This is the True Storytelling Site, applying Antenarrative Processes.

Question: What is

ANTEnarrative? Short Answer: Antenarrative is a word I invented in the 2001 book, Narrative Methods for Organizational & Communication Research to get at process dynamics of organizational storytelling. ANTE (is short for antecedent). It in the 2001 book as 'before-narrative' and a 'BET on the future.' Now there are 7 B's I will introduce to you.

LOOK INSIDE:Read Introduction to this book then you will know the complete answer!

7 Antenarrative Processes, adapted from BOJE 2022 download book on Pondy, until published Ante has 7 B-processes & Fore means ‘in advance of’ Narrative-closure, -coherence, … with Baby-will-be-what examples of Fore (Yell fore in-advance of what we do).
1 Beneath	Fore-conception is to ‘Go Beneath’ the language to the silent spaces between words, the pauses in speech & writing, to the Flux, Flow, and movement. For example, listening to baby talk, and wondering what the silence means or parents disagreeing about upbringing.
2 Before	Fore-having is the twisted & entangled histories. It is looking backwards with retrospective sensemaking.  But it is challenging quite shallow histories erase most of history by marginalizing microstoria (little people’s history of resistance to grand narratives). Before is an on-going rehistoricizing of the past with new preferences. For example, a baby born into parent's and grandparent's history, and into what society expects of babies and parents.
3 Bets	Fore-sight is looking-forward to Futures arriving.We ante-up (as in poker) into the pot. We observe each others anteing. Are they bluffing? It is prospective sensemaking denied by Henri Bergson, and organization studies until 2001. 'Bets on the Future' is done by many players making many plots. It is not treating a linear Beginning-Middle-End narrative (BME narrative) as the only plot and getting blindsided.  BME narrative keeps cherry-picking select actors and very few events, thereby hiding the futures arriving. Very short-sighted. For example, parents make bets on a baby unborn, and Ante-Up new baby furniture and baby clothing, while planning the baby's choice of university.
4 Being	Fore-getting in double meaning: (1) fore-getting Kairos (in Greek hitting the target in right moment) of Timing, in stead of Chronos (chronological, sequential time). Time is inseparable from spacing (in places) and mattering of sociomateriality (SpaceTimeMattering inseparability in Karen Barad’s work). Fore-getting our Being-in-the-World we are thrown into illusion. For example, a baby has Being-in-the-world in place, with adorable moments of Kairos.
5 Becoming	Fore-caring is itself an ethical process of caring, Becoming is what is coming-to-be in-Be-in-the-World. It is caring for all species, not humancentric. For Pondy it is beyond open system thinking, and is an organic nature way of thinking (see Ehthinkment.com). We can think in-advance of just enactment of retrospective sensemaking or prospective sense-making, for example the baby arriving, not yet born has a future.
6 Between	Fore-structuring is a process of setting up infrastructure in-advance. It is pauses of silence between words spoken or written. In True Storytelling System, it is pauses between the four-hearts. Fore-structuring, for example, baby-proofing a house before the baby arrives in-the-world.
7 Beyond	Fore-grasping by intuitive, the 6th sense in Grace Ann Rosile’s (2016) Tribal Wisdom for Business Ethics & her HorseSenseAtWork.com. Indigenous Ways of Knowing, (IWOK). The Abduction best intelligent guess in Charles Sanders Peirce semiotics. It can be spiritual awareness Beyond the five senses of sensemaking. For example, I make a best guess about why the baby is crying, and try this or that, until baby is happily playing again.

 

Malmö University, Sweden Keynote Address May 23 2022 - Click for Slides

Click Here for Word version of Handout above


Until recently, we worked with seven processes of antenarrative.

What Are Seven Antenarrative Processes?

I have developed the Heidegger model of 7 antenarrative processes this last decade, This year 2022, I am returning to Mikhail Bakhtin and the MATRIX  Both are Ontological ways of unmasking the eventness of Being, unconcealing what is too settled in the Blue.

In movie the MATRIX, Morpheus offers Neo the Red or the Blue Pill
Take the Blue pill remain in content of blissful ignorance and illusion, a truth Bakhtin calls ISTINA
Take the Red Pill of potential to lean a life unsettling in what Bakhtin calls PRAVDA, a truth sometimes painful
For last decade I developed a Heideggerian model of 7 antenarrative processes. This year I take the PRAVDA-Red Pill and do some 'aesthetic seeing with Bakhtin's Architectonic Dialogism (the interanimation of radical notions of cognitive, aesthetic, and ethical discourses that has Immanuel Kant rolling over in his grave.

RELEVANCE TO ENTHINKMENT.com

1. The art of thinking, embodying values is a “deed-performing thinking” (Toward Philosophy of the Act, TPA);  My thinking” from my unique place in Being” (57)

2. I myself “the one thinking actuals”, “the actually performed act of thinking” (TPA, 58)

3. Does not sever act of thinking from its ontological roots (TPA, 54)

4. Seeks unvarnished truth, Beneath the veil of false claims

5. Distinguishes ISTINA (theoretical/abstract thinking of bystander) from PRAVDA (acts of thinking in once-occurrent event-ness of Being, with answerable consequences)

6. Asks the question: “Who is the author?” (Art & Answerability A&A 210)

7. ‘Historical thinking’ that not stuck in Bergson’s durée retrospection

    

8. ‘Vision thinking’ about the future “yet-to-be-achieved unity” (A&A 210)

9. ”Participative thinking” (TPA 59), “participative thinking in lived life” (60),  that is “Answerable thinking” (58)

For last decade I developed a Heideggerian model of

7 antenarrative processes. This year I take the PRAVDA-Red Pill and do some 'aesthetic seeing with Bakhtin's Architectonic Dialogism (the interanimation of radical notions of cognitive, aesthetic, and ethical discourses that has Immanuel Kant rolling over in his grave.

 
Here is the annotation of the 7 Antenarrative Processes




Figure- Depicts the Four Directions the faces are facing to the hearts in the Being of SpaceTimeMattering

The four Between processes of antenarrative interrelate the four Who-consciousnesses. Here is artwork by Sabine Trafimow showing how they can be brught together visually. In the True Storytelling Circles we do this in storytelling conversations.


Copyright by Sabine Trafimow (used by permission).
Storytelling Organizations have had difficulty aligning these four Who's of the Between Process.

Next is the annotated summary of 7 B's of antenarrative processes

The Four Hearts anchor VERTICAL: the space (Beneath is abstracting process; Beyond is embodied reflection space, and LATERAL: the time (two directions from Before to Being and from Bets into Being)


The Four Hearts of True Storytelling inter-relate Four  kinds of Systems that inter-connect in the who-consciousnesses I will introduce here. Here is an example worked out with what I consider the best statement of system theory, William James (1907), book, Pragmatism.


The 7 Processes get organization capacity to Heart-of-the-Matter, with all three loops working collaboratively in Together-Telling & Together-Listening. See

Larsen, Jens; Boje, D. M.; Bruun, Lena.(2021). True Storytelling: Seven Principles for an Ethical and Sustainable Change-Management Strategy. London: Routledge.

Fibonacci-Spiral-Fractal

1+1=2; 1+2=3; 2+3=5; 3+5=8; 5+8=13; 8+13=21; 13+21= 34, etc.

The Nautilus Shell Spiral is 4th Process, all four hearts point to it. It is also the iconic symbol of True Storytelling Institute (TSI).

Boje's 'True Storytelling Capabilities Presentation to OD Conference "BUILDING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITIES TO WIN IN THE 2021" Existential Crises- Aug 19 2021 Click Here for Slides

The 7 processes of Antenarrative are existential, already in the FORE.  The Illusion communication has taken place just by doing together-telling, without the fundamental process of together-listening is being stressed.


More of the development of taking-to-heart relation to telling is developed at Enthinkment Circcle: https://enthinkment.com
For the past decade I have been integrating ontology BEING processes with 7 antenarrative processes. Fore means 'there-already' which is a wonderful definition of antecedent processes of antenarrating.  In True Storytelling, together-listening is the foundation to together-telling.



Since I became emeritus, I have be doing training seminars for practitioners with True Storytelling Institute (TSI https://truestorytelling.org). The True Storytelling 7 principles are supported by the 7 antenarrative processes.

See Boje, D. M.; Pelly, D. M.; Saylors, R.; Saylors, J.; Trafimow, S. (2022). Implications of Tamara-Land Consciousnesses. Discourses for Organization Culture Studies. No. 16 ISSN 2450-0402.  http://dyskursy.san.edu.pl/abs/dyskursy16-4.pdf

The Four Who-Consciousnesses can be inter-disciplinary hybrids organizational systems if you can work with the basic process dynamics.

What's the difference between hybrid-systems,and hierarchically-rank-ordered systems?

Now suppose we can only rank order by system levels. The solution is elegant, but is it what happens in complex organizations?


I am working on a new model, in which ensembles of systems can be inter-disciplinary without the necessity of a hierarchical rank ordering.  It is based on a new book I am writing for Routledge: The Management Thought of Louis R. Pondy: An Existential Journey.

In the next version of the color wheel there are three cybernetic systems movements.  1st Order Cybernetics (shown above) is about hierarchical governance systems that have machine logic of self-correction.  2nd Order Cybernetics work by Heinz von Foerster (1911-2002) and Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). 3rd Order Cybernetics is the life work of Søren Brier.  Brier's (2008 2011) work is a hybrid of Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) types of autopoiesis with Charles Sanders Peirce's (1839-1914) semiotics. K and L are left unspecified, as yet undiscovered.


 

Figure - Depicts contributions of  Brier's Cybersemiotics that combines Luhmann's three autopoieses with Charlse Sanders Peirces pragmatist-semiotics.

In the new book I am writing for Routledge,I tell the story of how system studies in the U.S. missed out on what was happening in 2nd and 3rd order cybernetics (e.g. Brier, 1995; 2008; 2011). Pondy's (1976 in Boje 2005) desk rejected article), revised and published 1979 with Mitroff) sought to go beyond Open Systems (D in image above).  What they missed is the onset of the 2nd-order and 3rd-order cybernetic systems which were interdisciplinary (hybrids) of systems which following Boulding, Pondy (& then with Mitroff) placed in hierarchical ordering. See Boje (2014) which puts the multiple systems in combinations that are non-hierarchical orderings, and more recent work on ensemble storytelling organizing systems.

The point is that instead of hierarchically orders systems there can be hybrid combinations.
See the following and more in reference list below:

Boje (2919a; 2019b) provide further explanation of the Brier’s work on 3^rd-order cybernetics of cybersemiotics.

Pondy, L. R. (1976/2005). Beyond open system models of organization (classic paper with an introduction by David Boje). Emergence: Complexity and Organization, 7(3–4), 119–137. https://journal.emergentpublications.com/article/beyond-open-system-models-of-organization-2/.

 

Boulding, Kenneth. E. (1956). General systems theory—the skeleton of science. Management Science, 2(3), 197-208.

Boje, D. M. (2014). Storytelling organizational practices: Managing in the quantum age. London: Routledge.

 

Brier, Søren. (2008). Cybersemiotics: Why information is not enough!. University of Toronto Press.

Boje, D. M. (2019b).  Storytelling and Cybersemiotics. Chapter to appear in Introduction to Cybersemiotics: An international perspective edited by Carlos Vidales and Søren Brier, in Springer Series on Cybersemiotics. Click here for pre-press draft.

 

This article: Rosile, Grace Ann; Boje, David M; Herder Richard A.; Sanchez, Mabel. (2021). The Coalition of Immokalee Workers Uses Ensemble Storytelling Processes to Overcome Enslavement in Corporate Supply Chains. Business and Society. Business & Society, Vol. 60(2) 376–414. Click here fore pre-press pdf.