Story Thinking Compared with 50 Change Models

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Published: Jun 25, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24840/2183-0606_013.001_L001
Issue: Vol. 13 No. 1 (2025)
Keywords:
Story, Storytelling, Story Thinking, Narrative, Cognitive Narratology, Neuroscience, Change.

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Dr. John W. Lewis
Explanation Age LLC and Knowledge Management Institute (KMI), Washington DC, USA
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4704-9889

Abstract

Given that neuroscience has found evidence that we are wired for stories, there should also be evidence of our inherent connection to stories outside neuroscience, within the models we have created to guide transformational change. In seeking this external evidence, we first consider several story patterns to be used in this comparison. Then 50 popular change models are compared with a story pattern to look for evidence of alignment. The findings provide evidence of alignment between a cyclic story pattern and many professional change models, and we also find some change models which do not align to a story pattern, indicating a profession that is not well understood. We conclude with some implications and recommendations for current professional change models related to healthcare, policy-making, education, innovation, and AI.

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Author Biography

Dr. John W. Lewis, Explanation Age LLC and Knowledge Management Institute (KMI), Washington DC, USA

John Lewis, Ed.D. is a speaker and transformational coach for change, learning, and leadership. He has authored the books, “The Explanation Age” (beyond the information age) and “Story Thinking” (beyond storytelling). John teaches Innovation Management at the Knowledge Management Institute, is on the advisory board with the Lifeboat Foundation, a member of IIKI (International Institute for Knowledge and Innovation) and NDMA (Naturalistic Decision Making Association), and an associate editor for Leadership and Organizational Behavior with the Journal of Innovation Management. John has worked for several leading global organizations and his career highlights include launching GPS satellites and being recognized by Gartner with an industry Best Practice paper for a global Knowledge Management implementation. John holds a Doctoral degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Southern California, with a dissertation focus on mental models and decision making. His unified model of change represents the fundamental structure of stories, and encompasses a majority of earlier models, including Kahneman, Kolb, Kotter, and Kubler-Ross. It solves for the “fragmentation” problem described by Peter Senge, and fulfills on the quote by W. Edwards Deming: “We will never transform the prevailing system of management without transforming our prevailing system of education. They are the same system.”