Hero’s Journey

The Magic of Large Group Interventions

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won:

The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

Joseph Campbell

Hero’s Journey

Large Group Methods

•Future Search

•Open Space

•Simu Real

•Conference Model

•Real Time Strategic Change

Hero’s Journey

Ordinary World

Refusal of the Call

Mentor

Threshold

Tests, Allies & Enemies

Inmost Cave - ReviewOrdeal Life & Death

Reward

Road Back

Resurrection

Return with ElixirCall to Adventure

Hero’s Journey

Hero – Separate from ordinary world, challenge, quest, restores balance

Mentor – provides motivation, insights & training

Threshold Guardian – protect Special World, secrets, tests

Herald – challenges and announces the coming of change

Shape shifter – misleads, hides intentions and loyalties

Shadow – represent darkest desires, untapped resources, rejected qualities. Sometimes fears &

phobias

Trickster – disrupt status quo, phrase, antics, transformative. Laughter and ridicule to see absurdity.

Hero’s Journey

As facilitator, sponsor, leader or participant…

What role do you play in change experiences?What character do you tend to assume?

GateKeeper

Shadow Herald

Trickster

Shapeshifter Mentor

Hero’s Journey

All adventures or journeys begin… in the Ordinary World

Every process involves breaking something up. Joseph Campbell

Eventually those who go on the journey will compare the Ordinary World to the Special World and integrate the two.

Ordinary World

Hero’s Journey

Call to Adventure

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to the adventure. Joseph Campbell

The Call can come in many ways.

It is recognition we are not going to be able to sustain status quo

Hero’s Journey

Refusal of the CallThere is a point, whether

on the part of a participant, facilitator, leader or organization, where there is a reluctance to take on the challenge which has presented itself. Fear

The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear… The coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters. Cus D’Amato

Hero’s Journey

Mentor

Each is a hero and an oracle to somebody, and to that person whatever he says has enhanced value. Mme. A.M. Bigot De Cornuel

We all have mentors who have shown up in our lives. The length of their stay is inconsequential; it is the impact of that stay which will determine the title.

Hero’s Journey

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. Helen Keller

This is the point in the process where the group crosses over a threshold that separates the ordinary world from the special world.

Crossing the First Threshold

Hero’s Journey

Many things which begin to occur, often from what seem to be contradictory points of view. Things begin to break up and former allies may seem to be crossing over to another camp. The old rules are not working and the new rules are not entirely clear.

Tests, Allies & Enemies

"The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross

and which to burn." -David Russell

Hero’s Journey

Inmost Cave - ReviewOrdeal Life & Death

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. Joseph Campbell

Hero’s Journey

A new perspective begins to be developed. The fog clears and a new path, picture is visible. Sometimes skits are used to help paint the picture, to whet the appetite for all that is possible.

Reward

Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned: unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story. Peter S Beagle

Hero’s Journey

Road Back

I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better." -G. C. Lichtenberg

It is not possible to stay in the Special World forever Return to the Ordinary World must be seriously considered There is often wavering

Hero’s Journey

Resurrection

The application of all that has been discovered and acknowledged. There is an exhibition of the new attributes, strengths, skills, ideas, demonstration of commitment and deep knowledge there is a willingness to proceed

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order. Life refuses to be embalmed alive. The more prolonged the halt in some unrelieved system of order, the greater the crash…-Alfred North Whitehead

Hero’s Journey

Return with ElixirThe hero returns with the boon - a new perspective, knowledge and experience and must integrate the “Special World” in spite of the challenges involved in that integration

The prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers. Johann Kaspar Lavater

Hero’s Journey

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