Renual

In developing the Wheel of Renewal, Renual founder Alicia Korten drew in part from her work with the Embera, Wounaan and Kuna Native Peoples* in Panama. For example, while living in Panama, Alicia witnessed the Embera and Wounaan birth a semi-autonomous nation. She was present for a process in which hundreds of communities together wrote a constitution to guide the governance of their communally-owned lands and successfully lobbied the government to ratify the document.

Years later, Alicia reflected on their unusual success in renewing their society.
In Western organizations, 70 per cent of change initiatives end in failure. Why were they successful when so many others fail?

Alicia came to believe that one answer lay in their relationship to their past. While Westerners often ask only ‘where are we going?’, the Embera and Wounaan also asked ‘from where have we come?’ The business bestseller Built to Last reveals the results of a ground-breaking Stanford business study: the key to successful renewal is knowing not only what to change, but also what to keep.

She saw a second answer in their use of storytelling and ritual. They used stories not only to convey meaning and values in meetings, but to connect emotionally with their goals. In this way their commitment and passion to their initiatives remained strong, and they were able to achieve enduring results.

“Note: The Embera and Wounaan Peoples mentioned in the story are governed by the Embera-Wounaan General Congress. The Kuna woman pictured here paddles her boat in an area called Kunayala, which is governed by the Kuna General Congress.”

"A story is a fact wrapped in an emotion that can compel us to take action and so transform the world around us."

Robert Dickman