A hero's journey - leadership, script and myth

Sari van Poelje

Sari van Poelje is an international consultant, executive coach and trainer, and a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst. She is the managing director of INTACT (International Training, Coaching and Consultancy). With offices in Utrecht, Budapest and Lyon, the company offers coaching, consultancy and training programs for managers, coaches and consultants. Sari has also fulfilled senior director roles in various international corporations such as KLM, EMI music, ASML and Shell for 23 years. Her passion is team agility and business innovation.

The script concept is one of the most fascinating concepts in transactional analysis. A script is defined as an unconscious life plan learned in early childhood, reinforced by parents and reinforced by later events, resulting in a known pay-off (Berne, 1976). Within transactional analysis, script has often been depicted as a drama, sometimes winning, but mostly as non- winning or losing.

Script is basically a story, an interpretation of events linked to an emotion, as remembered by our clients. We are in essence much more the sum of our stories than the sum of our experiences. We can't change our experiences, but we can change our stories about them. In working with my coaching and consultancy clients I had a need to encapsulate the positive, developmental aspects of these stories. Yes, they had suffered setbacks. However, they were also very successful in their chosen areas of expertise, and their scripts had contributed to this success.

For me, script is as much our success story as our drama. In this chapter I will explore script as a heroic narrative. Leadership development is creating awareness of life and organizational events not only at the social or psychological, but also at the mythological level. A leader is defined by their position, their relationships but also their imago and myth. Campbell's Hero with a thousand faces (1947) is my main source of inspiration. I want to thank Manfred van Doorn, my mentor in the hero's journey, for his gift of storytelling.

Scripts are positive and co-creative

My starting point for this chapter goes back to Berne's initial writings in which he emphasizes that script can be both positive and negative. A negative script is decided upon as a compensation for perceived imperfection, based on 'if. then' decisions about yourself and others. 'A constructive script may lead to great happiness if the others in the cast are well chosen and play their parts satisfactorily' (Berne, 1976).

At the mythological level script is a positive factor in development. Our scripts are a co-creative mythical narrative that provides us with meaning, survival strategies, ethics, permissions and direction. Script is also fundamentally a relational concept, not an individual one. It is co-created within a (family) system through stories, mottos and family myths, which convey expectations about how roles should be fulfilled. If one member fails to perform the role in an expected way another may be recruited to take up that role instead. Taking up a or refusing a role is a choice.

Script, stories and myth

Both script and stories are based on a limited number of themes (Booker, 2004). The heart of most stories is the learning that takes place in the relationship with a hero, lover or villain. It is a confrontation with death, symbolically or in reality. Heroes transcend their script through the sacrifice of their lives for others or an ideal. If you know the plot and the character, you know the outcome of any story.

Within TA several people have written about the link between mythology and script. Berne himself was very interested in Greek mythology, which he described in his theories about process scripts. People such as Kahler (1978) and Caracushansky (1992), and many others, have later expanded on his ideas.

The myth of the hero

Joseph Campbell describes the 12 steps of the hero's journey in his book, The hero with a thousand faces (1947). The word hero comes from the Greek 'heros' meaning to serve and to protect. A hero is someone who is ultimately willing to sacrifice his own needs on behalf of the community (Webster dictionary, 2010). Campbell's ideas inspired Berne's ideas on script development (Berne, 1976).

Understanding and embracing the mythological aspects of your own hero's journey is the highest form of leadership development. Ultimately any organizational leader is there to bring life to the community he serves. Oddly enough this is also a universal definition of happiness (Veenhoven, 1995).

In describing the hero's journey, I will focus on leadership. I believe however, it can equally be applied to individual and group development.

Figure 1 The hero's journey

Step 1: Prologue

We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

(William Shakespeare)

Every journey starts with a first step. In the hero's journey the first step is called the prologue. The prologue is a period of unconscious preparation for the journey ahead. It is a time to reflect on life as is and dream of life as it could be.

In our own development, we exist in the minds of our parents before we physically manifest ourselves on earth. Some say our life's story starts prenatally, already being formed by the generational influences before us (Noriega, 2008).

Any movie also starts with a prologue, which prepares the hero and the viewers for the events to come. For example, the movie American Beauty (1999) famously starts with a series of shots with the narrator saying: "My name is Lester Burnham. This is my neighbourhood. This is my street. This. is my life. I am 42 years old. In less than a year I will be dead. Of course, I don't know that yet. And in a way, I am dead already."

Any leadership venture should commence with a time of dreaming. Before taking on a new project or organization we unconsciously construct an imago in our minds of what it will be like, based on previous experiences and implicit expectations (Berne, 1964). This imago influences all our subsequent behaviours and transactions.

In leadership development, I teach clients to consciously take the time to dream beforehand. It is a precious time, one that is usually neglected in Western organizations. Covey (1989) reminds us to take the time to begin with the end in mind. It requires being able to be organizationally aware and take in all the information available to create a road map beforehand. The competencies needed for this are basic trust and a feeling of belonging.

Questions you can ask yourself are: What were my parents' hopes and fears about me before I was born? What expectations did I create of my leadership role before I accepted it?

Step 2: Call to adventure

A = r + p (or Adventure equals risk plus purpose.)

(Robert McClure)

After being immersed in life as is, the hero gets a call to adventure. This call either comes from the outside, through an accident or a herald, or from the inside, because the hero realizes she is missing something in her life.

In our development being born is obviously one of the first physical calls to adventure. But any event which disrupts your life as is, and makes you realize there are other possibilities out there can be construed a call to adventure. You may remember the opening sequences of the first Star Wars (1977) movie with Luke Skywalker staring into the distance on his uncle's arid farm, clearly missing something in his life. In other movies a herald is sent, like in A Fish called Wanda (1988).

In leadership, we get thousands of calls to adventure every day. The trick is to distinguish calls that are archaic, and confirm our old stories, from calls that may create an opportunity for transformation. I teach leaders to keep a note of calls that would fit in with their current imago as a leader and calls that would support their development in the areas they desire.

For instance, one of my executive coaching clients complained that he was very successful in terms of making money. He kept getting hired over and over again as a hard-core, interim change manager. In this role, he could use his former competencies as a financial expert. With the birth of his first child however, he realized that developing a softer more compassionate approach in life actually made him happier, and he didn't want to answer this old call anymore. He successfully retrained as an executive coach and established his own practice.

Questions you can ask yourself are: How many times have you let an opportunity slip by and lived to regret it? Have you accepted calls that you wish you had refused?

Step 3: Refusal of the call

Who listens once will listen twice; Her heart be sure is not of ice, and one refusal no rebuff.

(Lord Byron)

When the hero receives a call to adventure there is often a period of refusal, either by the hero himself or by the environment. A refusal is traditionally seen as resistance. However, refusal can also be seen as a period in which to build up will power and self-confidence.