the future hold for transformation?
Many people hope this Labour government will implement the transformative policies needed to overcome child poverty, fix the housing crisis and respond to climate change, among many things. The narratives Labour uses will play a critical role in actively building their public mandate to make those transformative changes.
Bold visions means transforming systems
Practically speaking, achieving a bold vision for a better world requires significant systems shifts. Small changes around the edges of policy can’t overcome big problems in reasonable timeframes. The conundrum for this Labour government is that a large group of New Zealanders may like the vision Labour has but won’t show much of an appetite for the change it requires. This is pretty normal for people who we would call ‘potentially persuadable’.
So, how will the government make the shifts needed without a clear public appetite? The label “persuadable” gives a hint. This government will need to persuade people. They will need to build and activate support for transformation using effective narratives and a campaign for change.
Why does such a popular government need to continue to campaign for change?
Even elected politicians with large majorities need to constantly build support for systems change. The two big reasons for this are:
Cognitive biases make shifts in thinking and action hard. These biases tend to protect the existing ways that people think about big problems and solutions. Take for example the normalcy bias, which leads most of us to believe that the worst won’t happen, that a risk is too remote to worry about or over inflated, and we don't need to change things in order to prepare.
Most dominant narratives tend to protect the status quo. Even when a landslide victory has been achieved, unhelpful, shallow and false narratives about complex issues still exist and need to be overcome to achieve change. When powerful people have a lot to lose from significant policy shifts, they work harder to reinforce the often longstanding stories that help hold the existing system in place, even using underhand tactics to do so.
Without a strategy to shift people’s thinking and dominant narratives about big issues like climate change, just waiting for the public to develop an appetite for significant policy shifts is not a pragmatic approach. And this Labour government has the agency and influence to act differently.
People in politics have enormous power to shift the narrative
People in politics have a unique opportunity to help people to think about issues differently. With a platform and people willing to listen, their ability to deepen thinking is significantly greater than many people and organisations. People in politics can use effective narrative strategies to help people think and act in support of the evidence. The prime minister showed us that this year during COVID-19.
Values, frames, metaphors and better explanations are some of the effective communication strategies for those of us working to achieve systems shifts for a more inclusive Aotearoa. You can get more guidance on narrative strategies on topics including poverty, welfare, transport, climate change and justice reform in our freely available message guides on our website.
Notes from the Narrative Movement
Survey on use of Common Cause research
The Common Cause Foundation is currently gathering case studies of people and organisations around the world who have used their work. If you’ve been to one of our training workshops, or used one of our message guides to choose and use values in your communications and work, then you have benefited from the Common Cause Foundation’s research.
Gathering this information will help the Foundation to better understand the reach and impact of their work, so we would love it if some case studies from New Zealand made their way back to the people whose research has informed our work.
Here is a short survey that you can use to tell them about your projects. Data will be collected and kept by the Common Cause Foundation, not The Workshop. For any questions, please contact Ruth on rtaylor@commoncausefoundation.org
Get in touch
Get in touch with lucia@theworkshop.org.nz if you are interested in training for your team, with sharon@theworkshop.org.nz if you are interested in research on narrative strategies for your area of work, or rachel@theworkshop.org.nz if you would like to talk to us about how we can help you with specific advice.
Jess at The Workshop