Frankly, I detest Halloween. Other than associating a few mildly bad memories with the holiday, I have no good reason to hate it.

And when you come right down to it, Halloween is a storyteller's paradise -- all those scary ghost stories and horror flicks.

And think of the stories we tell when we dress in costume, not only about the characters we choose but about ourselves in choosing them.

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Thanks to Stephanie West Allen’s posting on the Working Stories list, I learned of what may just be the ultimate example of storytelling stealth in the classroom. In fact, the narrative is so blatant that it’s not really stealthy at all. The students are immersed in the narrative from Day 1.

This teaching method enlightens my quest for buy-in from my students about storytelling, which Rachel Hedman later commented on.

From NPR’s story on this ultimate example:

“This is a game in which the students are literally immersed in a story. And they take on the role of a character,” he explains. “So all of the reading material, all of the content, all of the examinations and homework, if you will, are built inside the engine of the game.” … “I believe we are the first ones to fully emerge students in a narrative story and treat the whole course as a game,” Sarbaum says.

NPR story here

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Continuing some thoughts about this entry about John Kotter's article on Forbes.com, I realize that definition through story is certainly not limited to companies.

My interest is in how we define ourselves through story. Doing so, I'm convinced, can help us propel our careers forward.

I am always looking for stories that will shed light on how companies define themselves--for better or for worse.

[Thanks to Mary K. Clark from the Working Stories discussion group for the inspiration for this entry.]

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I am struck by how we as humans will tend to make up stories about anything we see that's the slightest bit unusual (at least I do).

While riding my bike one afternoon, for example, I saw a woman walking by the side of the road. Several hundred feet behind her was what looked like a moving truck. My mind instantly made a connection between the two sights: Something had fallen off the truck, and the woman was walking along the side of the road to find it. Or perhaps she was planning to stop at one of the houses along the road to ask directions. The two things probably weren't connected at all, but my brain wanted to create a story.

That's a pretty boring, mundane example. The classic has to be one about the dog, Muffie, I had as a pre-teen. The wirehaired fox terrier often ran away from home, and trying to chase her only made her run faster; she was nearly impossible to catch unless you opened a car door. (She loved going for rides in the car and would readily jump into a car when invited.)

Once she ran away to the vicinity of my Uncle John's house, which was halfway across town. Someone knew whose dog Muffie was and alerted us. My sister Robin happened to need to borrow a saw from Uncle John anyway, so she made the trek to fetch both Muffie and the saw. As Robin returned home with Muffie under one arm and the saw in her other hand, a small child put together a gruesome story:

"Please don't saw the little doggie in half," the child pleaded.

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My 19-year-old son was stranded in downtown Orlando, FL, and ended up getting mugged (including his cell phone), sleeping in a parking garage, and walking a portion of the 40-mile trip home. His story actually began on Oct. 12, but it was appropriately probably Friday the 13th when things turned sour. He finally reached me with a collect call late on the afternoon on the 13th, and I picked him up.

He said that one of the thoughts he had as he walked those many miles was how he would have great stories to tell about his misadventure.

Later, though, as his ordeal worsened, he realized that the bad thing about having stories to tell is that you have to live the rotten experience that yields the stories.

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Steve Denning shared this comment with the Working Stories group:

I would argue that the essence of (organizational) storytelling is interactivity. The only point of the story is to generate new stories in the minds of the listeners. If the storytelling remains a solo activity, with the storytelling simply telling his/her story, and the listeners "downloading" that "data" intact, then nothing much of interest is going on. It's when the listeners start to imagine their own stories that you can [get] action. The storyteller's story is just scaffolding for the real action - the listener's story.

I am speculating that this interactivity may be a major key to getting buy-in from business students and business leaders alike. I still have not achieved the perfect blend of interactivity and whatever is needed for students to understand the power of storytelling, but I do know that interactivity has resulted in some beautiful stories from my students.

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A number of entries ago, I said I would, in the spirit of sharing in the storytelling community, share links from April's Smithsonian Storytelling Weekend. Here they finally are:

-- Courtesy of Steve Denning

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John Kotter, author of Heart of Change, says he is "always looking for stories that will shed light on how companies define themselves -- for better or for worse," though in a recent article on Forbes.com, he laments that "too few business leaders grasp the idea that stories can have a profound effect on people." His concerns tie in with my own quest to get buy-in on storytelling from my business students. It's a never-ending crusade -- one that I'm convinced is extremely important.

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I have uploaded a draft of my dissertation. It's the one that also went to my faculty adviser last week. I've had very little feedback on it, so I can't vouch for the quality, and it may end up changing a lot depending on what my committee says.

The download is on my password-protected PhD site. If you'd like to see the dissertation, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling That Propels Careers, e-mail me at mailto:kathy@astoriedcareer.com, and I will give you the username, password, and link.

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From an appendix to my dissertation, a collection (that I plan to add to) of consulting firms that focus on organizational storytelling:

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Thanks to my wonderful blog/Movable Type guru, Chris Dixson of Brandego, this blog can again take comments -- as long as the commenter registers (to avoid spam).

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Found this wonderful quote on one of the articles on the Avalon Web site (see preceding entry):

"Stories are alchemy. They are medicine, healing, mystery, paradox, power, and many other things, allowing us to feel, taste, touch, hear and see the stories around us. They are chaos, order, complexity. Stories are fractals. They are necessary, basic and dangerous in that they can't be controlled by our striving intellects. They are the container, the elements, the process and the trigger of transformation."

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Arrrggghhh! Why didn't I know about this rich site and consulting firm while working on my dissertation?!

Glory Ressler was one of the presenters at this year's Storytelling Weekend in Washington, DC. I didn't attend but am, in the spirit of sharing exemplified in the storytelling community, sharing the resources from the weekend here.

The site offers a trove of stories, and my favorite area so far is the library section. Great stuff!

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A source of consternation during my dissertation research was the lukewarm reception that focus-group participants gave story-based job-search media, such as resumes (especially resumes), cover letters, and interview responses.

Perhaps, as Seth Kahan posits below, my focus-group participants were reacting in a "conventional" way -- as opposed to a storied way. These terms come from a taxonomy of explanations proposed by Charles Tilly in his book Why?, which has gotten some buzz this year.

Here's Kahan's take on focus-group responses:

I think, as I gather you do, that how we feel about a brand, and which products and services we choose, is usually explained by a fantastically complex set of factors: the brands our parents used, the brands we see people around us use, the image of the brand, our personal experience with it, a sale, a half-remembered ad from 10 years ago, and so on. This is probably best explained as a story - we may both buy Tide, but there's a different narrative that brought each of us to pick it up.

But in market research, the answers people give sound more like
conventions: "It's a good value", "my family likes it", "it tastes
good." And it seems that because of the artificiality of the situation, the perils of introspection, etc, most market research actually encourages people to answer in conventions, and doesn't encourage the telling of stories. Many of these stories are probably complex and deeply buried such that they are hard to consciously access anyway.

Now, I'm not sure there is as much of a story behind a focus-group participant's choice of, say, laundry detergent, compared to a resume, but it's still an interesting point to ponder.

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At some point, I would like to compile a master bibliography here (if I'm not reinventing the wheel), bringing together my overall bibliography for this blog, as well as previous postings and this new entry with suggestions from Brian McKenzie and Sandy Schuman, who posted them to the Working Stories group. They're listed in the continuation of this entry. McKenzie's work is of interest to me because he teaches entrepreneurship, which I also teach. I'm also adding other resources as I come across them.

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The question came up on the Working Stories list -- how do you define "narrative practitioner?"

Seth Kahan offered this definintion:

For me a narrative practitioner is someone who applies the notion that human beings deal with their experience by constructing stories and listening to the stories of others. As practitioners our day-to-day lives, including our work, are informed by this approach. We see human activity and experience as meaningful and recognize that stories are a primary vehicle by which this meaning is relayed, shared, and constructed.

Madelyn Blair added:

I think I'll build on Seth's points to say that there is another dimension to a narrative practitioner. Knowing and understanding the role and power that story (narrative) plays in our lives, we use that understanding with a keen sense of humility and respect for others.

Glory Ressler chimed in with:

For me, a narrative practitioner is a person who professionally and responsibly uses story-based concepts and tools and promotes an understanding of the important influence story plays in our individual, organizational and communal lives.

I also believe that the values the individual practitioner brings to his/her practice significantly impact the quality and outcomes of the work.

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Steve Denning offers another chapter from his upcoming book, The Secret Language of Leadership, to be published by Jossey-Bass in September 2007. The chapter is relevant to my work because my dissertation particularly looks at the value of telling change stories in the job search and includes a review of the literature on storytelling and change. And, of course, eleiciting a desire for change is another form of persuasion.

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Lori Silverman, author of Wake Me When the Data Is Over, who was a huge help in my disseration writing, very kindly sent me advance pages of her book before it was published this month. The book is fantastic because it gives more story examples than most books of its kind. More to come about this terrific book....

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During that long hiatus when I wasn't updating this blog because I was working on my dissertation, I got an e-mail from Dr. David Morris about his blog on marketing and storytelling.

Lots of great content there and of interest to me not only because of the self-marketing angle in my work but because my partner is also a marketing professor.

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