Since one of the best aspects of Pamela Skillings’ Escape from Corporate America is its stories of people who successfully escaped, I’m running my review of the book that appeared on A Storied Career’s parent site, Quintessential Careers.

Escape from Corporate America: A Practical Guide to Creating the Career of Your Dreams, by Pamela Skillings, $15. Paperback. 352 pages, 2008, Ballantine Books; ISBN: 0345499743

The most appealing aspect of Pamela Skillings’ Escape from Corporate America — and the one that gives it the most credibility — is the fact that she interviewed more than 200 people who successfully escaped from jobs in big corporations that no longer suited them. Not only does Skillings tell the stories of many of these escapees, but she also lists them in the back of the book. The vast majority have Web sites, thus providing the opportunity to learn more about these folks or perhaps even contact them.

Escape is quite comprehensive, covering the full gamut of escape routes — changing jobs into corporations that are known for being employee-friendly, cutting back to part-time/flex-time, telecommuting, taking time off (such as a sabbatical), joining a smaller company; working as a solopreneur; starting a business that’s more then a solo enterprise, working to make a difference in a job or organization dedicated to the greater good, and following creative passions in such areas as music, acting, writing, filmmaking, and art.

Skillings also spends a good chunk of the book helping the reader determine if he or she truly needs and is ready for an escape from corporate life. She even offers a quiz to help readers determine if it’s time to get out. The book is full of reader-friendly tidbits, quotes, lists, resources, and stories in sidebars. A Timeline of Corporate Malaise (beginning in 1298 with the founding of the world’s oldest surviving business corporation — Sweden’s Stora Kopperberg) is revealing. The author’s Financial Planning Worksheets for Career Changers seem quite comprehensive and are bound to be more than helpful to the reader considering transcending the rat race. Skillings also injects the volume copiously with humor, such as including music playlists for miserable cubicle dwellers (“Back on the Chain Gang,” for example) and those fantasizing about leaving (“Take This Job and Shove It,” naturally).

Here are the Top 10 Things I learned from reading Escape from Corporate America:

1. Studies show 50 percent of workers are dissatisfied with their jobs, and 80 percent fantasize about quitting; however, those in corporate jobs are more miserable than workers in smaller companies, who are more miserable than free agents and entrepreneurs.

2. The phases of corporate disillusionment that Skillings describes are not too different from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ well-known stages of grief when people are told they are terminally ill:

• Honeymoon phase (no counterpart in Kubler-Ross’ model)
• Denial (same in Kubler-Ross’ model)
• Bitching (anger in Kubler-Ross’ model)
• Bargaining (same)
• Depression (same)
• Acceptance or Change (happily, you can make a change if you’re miserable in a corporate career — unlike the inevitable outcome in Kubler-Ross’ model.)

1. Money is surprisingly unimportant to life satisfaction, Skillings reports, citing a study in which moving from the bottom to the top of the income scale increased overall satisfaction of participants by only about 10 percent.

2. Americans get the skimpiest vacations of all industrialized nations — 8.1 days a year after 10 years on the job.

3. Skillings’ three-step plan for determining one’s perfect career is compact and nifty: (1) Identify your career fantasy; (2) Conduct detective work; and (3) Try on your dream job. She also provides handy worksheets for these endeavors. While I love the fact that she mentions picking the brains of people in the jobs you are considering, I wish she had more explicitly discussed the relatively unknown and underused informational-interview technique. Informational interviews are also helpful in the detective-work phase.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Gabrielle’s photo, links to her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Gabrielle Dolan (Question 2):

Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?

A: This is a good question and one I have been asking myself a lot. I think it comes down to two things. Firstly people are inundated with information, they are overloaded and we have known this for a long time. I think leaders are starting to realise that it is not just enough to provide information, the very good leaders will help people make sense of the information, and story can help them do that.

Also, we hear more and more from leaders the challenges in managing and leading the Gen X & Y workforce. This generation really wants to be inspired, challenged and motivated and again it is through story you can achieve this by showing them how they can make a difference and not just providing the reasons why things need to be down. Story is all about making the emotional connection.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

It’s a great pleasure to present the seventh installment in this series of interviews with some of the gurus of both performance and applied storytelling. This interview is with Gabrielle Dolan. I first encountered Gabrielle through the Australian consulting firm, onethoudandandone, that she runs with her partner, Yamini Naidu, because I quoted the firm in my dissertation. Read more about by going to the links by her photo. I have broken her interview down into five parts, with one to appear each of the next five days.

To learn more about Gabrielle, go to this page, to the right side of the page, and click on the top left circle. It will turn purple and say Gabrielle Dolan when you put your mouse over it. Her photo will then come up, and you can click on her profile.

Q&A with Gabrielle Dolan (Question 1)

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: I initially came into the field of organisational storytelling when my yet-to-be business partner Yamini Naidu showed me a digital story she had created. While everyone else in the class had created a digital story for personal use, she applied the skill for a business issue. At the time I was a senior manager at the National Australia Bank, and I immediately say how it could be applied. I had experienced the day-to-day frustration in the corporate world of trying to get employees engaged and motivated. I also been in too many boring presentations and roadshows that just did not make sense. Both situations are extremely frustrating.

Both Yamini and I realised that the power was not in the technology of a digital story but in the story itself. The more we researched, we discovered the whole field of organisational storytelling that was coming out of the USA, but no one was working specifically in the “organisational storytelling” space in Australia. We spoke to many Australian business leaders and the response was pretty much the same. “I knew that what we were doing was not working but didn’t know what else to do.” Organisational storytelling gives leaders a way to better communicate and engage with their employees. Not being able to do this is extremely time consuming and frustrating for them and their people.

What I really love about organisational storytelling is the sheer excitement and almost relief from leaders that now have a tangible way to better communicate and engage with their people. And when we hear the successes some of our clients have had with story when every other attempt has failed….that is priceless.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I mentioned recently that I frequently read articles directed at recruiters to get a look at the other side of the hiring process.

Saw a terrific story on ERE.net by Ross Clennett about how the founder and lead guitarist of the 80s band Journey, Neal Schon, attempted to recruit a new lead vocalist to replace the departed Steve Perry.

After much tribulation, he ended up seeing 40-year-old Filipino lead singer, Arnel Pineda, doing an excellent performance of Journey tunes on YouTube.

Clennett found the story illustrative of how the recruiting world has changed, writing:

What a fantastic story for the new world of recruitment: a story covering globalization, Web 2.0, and non-traditional sourcing strategies …. Consider that in this Journey-finds-new-lead-singer story, the following occurred via the World Wide Web:

The employer sourced a potential employee, living in another country, online.

The employer contacted the potential employee.

The competence of the potential employee was able to be assessed sufficiently well to arrange a live interview (audition) in another country without any need for a resume.

Certainly fuel for the argument that new forms - including storytelling forms, such as blogs and videos - may take over for the resume.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Partly because I was once a speechwriter for a politician, one of my personal heroes is Ted Sorensen, best known as JFK’s speechwriter. Thus, I am delighted to be reading his memoir, Counselor. Incidentally, while he acknowledges that when he dies, all obituaries will refer to him as “JFK’s speechwriter,” his role was actually far more broad. For example, I had always believed that it was Bobby Kennedy who, in essence, saved the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I learned of Sorensen’s significant role.

In the book’s introduction, Sorensen notes that he had a stroke in 2001 and questioned whether he would be able to write his memoirs. Readers owe a great debt to the friend of Sorensen’s who told him “Just tell stories.”

And so he has in enlightening and fascinating fashion.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

If you didn’t attend Steve Denning’s webinar about leadership storytelling yesterday, you can listen to it here.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Loren’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A. See Part 2 of this Q&A. See Part 3 of this Q&A. See Part 4 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Loren Niemi (Question 5):

Q: In your experience, how does storytelling help build community?

A: On the most basic level, storytelling builds community by identifying “us” as family, clan, neighborhood, village, religion, ethnicity, nationality, etc. The fundamental kinds of story that exist in every culture — myths, hero tales, trickster stories, humor/jokes and stories of the spiritual — offer us models of who we are, who “they” are, how we think, act, believe, live, etc.

Beyond that the four kinds of storytelling — personal stories, oral histories, metaphors and rituals — that exist in every organization from families to clubs to businesses, invite us to identify and share beliefs, values and behaviors with each other. The thing is the same stories and mechanisms for storytelling that bind us together can also exclude.

So once again I come back to the issue of consciously identifying, shaping and telling our stories. If we want to build strong inclusive communities, we need to be intentional in the stories we tell and the way we tell them. This requires more time, focus and resources than many of us are willing to commit without support from the “powers that be” and then we wonder why there is so much distrust and lack of understanding. Lakoff says that whoever frames the argument controls the argument, and I say that if we want to build a healthy community we need to expand the “us” without necessarily having to demonize “them” in the totality of the stories we tell.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

This week’s word cloud/tag of A Storied Career comes to you from the charming town of Wilbur, WA:

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Cynthia Kurtz, whose terrific book, Working with Stories, I blogged about here and who will be featured in a Q&A in December, is making a nice offer to story practitioners who might have case studies to share in a future revision of the book. She says:

I’m looking for some real community case studies to add to the Working with Stories (WWS) book, and here’s the deal. If you are doing a small community project (i.e., not for a giant firm or government agency) and are using the methods I describe in WWS, I’ll spend some time giving you feedback on your plans or looking at your results or whatever (through email/Skype) if you give me a case study about your project when it’s finished. I’ll put your case study (anonymized or not, your choice) on the WWS web site with your name and link (or not, your choice) and the book will be better for it!! If you want to write a case study about a project you’ve already done instead, I’ll help you with another project (same deal, my time for your time).

The case study you provide should be at least one page long and should describe: why you did it, how it got started, what challenges you faced, what decisions you made, how people reacted, how you responded, what surprises you found, what you did with what you found, what other people did, how it turned out, what you might do in the future, what you would do differently the next time, and so on.

This offer is limited to the first several takers, and to the rest of 2008, and to a maximum of 4 hours of my time per project, and of course I reserve the right to choose whether a project fits the book’s audience. Email cfkurtz at cfkurtz.com

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Loren’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A. See Part 2 of this Q&A. See Part 3 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Loren Niemi (Question 4):

Q: You teach storytelling at the college level. Do you find your students receptive, or is it difficult to attain “buy-in” to the value of storytelling?

A: There is always some initial skepticism — for two reasons: because they do not have the language to name what they already have experienced as storytelling and because the storytelling “brand” as they identify it has been so often associated with librarians reading books to children instead of rappers and hip-hop artists rhyming or scriptwriters framing television or movie narratives. The class I teach operates on two levels of learning — one identifying the forms and functions of story in business, education, media, culture and our spiritual lives; and the other in having them tell both personal and folk/ethnic/cultural stories. No one leaves the class without understanding why and how stories shape our world.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I read a fair amount of material directed at employers and recruiters because it lends insight to my advocacy for job-seekers.

I often read the articles at ERE, a site for recruiters.

A well-done recent piece was by frequent contributor Kevin Wheeler. He wrote a case study (free registration may be required) — which, of course, is just another term for “story,” about a recruiter having difficulty finding candidates for highly specialized jobs in robotics. Here’s a snippet:

Hiring managers wanted prior experience in robotics, if possible, or experience in manufacturing or designing miniature components or nanotechnology. They wanted engineers capable of demonstrating these products to a global customer base. And each robot had to be installed and “tuned” for each customer, which frequently required foreign travel for a long period of time.

Even though Paul had pushed back on these tough requirements, he had not been able to change their opinions. And his sourcing team couldn’t find the right people.

So here he sat on a lovely afternoon, befuddled and at a loss. Should he quit? Did he admit defeat? Was there a way out? What strategies or tactics could he apply to this situation that might rescue him, and the organization?

Wheeler ended the story by asking his readers to suggest strategies/tactics to solve the dilemma.

Readers responded robustly with detailed and insightful suggestions. Wheeler promises to cull and comment on the responses in a future article.

What a great technique to engage readers — write a story that lacks an ending and ask your readers for input to end the story, solve the problem.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Loren’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A. See Part 2 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Loren Niemi (Question 3):

Q: What’s your favorite story about a transformation that came about through a story or storytelling act?

A: This is a small one. Megan Wells, Nancy Donoval, and I did a project with DDB advertising focused on financial and wealth-management services. The creatives were skeptical that we had anything to offer them that they did not already know but as part of our metaphorical examination of wealth, I told “Rumplestiltskin” and described the challenge the Miller’s daughter faced (turning straw into gold) as “an impossible task needing to be done in an unreasonable time.” There was an audible gasp that went through the room which was confirmed when we talked about the story — that phrase described their situation, their feelings. They were the Miller’s daughter expected to turn straw into gold. From that moment on, the tone changed and everyone in the room was engaged in the same task for the same ends.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I have begun to work on a project that will likely take a long time to complete — a glossary of applied-storytelling terms.

My starting place was the list of tags used in this blog.

I’ve whittled that list down to 1,011 entries, and of course, will likely do much more whittling.

If you’d like to take a gander at the terms, they are in a PDF attached to this page. I’d love to hear thoughts on inclusions/exclusions/definitions.

Note that storytelling practitioners and authors also are listed; if you’re looking for yourself, look alphabetically under your first name.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Loren’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Loren Niemi (Question 2):

Q: How important is it to you and your work to function within the framework of a particular definition of “story?” (i.e., What is a story?) What definition do you espouse?

A: My fundamental definition of story is that it is the conscious expression of experience and imagination in a narrative form. The word “conscious” is critical and speaks to the idea that a story is chosen and shaped. This definition is intentionally very broad, with narrative forms including a wide variety of expressions — oral, written, visual, ritual, political, etc. On one end of the spectrum, it includes the common daily act of recounting our experience over the dinner table or around the water cooler and on the other end, it includes the whole of culture, historical, political, religious narratives, the myths we live by, etc. I believe that story is fundamental to our being human — the organizing principle that allows us to order the world and transfer knowledge from one individual, culture and generation to another. On a practical level, all the work I do is storytelling and the core of that work is to make the stories we tell conscious, chosen, artful, meaningful.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I’m thrilled to present the sixth installment in this series of interviews with some of the gurus of both performance and applied storytelling. This interview is with Loren Niemi, whose work I first encountered while working on my dissertation. Read more about him below. I have broken his interview down into five parts, with one to appear each of the next five days.

Bio: Loren Niemi has spent 30 years as a storyteller, theatrical performer, and director of other performers. He is also a public policy consultant and trainer working with low-wealth communities and non-profit organizations to identify, frame and tell their critical stories. Loren is the author of The Book of Plots (Llumina Press) on the use of narrative forms and Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories (August House Publishers) with co-author Elizabeth Ellis, on the value and necessity of the stories that are hard to hear and harder to tell. He teaches Storytelling in the Communications Department of Metro State University and offers consulting services and workshops on storytelling and cultural competency for organizations, businesses and communities around the world.

For more information, contact him at 651-271-6349, niemistory@aol.com or visit his website.

Q&A with Loren Niemi (Question 1):

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: There are several answers to this question, each of which responds to a corresponding level of awareness and commitment to storytelling.

The first came early, first grade, when the teacher asked what we knew about elephants. I gave an enthusiastic answer mixing fact and imagination. She said, you’re a liar. I said, no, I’m telling a story. While I was aware of the difference she did not acknowledge or “reward” the story, but shamed me with the result being that I did not raise my hand or speak unless called upon for the rest of the school year. This moment has remained with me for over 50 years and is core to my understanding that storytelling is fundamental to our education (integrating right and left-brain functions) and that everyone tells stories, consciously and unconsciously, to place themselves in the world, to build relationships and recognized for who they are as they choose to name/claim their identity.

By high school, that deep seated impulse to mix fact and imagination to make sense of the world lead me to the school paper and an award for creative fiction. It also got me my first kiss from an attractive woman when I told a wholly imagined story at a summer school leadership camp. These reaffirmed my sense of story as a powerful and rewarding use of language. There were also early lessons in these about the value and necessity of crafting material for a specific audience — matching language, tone, rhythm to invite the listener into the story.

In 1971, I was working at an alternative education program for juvenile justice offenders. More than once I sat in a courtroom and heard a judge say to a kid, you can go to jail, into the military or into this program and have a kid think that it was the easy choice. We worked with them 12 hours a day, six days a week - and the core of the work was having them tell their stories over and over again in response to questions that were designed to move them from seeing themselves as victims of bad luck or other people’s ill will to taking responsibility for their own lives and decisions. It was a long and emotionally difficult process with more than one kid choosing to go into the military rather than stay with the program. Today it would probably be seen as a kind of Narrative Therapy, but then it was rooted in Gestalt and a Baba Ram Das sense of “Be Here Now.” In support of the work I began collecting and telling little metaphors, fables and parables (many from the Sufi, Zen and Hassidic traditions) to provide indirect models of behaviors, values, ways of thinking that supported the change process.

In 1978, I was managing projects the City of Minneapolis Arts Commission and was sitting in the bar of the Edgewater Hotel in Madison, WI, between arts conference sessions when I was asked what was it that I actually did. I’m a storyteller, I said. I help organizations and communities identify, shape and tell their stories. Once the words were out of my mouth, I understood that this was exactly what I did and more importantly, it was what I wanted to do. Story was the frame that made sense of the organizing, educational, political and arts streams that were all present in my life. Story was the common bond and conduit between them. Once the words were out of my mouth I could see how I had been prepared to be a storyteller and after, the doors of opportunity opened to demonstrate that this was my life’s work.

Within the next two years, I would meet and work with Ken Feit, Jay O’Callahan, Goyia Timpenelli, Mike Cotter, Elizabeth Ellis, Jim May and other leaders of the storytelling revival. Within three years I would be the Humanities Scholar in Residence in Northern Minnesota, paid to spend a year collecting and telling stories and documenting the cultural shift from an industrial to a tourism and service based economy. Within five years I would become the ringmaster and tour manager of the Circle of Water Circus, and there would be no turning back.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I first heard Brandi Carlile’s “The Story” in Jose Sacavem’s personal-identity video, featured in yesterday’s entry. I then heard it as the soundtrack for a car commercial during the Beijing Olympics (sadly, not effective advertising since I can’t remember which car manufacturer). The lyrics are not totally spot-on as a theme song for this blog, but pretty darned close.

02 The Story.m4p

The Story, Brandi Carlile, 2007

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don’t mean anything
When you’ve got no one to tell them to
It’s true…I was made for you
I climbed across the mountain tops
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
But baby I broke them all for you
Because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do
I was made for you
You see the smile that’s on my mouth
It’s hiding the words that don’t come out
And all of my friends who think that I’m blessed
They don’t know my head is a mess
No, they don’t know who I really am
And they don’t know what
I’ve been through like you do
And I was made for you…
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don’t mean anything
When you’ve got no one to tell them to
It’s true…I was made for you

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Jose Sacavem describes this charming video as: “A reflexion on my identity as a person, a professional, and the pursuing of the dream on becoming a digital storytelling facilitator in Portugal.”

Sacavem also authors a Portuguese-English blog on digital storytelling issues and is leading an effort to create the Portuguese Digital Storytelling Center.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Steve Denning, who has been a significant influence to many on the topic of storytelling and leadership, is offering a free webinar on Thursday, September 25, 11 am US Eastern time

The webinar is an advance preview of his ARK Group one-day masterclass in December in London. Denning says the webinar will include:

• An overview from the unique perspective of my global leadership storytelling practice of what is happening around the world in leadership storytelling; how it has grown, why has it expanded at this time, in what sort of companies, in which parts of the world, and how different companies are approaching it differently.
• A quick introduction to the basic elements of leadership storytelling aimed at communicating complex ideas and sparking enduring enthusiasm for change, even in difficult audiences. An introduction to the use of the triad: getting attention >> stimulating desire >> reinforcing with reason.
• A preview of my new work on using leadership storytelling to generate high-performance teams, i.e., teams that are exceptional in performance and deeply meaningful to the participants. I will discuss how such teams come into existence, what sustains them and why.

Log in details: Dial-in Number: 1-309-946-5100  (USA)   Participant Access Code: 532877   Web link for slides: (not available until the actual webinar)

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

What a delight to present the fifth installment of my Q&A series with story practitioners. I have not actually met Svend-Erik Engh face to face, but have been in the same room with him during the Smithsonian Storytelling Weekends.

Svend-Erik Engh is a noted Danish performing artist and experienced workshop leader. Born in Copenhagen in 1957, he started his career as a teacher at the Borups School for adults from 1993-1999. He tells stories professionally — likes to tell under the branches of a copper beech in Kings Garden — and he teaches storytelling and organizes seminars, workshops and other events. He has been teaching storytelling for 20 years in universities, high schools and in business. He teaches at the Copenhagen Business School and at the University of Gotland. Showing that art and business can benefit from each other, he has conducted innovative workshops with organizations and companies throughout Scandinavia. Read his blog. He is the coordinator of the annual Golden Fleece Group’s Storytelling in Organizations Conference at the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, which began in October 2007 and is an annual event (see below). You can learn more about Svend-Erik in Steve Denning’s interview with him, and if you read Danish, you can learn about him on his Web site. Svend-Erik’s most significant upcoming project is the Golden Fleece Copenhagen 2008, called StoryAtWork.dk, October 1-2, 2008, with Steve Denning, Madelyn Blair, Heather Forest, Mary Alice Arthur, Svend-Erik Engh, Mille Matjeka, and Marika Kajo. Download video. Svend-Erik is also the author of a fine little 145-page book, Tell a Story: Be Heard, Be Understood, Create Interaction, which can be ordered here. He offers a 9-page handout on being a better storyteller for download. Svend-Erik lives north of Copenhagen with his wife and three children.

Svend-Erik Engh Q&A:

Q: In an interview with Steve Denning, you talk about having been a storyteller before 2000, then having a “wonderful experience” presenting to a group of organizational psychologists, and then becoming more and more involved in the “world of organizations.” Why do you think you were attracted to working with organizations? What was it about organizational work that drew you in?

A: I didn’t ask organisations — they asked me. I was invited by a lot of people to do presentations, workshops etc. And slowly I realized it was great fun. Especially when I kept focus on my role as an artist, and didn´t think I was a consultant.

It was so easy. I just did, what I have done for the past 10 years: Told people stories and learned them how to tell stories. I told my stories to show them how it could be done, to inspire. Then I gave them excercises like I had giving exercises to my students. Same exercises, same results: Stories gives energy, brings people together and it is great fun.

So now I am working for companies and as long I keep focus, it works for me. I inspire them to see their communication in another way — just the basic fact that I am telling a story without PowerPoint or other written material is fantastic for them.

Q: In the same interview, you mention an ability to to see many possibilities for a company within a few seconds of hearing its story. Can you give an example?

A: When I hear a story from a company I get much more information than the usual information overkill.

Right now I am working with MCI, a container manufacturing company, and in 2001 a group of inspectors from the company discovered that there was a problem with approximately 34,000 containers around the world.

When they discovered that, they immediately gathered the employees together and told them about the extra work, send out a bulletin to all shareholders, started the reparation work and in three years they managed to fix the problem with no great annoyance of the harbour labours.

That story told with a lot of pride tells me more about that company than 20 pages introduction material I received, a video bragging about the virtues of the company, etc.

Q: What people or entities have been most influential to you in your story work and why?

A: Steve Denning and the group of people involved in Golden Fleece, Washington, D.C., combined with the work here in Scandinavia with The Storytelling Academy because of the unique combination. The Washington scene was in the beginning very much a group of former World Bank people combined with a group of actors and storytellers. So they knew a lot about the work in organisations. And my work with The Storytelling Academy was only concentrated on the storytelling issue. So I combined a research in organisational storytelling with the research of purely intertaining/educational storytelling.

I have a lot of experiences in listening to stories and giving feedback in a constructive way. This was something the group in Washington could benefit from. And the Scandinavian group loved the knowledge from the group of people from Washington.

Q: If you could identify a person or organization who desperately needs to tell a better story, who or what would it be?

A: EU — The European Union — the project is very interesting, but it is only for men in black suits and red ties. No ordinary people cares about it.

Q. What future trends or directions do you foresee for story/storytelling/narrative? What’s next for the discipline?

A: Interplay is a key word here. So the basic of the oral storytelling, interplay, can be transferred into various aspects of life.

Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

A: Don´t make such a fuss about it — go up there and tell them your story.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Here’s this week’s Wordle.net word/tag cloud based on A Storied Career. Delayed because of technical difficulties on my road trip.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

JSTN™ (Job Search Television Network) is a Chicago-based cable-TV channel that provides information on career opportunities.

The site says: “Each job opening features a 60-second Job Report video sharing the inside story about each company along with consumer insight about hiring trends around the country.”

In watching the video represented by the photo above, I found that to a small extent, it told the story of what the advertised opening is like, but I didn’t get much feel for the purported “inside story” of the company.

Still, I think recruitment videos that give a real glimpse at employers represent a positive trend.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

After I posted about the performance, Two Men Talking, and the affiliated firm, Narrativ, Jerome Deroy of Narrativ was kind enough to share these links with me:

Performers/creators of Two Men Talking in an interview with WBAI Radio:

1 — Origins of Story     2 — Listening     3 — Workshops    

4 — Workshops Cont’d     5 - Conclusion

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Somehow it escaped my notice that one of my favorite authors, Daniel Pink, published a new book in April: The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need. But it was incredibly swell of Dan to provide a newsworthy hook about the book so I don’t have to regret being six months late blogging about it (see below for the hook).

With illustrator Rob Ten Pas, Pink has rendered the book in Japanese manga style. As such, it’s an exceedingly quick read. I’m a super s-l-o-w reader, and it took me less than an hour. (Did I really pay 15 bucks for a comic book that took me 40 minutes to read? Of course I did …. I LOVE Dan Pink!).

Here’s a description: The Adventures of Johnny Bunko is America’s first business book in manga and the last career guide you’ll ever need.

The book, which you can read in an hour, tells the story of Johnny Bunko, a beleaguered Everyman toiling away at the Boggs Corp.

One night Johnny meets Diana, a magical and butt-kicking adviser who teaches Johnny — and you — the six lessons of satisfying, productive careers:

1. There is no plan.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses
3. It’s not about you.
4. Persistence trumps talent.
5. Make excellent mistakes
6. Leave an imprint.

Here’s where the newsworthy hook comes in: Pink is running a contest, with a trip to England as the prize — for coming up the seventh lesson. Watch the video:

I really wondered about the target audience for this book. I mean it is a comic book, lots of hip, young, borderline profane language, and the mistakes Johnny Bunko makes are pretty obvious (but then, I’m way older and have been in the career business for 20 years). A YouTube interview with Pink reveals that he intended the book for 18-30 year olds, especially college students and recent grads. He has found, though, that high-school students and kids as young as 11 relate to the book.

One of my favorite bits in the book is Johnny’s recollection of his job interview with his first and current employer, Boggs Corp., a parody that’s a little too close to the way interviews really are:

HR guy: Where do you see yourself in five years? What’s your biggest weakness? What will your biggest weakness be in ten years? If you were a can of soup, what flavor would you be? We’re looking for recruits who are proactive. Who think outside the box. Who can take mission-critical, bleeding-edge assignments and then — and this is important — leverage efficiencies and drive gains … but in a team-based, client-centered win-win way, of course. It’s not rocket science, is it, Johnny?

Johnny: No, sir. Er, at the end of the day, it’s a no-brainer. It’s, uh, all about the value proposition.

HR guy: You’re hired!

I also like the way Pink integrates reinforcement for his concepts by bringing experts like Martin Seligman and Marcus Buckingham into the dialog. And how the folks in the Boggs accounting department have clunky PCs on their desks, while the cool marketing people, of course, have Macs.

I’m still not
sure what audience
will be most influenced
by this book, but
I’m 100 percent
convinced that the
message will get
across to many —
because it’s conveyed
through story.

Here’s a “trailer” for the book:

You can also see this at the Johnny Bunko Web site, download an excerpt, and join the Johnny Bunko Facebook group.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I’m delighted to present the fourth installment in this series of interviews with some of the gurus of both performance and applied storytelling. This interview is with “Cousin” Jon Hansen (actually no relation as far as I know). I “met” Jon through this blog. He uses storytelling in the procurement sector. Read more about him in the links below his photo.

Learn more about Jon in his LinkedIn Profile and his blog, Procurement Insights.

Q&A with Jon Hansen:

Q: What future trends or directions do you foresee for story/storytelling/narrative? What’s next for the discipline? What future aspirations do you personally have for your own story work? What would you like to do in the story world that you haven’t yet done?

A: As the world becomes more complex and disparate through globalization and social networking (in the latter, a great deal of my ongoing research and development resources have involved the evolution of the Web 4.0 platform), the importance of effective storytelling will play a critical role in establishing points of commonality that will lead to a greater mutual or “collective” understanding.

This is due in large part to an effective storyteller’s ability to provide a real-world point of reference that is universally recognized for its practical application. And it does not matter whether or not the story is presented within the illustrated or written framework of an Aesop’s fable, or a recounting of an actual event that the storyteller has himself (or herself) experienced, or witnessed first hand. The essential element is that it translates the complex into the everyday thereby widening the funnel of impact.

In the end, effective storytelling is both the filter and translator through which a greater understanding of the complexities that define our world today can reach out to the broadest number of people. It is therefore the lynchpin of effective communication.

A: The illustrative nature of storytelling must be both entertaining and insightful.

A: I do not believe that it is so much growing, but is rather in the early stages of a renaissance based on the need for people to connect at multiple levels of understanding.

Social networks certainly provide the “architecture” for communication on a global basis, however content and more specifically meaningful content has not yet caught up with the technology.

I often refer to Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death and in particular his reference to the fear Aldous Huxley expressed in his book Brave New World. The fear of course being that “truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”

Given the unfathomable sea of information afforded us through the Internet, storytelling is an invaluable resource as it provides the means for delivering substance and meaning in a form that can be readily grasped by the masses.

It reminds those of us who are willing to admit our true age of a time when the radio with tubes crackling and the dusty light from the station selection window took us on a journey of unlimited potential.

For today’s younger set, it provides that valuable link spans generational experience, which is especially important since recent studies have found that it is not uncommon for 4 different generations of workers to be employed within the same organization.

No, I do not really think of storytelling’s appearance on our collective radar screens as being a product of growth, so much as it is a result of rediscovering our elemental roots of communicating.

A: As you will probably recall from our previous e-mail exchanges, I have used storytelling as a means of illustrating critical points associated with the evolution of supply chain practice.

In some instances these can involve the recounting of an actual event (a Dragnet type of story that is true, with only the names being changed to protect the innocent). Here is a link to one such example.

The other relates to humorous anecdotes such as my response to a question dealing with the complexity associated with quantifying employee confidence in new supply chain programs. Here is the question, as well as my corresponding answer:

Is confidence difficult to quantify due to its complex, intangible and long-term oriented nature?

In his reminiscences about his college days, Bill Cosby talked about his girlfriend who happened to be a philosophy major. As a student of “athletics” nee sports, scholarship, he summed up the academic differences between the two courses when he referred to the philosophically motivated question “why is there air?”

His girlfriend’s class spent countless hours and days attempting to “quantify” the meaning of air. Bill’s athletically oriented class however answered the question within a matter of seconds with the simple observation that air exists to “fill basketballs, footballs, volleyballs etc.”

Oversimplified, most definitely. True, without question.

I went on to say that confidence is reflected in usage.

A: As I mentioned in my answer to the question regarding growth in storytelling, merely having the infrastructure in place to effect real-time communication on a global basis isn’t enough.

One interesting statistic from a study that illustrates this point found that 80 percent of all information that appears as a result of a Google search is largely irrelevant. 80 percent is a significant amount of non-useful misinformation!

The strength of storytelling is that it requires an understanding that is based on actual life experience combined with a clear vision of the targeted audiences areas of actual interest. This can only be achieved through building relationships that are predicated on mutual interest rather than tied to the “number of connections” one can establish in the shortest period of time.

To be effective, social networking has to start to ask the question is establishing the link worthwhile versus the proclamation “I have 2 million names in my personal network.”

(NOTE: Web 4.0 is based upon the former by employing a strand commonality architecture that effectively links seemingly disparate interests into a collective beneficial outcome for all stakeholders. Ironically, and on a more basic level, storytelling does the same thing in terms of the potential for universal appeal that transcends diverse sectors and even cultures.)

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I have to admit I don’t completely understand what’s going on with Michael Kimball, his art project, Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard), and his blog, also titled Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard). For example, Kimball captions the photo seen here “The Cardboard Sign That Started It All.” How so? I want to know the story behind his project of writing people’s life stories on postcards. In the meantime, here’s his process:

If you want me to write your life story (on a postcard) — and trust me, I want to — then send me an email. There are two ways we can do this. Easy: You send me your telephone number and the best time/s to call; I’ll call you and we can do the interview over the telephone. Harder: You tell me your name, age, where you were born, where you have lived, what you do (jobs and hobbies), what you study (if you’re in school), what you want to do with your life. Tell me about any important events in your life, any life changing decisions, any strange things that have happened to you, anything that makes you particularly you. Depending on what you tell me, I will probably ask follow-up questions. Either way, I will write up your life story and then mail you the postcard so you can put it up on your refrigerator with a magnet.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Add Cynthia Kurtz (the subject of a Q&A interview to appear here in December) to the long list of generous story practitioners who freely share knowledge and information with the public. Kurtz’s bio says she’s been working as an independent researcher and consultant at/with/for a series of places (IBM Research, IBM’s Global Services consultancy practice, IBM’s Institute of Knowledge Management, IBM’s Cynefin Centre, and Cognitive Edge) in the area variously called “organizational narrative”, “business narrative”, and “narrative knowledge management” (among other names), since 1999.

Her book, Working with Stories, is available both as a Web site and a downloadable PDF — for free. The Web site is beautifully put together, and the book contains (among many other things) story-based exercises for working with communities and organizations.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

A quickie addition to my entry about “value-added memoirs,” concerning people who do wacky or obsessive things, often for a finite period, and then write about them.

Latest addition: An unnamed a 35-year-old writer, performer, and artist living in Chicago who is living as Oprah advises for a year and blogging about it. The graphic below pretty much says it all.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Terrence’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A and see Part 2 of the Q&A, Part 3 of the Q&A and Part 4 of the Q&A.

Q&A with Terrence Gargiulo (Question 5):

Q: I’m sure you can write (and have written) at length about StoryScrap™ Books. Can you briefly summarize this concept for readers?

A: Story Scrap Book Objectives

1. Create a conversation piece to encourage open communication.
2. Capture key stories to examine the connections between them and transfer knowledge.

Background

Thank heavens for big sisters; especially mine. I was over at Franca’s house sipping hot chocolate and catching up on life. While we spoke she was immersed in assembling another one of her family scrap book masterpieces. I’m one of those unfortunate types who love trips down family memory lane but lack the discipline and patience to keep scrap books. We started talking about Franca’s work. She is an international marketing and publication relations consultant. As we discussed the internal communication challenges one of her clients was facing I had a flash of brilliance. What if we helped the client put together a story scrap book and then used it to facilitate conversations around the organization? That’s exactly what we did and with fantastic results. Since then it has become one of the standard tools and interventions I use. My clients have anecdotally shared some of the following results with me:

• Increase the number and quality of communications between management and employees
• Engender greater willingness among employees to share information
• Develop a repository of stories to incorporate into other collaterals
• Create a repeatable communication business process that people look forward to and enthusiastically participate in
• Facilitate improvements in organizational morale and sense of community

How do story scrap books encourage meaningful conversations? Story scrap books promote reflection. As we create them we remember our experiences and uncover new insights in the process. People respond to scrap books with stories. Our scrap book is a ritualistic object that achieves its highest purpose when we use it to facilitate dialogue with others. Scrap books promote community because they are shared record of identity. Think about how a family photo album functions. Our stories trigger other people’s stories. Through a dynamic exchange of stories our conversations become insightful gold mines full of authentic pieces of ourselves. We see ourselves for how we are and we generate meaning from how we reflect on our stories and how others respond to them.

How do story scrap books help transfer knowledge? The most valuable information in an organization is unstructured data. This is data that lives in the minds and experiences of people. It is not easily captured or stored in central repositories. Furthermore in most organizations there are few if any incentives to share knowledge. As a result knowledge sits untapped. People do not speak with one another in ways that enable knowledge to flow. Stories activate informal peer to peer networks. The scrap books are wonderful tools for recording and transferring knowledge. Every story chronicled in a scrap book has relation to other stories. The collection of stories forms a cluster of knowledge that can be tapped. Patterns of organizational best practices, experiences, and encoded organizational cultural values reside in these clusters of knowledge. Through dialogue these can be clarified, brought to a focus, and cultivated to inform future successful behavior.

Case Study

The CEO of a Fortune 500 manufacturing company pulled me into his office and closed the door. He had just spent a mint on printing 10,000 extra copies of the company’s annual report. He motioned me to take a seat and dropped one of the annual reports on my lap with a beaming grin of satisfaction. “You’re going like this,” he said. “I want every employee to be proud of our accomplishments so I am distributing a copy of this report to every employee. I’m having all my VPs go around the company to hand these out during special town hall meetings. This is just the sort of thing that will get people fired up to exceed next year’s goals.”

I had already seen the annual report and despite its spectacular design, stunning photographs, and stellar numbers it was as drab as drab can be. I was nonplussed. It was the right idea but the wrong tool. I acknowledged the merits of his strategy and then I asked him if he was open to trying an experiment. He asked me what I had in mind. I told him to identify a division or area of the company which was going to be critical to the achievement of next year’s goals. There were some unused days on my monthly retainer that were going to expire so I asked him for a couple of days to do some digging. I held a couple of meetings with groups of people from the division and ran them through a version of the story scrap book activity. I started each meeting by handing out the annual reports and asking people to thumb through them looking at the key objectives that had been achieved during the year. Then I asked them to develop a story scrap book for the year that captured their personal experiences of how they had played a role in the achievement of these key objectives. Next I scheduled a town hall meeting for the entire division and invited the CEO to attend. I asked two people with very compelling story scrap books to share them with the group. Then I gave everyone 10 minutes to speak to the person next to them and share their experiences. I reconvened the group and opened the floor for ten minutes so that people share some of the stories they had heard. Finally I had the CEO briefly share the organization’s new goals and ask people to imagine how their stories next year would be different. We were thrilled by people’s energy. We succeeded in engaging people’s imaginations. I coached some of the CEO’s directors and VPs and we rolled out a similar process across the entire organization.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

This week’s word/tag cloud based on A Storied Career. I am heading west on a month-long cross-country excursion today. Regular postings will continue perhaps sprinkled with some stories from the road.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Here’s another tip from Dick Gaither, the “WIZARD OF WORK:”

Gaither notes that job-seekers are encouraged to give examples — tell stories — when asked behavioral questions in job interviews but that job-seekers need to know more about what kind of information goes into an example, the story, or the picture.

He offers this guide should help job seekers create more powerful interview responses to “example” questions:

Interviewer: “Can you give me an example of when you have _____?”

Proof by Example

Give an example.

• Specify one example of when you’ve used the skill or performed the task the interviewer is questioning you about.

Detail the example (Where and Who Details).

• Where did you work during this example (company name, location, department)?
• Who was your boss during this example (his or her title and name)?
• Who did you supervise during this example (number and types of workers)?
• Who did you collaborate with on this example (names and job titles)?

• Why were you performing this task or using the skill?
• When did you perform the example?

Detail the example (How and What Details).

• What did you do? How did you solve the problem or use the skill? How long did this example take to complete? (Did you use any special tools, machines, or equipment? Did you develop any special ideas, methods, or processes? Did you use any special data or information?)

• What happened during this example? Results should be positive, measurable, and quantifiable.

Think and link your answer to the employer’s needs.

• Define at least two other ways this example shows you can bring added value to the company.

Thanks to: Dick Gaither, Job Search Training Systems, Inc. 941 Constellation Way, Franklin, IN 46131 800-361-1613; Cell: 317-697-2142 Web Site

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Terrence’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A and see Part 2 of the Q&A, Part 3 of the Q&A.

Q&A with Terrence Gargiulo (Question 4):

Q: You are an exceedingly prolific author of books that that relate to storytelling. It seems as though you’ve put out a new books just about every year. How have your book ideas come about, and how have they evolved from your earliest books to your newest book?

A: I am always thankful for readers. Writing for me is a process of reflecting and thinking. It is about taking chunks of intuitive insights and bringing them to life. I feel like a conduit. My mind works in terms of stories I see and feel patterns of swirling threads. I literally cannot turn off stories. My thoughts and ideas continue to evolve. As I encounter more and more people interested in stories my frame of reference deepens. Their insights and stories encourage me and fuel me to dig deeper. I have an insatiable curiosity and I am a relentless learner. It’s an exciting time. So many people are deeply interested, committed and hungry for conversation and connection. We have a lot to learn from each other and I plan on relish every moment - wherever it takes me. Thanks by the way for being a conversation facilitator and providing this opportunity!

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

It never ceases to amaze me that I continue to come across story-related resources that I didn’t know about before. The discoveries multiply exponentially as one site or blog leads to another. As a blogger about the world of storytelling, I am confident that I will never run out of material.

Here are four recent discoveries:

I love this ad for PNN (Personal News Network), which is described by founder Lauren Elliott as “a place for stories.” Elliott goes on to say:

It’s a place to read stories and a place to add your own. We all have great stories in us. Some funny, some tragic, some sad, some happy, some boring, some just rants. But the thing is, we all have them, and they should be shared, in fact they must be shared.

Mainstream media is pretty much all the same stuff. Important stuff at times, but pretty much all the same. The trouble is you can’t read really good stories. You know, the really important ones about life and love and struggles and such? Stories told by people that you can relate to, normal, struggling every day sort of people you can trust. And in mainstream, you can’t form a relationship with the authors — or chat with other people about the same thing. Well, we hope that PNN becomes a place that you can do all these things.

Major story categories on PNN seem to be A&E (arts and entertainment?), Family, Living, Diversions, Politics, Green, Glitz, World, Sports, Paws, and Education.

I discovered PNN through About-Personal-Growth.com. Major categories here include: Relationships, Communication, Leadership, Success, Life, Self Esteem, Motivation, Emotion, and Mind. There is, of course, also a Stories section, described this way:

Reading stories is one of the ways for you to understand life. On the following pages, you will find personal growth stories to let you see that good and bad things happen to everyone. The aim of telling you the stories is to get you involved when you read them. From reading them, you might get a better understanding about life. Hopefully, the personal growth stories here will help you gain insights and inspiration. You may realize that you have your own collection of stories that have taught you valuable lessons and make you the person you are today.

Next up is The Experience Project, described as “the first Social Experience Website, where you can anonymously share and connect around the ideas and experiences that matter the most to you. This is a place where who you are — what you think and feel — is more important than who you know or what you look like.” While stories are not the only feature of The Experience Project, they are a significant part (the graphic below shows some of the topics) :

Join thousands of members sharing stories about their life experiences. Read another’s perspective on something you’ve experienced, or discover something entirely new. Then, start sharing your own thoughts to connect with people that understand you. Stories and personal experiences are shared within Experience Groups filled with people that understand your situtation and can provide support and meaningful friendship. By sharing, you will grow your network of new friends, help people facing the same situation, and feel better, since writing is therapeutic!

Finally, stories on a singularly serious topic at Telling Our Stories. Here’s the background:

High school students at the Urban School of San Francisco conduct and film interviews with Bay Area Holocaust survivors in their homes. Students then transcribe each 2-plus hour interview, create hundreds of movie files associated with each transcript, and then post the full-text, full-video interviews on this public website as a service to a world-wide audience interested in Holocaust studies. … This is an ongoing, ever-changing, and constantly evolving project involving dozens of students, teachers, and community volunteers.

The site includes more than 30 hours of interviews with eight Jewish survivors and refugees, stories of WWII Camp Liberators/Witnesses — eight U.S. soldiers deployed in Europe who witnessed Nazi concentration camps, and stories of 11 Japanese Americans deported to internment camps during WWII.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Terrence’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A and see Part 2 of the Q&A.

Q&A with Terrence Gargiulo (Question 3):

Q: What future trends or directions do you foresee for story/storytelling/narrative? What’s next for the discipline? What future aspirations do you personally have for your own story work? What would you like to do in the story world that you haven’t yet done?

All the incredible research in neuroscience, cognitive science, and learning are unearthing some wonderful possibilities for our nascent field. People are hungry how to be present in the here in a way that simultaneously enables them to feel part of an interconnected fabric and while realizing their boundaries and limitations of self that animate in our lives.

I believe we need to build a strong interdisciplinary bridge between practitioners and researchers. I would like to see a research agenda collaboratively defined and pursued by academics and professionals. I’d love to see a world-class international event with a dynamic format to jump-start these inter-disciplinary conversations and which culminate in the articulation of a research agenda.

I will continue my research on the relationship between stories and thinking. I believe stories are an effective lens for understanding the complexity of the mind and its evolution as we head towards what I believe will be a shift in consciousness.

From my earlier research I have developed a model of nine story-based communication skills. These are skills we all possess. We have the equipment. I have written a validated instrument that measures what percentage of the time we are aware of using these skills and how others perceive our abilities. I use the tool with all of my clients and I have been collecting quite a bit of data. I want to look at how my instrument relates to other popular ones currently used in organizations.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Terrence’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Terrence Gargiulo (Question 2):

Q: Are there any current uses of storytelling that repel you or that you feel are inappropriate?

A: Stories can be used as weapons. Given their persuasive and emotional qualities they can be used to spin messages and misrepresent things. This sort of behavior eventually bears its ugly head but as in the case of short term forms of self-serving manipulation but it can be hard to detect or fend off. I see some of these types of abuses in the brand, marketing, and corporate communications arenas.

I also lose patience with some of the overly simplistic ways we all get sucked in to when we use stories to encode information in a moralistic fashion. I am just as guilty of this as the next person. Using stories to land a message or sound the trumpet of change and rally the troops around a single campfire reeks of top down command and control applications of didactic forms of communications. I’m not suggesting we never use stories to help illustrate points but such uses only scratch the surface. I see too many of these abuses in the field of leadership development and personal growth.

Here’s one way of discerning the difference between more traditional forms of communications and story-based ones:

Think of story-based communication strategies as cloud chambers in your organization…

Cloud Chamber — apparatus that detects high-energy particles passing through a supersaturated vapor; each particle ionizes molecules along its path and small droplets condense on them to produce a visible track (definition courtesy of www.answer.com)

They create a space of dialogue and sense making. This “story space” is where people interact with each other’s stories in different ways. Some interactions might occur as people reflect and react to organizational collaterals peppered with stories, some interactions might happen when we create formal and informal opportunities for people to respond to the stories we use to incite dialogue, and still other interactions, once we have put the initial stories out there, will happen without us doing anything whatsoever to orchestrate them. As stories elicit more stories by bouncing off of each other, organizational trajectories of meaning and understanding emerge. People’s actions provide a visible albeit subtle and ghostly trace of the impact of story-based communications.

Stories are not another lever in a machine. Machines or systems take known controlled inputs that produce reliable and consistent outputs. Stories are more chaotic. Once you stir up or perturbate the social fabric of individual nodes of sense making (aka the people in an organization) unexpected behaviors emerge. What is lost in control is gained in the propagating strength of the communication signal and the rolling waves of self-directed behaviors it has the potential to create. Communications function less like instructions and more like picture frames waiting to be filled with collages of vibrant photographs.

---

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

 

My partner and I wrote a book on study skills that’s just come out, so I was really tickled to see a study method centering on storytelling at Study Hacks. Cal Newport writes:

• After each class, tell a “story” about the material covered — a five minute summary of the concepts that drove the lecture.
• Don’t bother writing it down. Instead, just say it to yourself while walking to your next class. Treat it like you’re a literary agent or movie producer pitching the lecture at an important meeting.
• Cover the big picture flow of ideas, not the small details. Answer the question “why was this lecture important?”, not all the information it contained. Play up the flashy or unexpected.

For example, after an Art History lecture, you might tell the story of early renaissance artists clashing in Italy, and how and why Cimabue and Gitto — the superstars of their era — were able to break out. You can do the same for technical material. After a calculus course, for example, you could talk about what problem a derivative solves and how integration extends the idea to do something even cooler. You don’t need to review the chain rule, instead explain why the hell someone would want to know the slope at a point on a curve.

Cal points out that the method is”a small thing that you can easily integrate into your existing schedule.” Awesome! I see that the technique was also well received by Cal’s readers. Wish I’d known about The Story Telling Method in time to talk about it in the book!

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

The terrific slideshow sharing site, Slideshare, has just named top winners in its World’s Best Presentation Contest, as judged by “four industry luminaries: Guy Kawasaki, Nancy Duarte, Garr Reynolds, and Bert Decker.”

In my book, a presentation would have to tell a story to be considered the world’s best. Here’s how the top 3 shake out, in my opinion, in terms of story:

1. THIRST by Jeff Brenman: Beautifully done, but to me, this one looks like the usual facts and stats. Maybe it’s more of a story with narration.
2. Foot Notes by Melanie Kahl: Again, beautifully done and looks even more like it would be a story or contain stories if it were narrated.
3. Zimbabwe in Crisis by Daniel Hrstich: Now, this one is a story. I would have put this one on top.

Do you think these are the World’s Best Presentations? If a slideshow doesn’t stand on its on and tell a story without narration, is it the World’s Best? (I will also admit that my own attempt at a slideshow this year didn’t work as a story without narration).

Discuss.

I should add that the category winner in business was by ethos 3, the folks whose entire thrust is storytelling in presentations. Their presentation, a fast-moving, narrated collection of mini-stories is a tutorial on telling stories in presentations:

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I’m delighted to present the third installment in this series of interviews with some of the gurus of both performance and applied storytelling. This interview is with prolific author Terrence Gargiulo. I’ve read several of his books and “attended” some excellent Webinars he’s presented. Read more about him in his bio below. I have broken his interview down into five parts, with one to appear each of the next five days.

Bio: Terrence L. Gargiulo, MMHS, is an eight-time author, international speaker, organizational development consultant, and group-process facilitator specializing in the use of stories. He holds a master of management in human services from the Florence Heller School, at Brandeis University, and is a recipient of Inc. Magazine’s Marketing Master Award and the 2008 HR Leadership Award from the Asia Pacific HRM Congress. Highlights of some of his past and present clients include, GM, HP, DTE Energy, MicroStrategy, Fidelity, Federal Reserve Bank, Ceridian, Countrywide Financial, Washington Mutual, Dreyers Ice Cream, UNUM, US Coast Guard, Boston University, Raytheon, City of Lowell, Arthur D. Little, KANA Communications, Merck-Medco, Coca-Cola, Harvard Business School, and Cambridge Savings Bank.

Terrence’s books include, Making Stories: A Practical Guide for Organizational Leaders and Human Resource Specialists (translated into Chinese), The Strategic Use of Stories in Organizational Communication and Learning, On Cloud Nine: Weathering Many Generations in the Workplace (translated into Korean and Spanish), Stories at Work: Using Stories to Improve Communications and Build Relationships, Building Business Acumen for Trainers: Skills to Empower the Training Function, Once Upon a Time: Using Story-based Activities to Develop Breakthrough Communication Skills, In the Land of Difficult People: 24 Timeless Tales Reveal How to Tame Beasts at Work, The Trainer’s Portable Mentor.

Terrence is a frequent speaker at international and national conferences including the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), Academy of Management, Conference Board, Linkage Inc, Association of Business Communications, and he is a field editor for ASTD. His articles have appeared in American Executive Magazine, Journal of Quality and Participation, Communication World, ISPI Journal, and ASTD Links.

Terrence’s and his father’s opera Tryillias was accepted for a nomination for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in music.

Terrence can be reached by phone: 415-948-8087, email: Terrence@MAKINGTORIES.net

Q&A with Terrence Gargiulo (1st question):

Q: How important is it to you and your work to function within the framework of a particular definition of ”story?” (i.e., What is a story?) What definition do you espouse?

A: It isn’t important at all. In fact I’m afraid to say that I believe we miss the nuances of what stories really offer. I’m more comfortable letting go of story labels and definitions and getting down to just working and living with them. Isn’t that all we really can do? Definitions fly in the face of the very power of consciousness and awareness that stories offer us. When I work with groups I beg forgiveness for not giving a definition of stories; usually to the frustration of more literal and left-brain dominant types. Then through my interaction with the group I model story-based communication behaviors. I will collage strings of stories, elicit people’s stories, connect stories with one another, use lots of analogies and references to other stories to trigger rich associations in the minds and conversations of people present. All of this is meant to encourage proactive reflection. I want people to remember their experiences and appreciate/respect/take an interest in the experiences of others, look for connections between their experiences, and imagine new possibilities. This is the fluid and emergent quality of stories. And this is the framework I follow in all of my consulting work whether I am designing a large scale change management, developing a communications strategy, or architecting a learning event.

I have a passion for inciting insights in others. I am a conduit for opening story spaces. These are polyphonic dialogues orchestrated with reflective opportunities for insights to emerge. Recollecting our experiences and the experiences of others are precious gifts of attention that never stop gracing us with sense giving and sense making moments. I am committed to living these questions…Can we be authentic? Can we remember who we are? Can we create connections within ourselves, and between ourselves and others? Can we soar with our imaginations beyond the boundaries we erect in the name of stability? Can we let go of our habits and still feel alive?

I see the world through a lens of stories. The world unfolds as translucent, crisscrossing patterns of possibilities and meanings. It is my intuitive eye, fueled by my commitment to listen deeply, which sorts through this overwhelming array of perceptions. Here there is a mingling of vulnerabilities, differences, tensions, and myriad of intersecting points of connections. It is this self-sustaining structure-less structure that potentiates powerful dialogues that lead to solutions. I want to write and perform the dynamic melodies and harmonies that resonate for others and calls them to the dance of life.

When working with a group that want to delve into stories I will throw up some images on a screen like a rotating diamond with light streaming through it, a strand of DNA, raindrops hitting a pond of water, holograms, or a visualization of zooming in and out on a madlebrot set. I will invite the group to work with the images and suggest how they provide insights into the nature of stories beyond the obvious ways people are accustomed to thinking about them. Instead of offering definitions I will talk about some of the functions of stories and the effects of these functions:

Let me close by offering the following:

Stories fold in and out of themselves to reveal subtle worlds of meanings, purpose, and connections. They are gentle transporters bound by time but that travel beyond the boundaries of what we have experienced at any given point in time. Stories free us to move through a landscape of change. We leave the dusty road of the familiar and embrace a void where we can find the freedom to chose and perceive new realities and project worlds of our own making. Stories can either crush illusions we have become enslaved to due to habit or they can lift our veils of fear and familiarity and give us a glimpse of new ways of being. Here we will find a place where we can be our unique selves while in communion with others.

- Terrence L. Gargiulo

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I first learned about Fray through a colleague at my university, Andy Dehnart (of Reality Blurred fame), who organized Fray events at the school. One year, my son participated in Fray Day, telling a largely fictionalized story of growing up as a gang member on the streets of Newark, NJ (OK, he was born in Newark, but that’s about as much truth as the story had in it.) Fray Day no longer happens, but as the Fray site explains, the Fray concept keeps morphing:

FRAY BEGAN as a website. We presented individually designed, true first-person stories. Each one ended with a question that prompted the audience to tell their stories, too. You can see an archive here. THEN IT EVOLVED into a series of live storytelling events, Fray Days and Fray Cafes, that took place all over the world, attended by thousands of people. You can see some photos and listen to audio of those events, too. AND NOW Fray is evolving again - this time into a quarterly series of independently produced books. Each one will be on a central storytelling theme, and include personal stories, articles, and original art. They will come out quarterly. They will be awesome. But the core of Fray remains unchanged: It’s about true stories. It’s about proving that extraordinary things happen to ordinary people. It’s about finding that common thread that connects us all together. And it’s an invitation and a dare to get involved: What’s your story?

Fray also offers a blog.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Jessica’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A and Part 2, and Part 3.

Q&A with Jessica Lipnack (continued):

Q: You write about Web 2.0 in your blog: “Virtual teams have always been in the 2.0 world, adding content to their shared online spaces, carrying on conversations after the lights have gone out, trying out new media. But the explosion of 2.0 technologies — and the advent of a generation that knows more about how to work online than their bosses — has altered (and will continue) to alter the virtual team landscape.”

All of this is a long-winded lead-in to the two-part question: Given that these Web 2.0 technologies can be seen as storytelling vehicles and the generation that most uses them is accustomed to telling stories using these technologies, to what extent do you think storytelling will play a role in the way Web 2.0 continues to “alter the virtual team landscape?”

A: If we compare the work setting today with what was available even ten years ago, we see a world rich in storytelling possibilities. Every medium allows us to tell stories in different ways. As new technologies come online and the people who grew up using the new technologies move into leadership positions, we’ll see them encouraging the use of more diverse media — whether in virtual worlds or via micro-bursts, like Twitter. I think the “story” will spread across more media, which means people’s ability to use these media and acquire the behaviors necessary to collaborate productively will face some pretty steep challenges. The risk we run is that everything will become so fragmented that we need to become detectives to piece our stories together. Every project is its own story and it’s important that we capture it in process so that we can learn and apply our learning very quickly.

Q: Given that meetings of virtual teams, according to your HBR study, cut right to the chase, is there a role for storytelling in a typical VT meeting?

A: I don’t think we said that in the HBR article, “Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?” In fact, we implied the opposite. Several of our findings revolved around conversation — allowing conversations to wander, pairing strangers and those with conflicting points-of-view, using multiple media for communication. All of this contributes to shared understanding, which only comes about through people telling one another their stories.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I so wish I had captured more of my family’s stories, especially those of my dad and his five brothers and sisters who are now all gone but one. In her article in the Christian Science Monitor, Marilyn Gardner writes about senior citizens who are ensuring their stories will live on.

Gardner cites Hedrick Ellis, who hired a personal historian to interview his parents.

“You hear these stories over the years, but nobody ever really gets around to writing them down,” says Mr. Ellis of Arling­ton, Mass. “This seemed like an easy and practical way of capturing them.”

Gardner quotes Paula Stahel, president of the Association of Personal Historians, who niotes “an increase in the number of elders who want to be sure their stories are handed down.” Another personal historian, David O’Neil, is quoted as observing that “it’s always a baby boomer who has children and aging parents. They look at their parents and their children and wonder, ‘What are my children going to remember about my own parents, and how do I capture and preserve their life stories?’ As the World War II generation is passing away, there are a lot of efforts to record their stories.”

Gardner writes that “many people don’t think they have stories to tell,” but most find they have much more to relate than they imagined.

Gardner cites Project Storykeeper, the mission of which “is to preserve our families’ heritage. We believe that by capturing the life stories of our oldest and wisest citizens future generations can benefit from a wealth of experience and wisdom.” The project provides certified audio-biography training, support and audio tools to StoryKeepers “to preserve the past, enrich the present and strengthen the future — one story at a time.” StoryKeepers are people who record life stories and connect the family to hear them.

Dennis Stack, founder of Project Storykeeper, offers tips in the extended portion iof this entry for interviewing folks about their stories.

The “Family Wealth Legacy” of this entry’s title comes from a blog entry in Family Wealth Secrets Online Magazine.

“It’s about capturing the assets that are most often lost when someone dies … the intellectual, spiritual and human assets that make up a great majority of our family’s wealth and passing them on as well,” writes blogger and attorney Alexis Neely. She urges a “Family Wealth Legacy Interview process” at the end of planning an estate with a loved near the end of his or her life to “help you capture the most valuable family wealth you have and pass that on for successive generations by building a legacy library that will be far more valuable than any dollars you could ever leave behind.”

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Jessica’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A and Part 2.

Q&A with Jessica Lipnack (continued):

Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

A: Learn the craft of storytelling from the geniuses who write and who perform.

Q: Do you see a role for storytelling/sharing to build cohesiveness in virtual teams?

A: Very much so. When you’re bringing together people from diverse organizations, disciplines, cultures, countries, and time-zones, i.e., virtual teams, it usually means they don’t know one another. They come to know one another by sharing their stories, so this is a critical part of their work. Even the lowly conference call is a venue for telling stories. As a matter of fact, every conference call is a storytelling opportunity. To get “the voices in the room,” the opening to any good conference call, good facilitators/team leaders in essence ask people to tell a little story: What did you have for breakfast? What’s your favorite movie of all time? What music were you listening to before this call (or, if you’re one of the old breed that still travels to work ☺, what were you listening to on the commute)? These answers are mini-stories that build trust and cohesion.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Do you ever think of the “what-ifs” that led to your existence? The accidents and coincidences that resulted in your birth? Or how close you came to not existing if X, Y, or Z hadn’t happened?

Both my maternal and paternal ancestors came to America — Southern New Jersey to be precise — on the same ship, the Good Ship Kent, from England in 1677. Was that piece of history responsible for my existence? Perhaps just a little. More responsible probably was the fact that two teenagers at Moorestown High School in South Jersey — both descendants of the travelers on the Kent — had a passion for horses. Also responsible was the fact that first child of this couple — who had married — was tragically hit by a car and killed. I might have been born to the couple at some point anyway, but because they wanted to fill the empty space created my sister’s death, I was born almost a year to the day after she died.

The Danish Poet is a charming animated story of the chain of events that led to the narrator’s birth? The video asks: Is our existence just coincidence? Do little things matter?

I thoroughly enjoyed this funny, poignant, thought-provoking story. What chain of events led to your existence?

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

This week’s word cloud/tag cloud based on the week’s entries in A Storied Career:

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Collective Storytelling is a blog that serves as a repository class assignments for an unnamed class at NYU (maybe the class is titled, Collective Storytelling?).

The blog tantalizes with brief descriptions of the assignments, and the assignments themselves — but without very detailed explanations of the assignments. One posted idea for a final project sounds like fun:

I think it would be fun to harness the characters everyone in the world knows about — celebrities, as themselves. What I’d love to do (although I don’t have the programming chops) would be to call it “Five Celebs Stuck in an Elevator.” You pick 5 celebs from a list, and then you write a story about what happens when they get stuck in an enclosed space, and how they eventually get out (or perhaps don’t). In my imagination, their lines come out of their lil celebrity heads like speech bubbles [as shown above].

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

See Jessica’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Jessica Lipnack (continued):

Q: The culture is abuzz about Web 2.0 and social media. To what extent do you participate in social media (such as through LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Second Life, blogs, etc.)? To what extent and in what ways do you feel these venues are storytelling media?

A: I’m in. I keep Endless Knots, an active blog, am on LinkedIn (though I’m trying an experiment there where I only accept inbound links but don’t actively link to others), Facebook, and, yes, I have my avatar on Second Life, plus a bunch of others. You’re telling your story everywhere you appear online — when you write your profile, list your favorite music, post your pictures or videos. All of it together becomes your story.

Of these, the blog is the most powerful storytelling device for me — and, I think, for some of my friends in professional positions. (Much as I’d like to make films, I’m not a filmmaker — yet ☺.) The power of storytelling for executives cannot be overemphasized. One colleague is using his blog to help transform his hospital’s culture — and clinical outcomes — simply by telling the ongoing story of what’s happening in his academic medical center.

Q: What future aspirations do you personally have for your own story work? What would you like to do in the story world that you haven’t yet done?

A: I’ve published short stories but I’ve yet to publish a novel (one is complete, another on the way). Much of what I practice professionally, as a management consultant, I express in my fiction. Fiction makes it easy to say difficult things—and to create worlds that are positive and optimistic.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I could not be more pleased to present the second in my series of Q&A interviews with story practitioners. This interview is with Jessica Lipnack, whom I first encountered early in this decade through her expertise in virtual teams, another one of my interests. I read her book (co-authored with Jeffrey Stamps), Virtual Teams, and drew on it heavily in teaching my students about virtual teams and guiding them through a virtual-teams project. I was delighted to find that Jessica was a member of Worldwide Story Network and thrilled that we share interests in both virtual teams and storytelling. Learn more about Jessica below. I am presenting the Q&A with Jessica over the next four days.

Bio: Jessica Lipnack is the CEO and co-founder of NetAge, a consultancy that provides advice, education, and ideas on virtual teams, collaboration, and organization structures. She is the co-author (with Jeffrey Stamps) of six non-fiction books on this subject, including Virtual Teams, The Age of the Network, and Networking. She has written articles and op-ed pieces for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Seattle-Post Intelligencer, The Industry Standard, New Age Journal, Mother Earth News, and more. As a fiction writer, Jessica’s work has appeared in Ars Medica, the Global City Review, Mothering, and The Futurist. Jessica lives in Massachusetts. For more information, visit her website and blog.

Q&A with Jessica Lipnack:

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: I’m a writer. Writers tell stories regardless of genre — fiction, nonfiction, poets, business writers. I’ve been writing stories professionally since I took a job as a reporter for my hometown newspaper when I was sixteen. I worked at The Pottstown (PA) Mercury for four summers, eight-hour shifts, five or six days a week, and wrote a lot of stories. When Jeff Stamps and I started writing books for organizations (e.g., Networking, The Age of the Network, Virtual Teams), we included stories in all of them. But not just stories. After exposure to the work of Ned Hermann, we understood that people have differing cognitive preferences, different ways that they learn. Some respond most strongly to vision, some to theory, some to method, some to stories. Hermann’s approach became a design principle for our books — all four cognitive styles had to be included with every chapter. That said, we’ve begun nearly every chapter in every book with a story so as to engage people emotionally.

And, I’ve done some acting. There you learn how to connect your words, your expressions, and your gestures emotionally. Learning to act, at least in the limited way that I have, has helped with presentation skills, critical to good storytelling.

And and I’m a public speaker. By the time you’ve given a hundred speeches, you figure out what connects with audiences and what doesn’t, how to pace yourself, when to be funny, and when to be dead serious.

Q: What people or entities have been most influential to you in your story work and why?

A: Four things here:

1. The best writers — or at least the ones I love, big names like Doris Lessing and Geraldine Brooks, both of whom write both fiction and nonfiction, and best-kept secrets, like Roland Merullo, who writes superb novels and superb nonfiction — have had the greatest effect on my storytelling. I’ve learned technique by reading them. The list of all who’ve influenced me could be very long but Annie Lamott’s Bird by Bird is a popular and recent book that’s been helpful; EM Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, a lecture series from long ago, is worthy of study; and Ursula Le Guin’s advice is in a category of its own for its usefulness for anyone truly committed to storytelling.
2. I’ve been influenced by business people who tell good stories: an oil company executive who put his company’s one-hundred-year history on huge wall boards that he walked his colleagues around, explaining the challenges facing them; an Army general who has the authority to require senior officers to blog, which he has. These people understand the power of story — and how to reach people deep inside, where truly meaningful change transpires.
3. I’ve benefited immensely from being a member of Francis Ford Coppola’s writers’ site, Zoetrope.com. Although the site is for fiction writers — including screenwriters, poets, short story writers, and, inevitably, novelists, its structure encourages writers to critique one another’s work constructively.
4. My literary agents and my editors have been terrific and indispensable teachers about language and shaping big stories.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

There’s a storytelling convention in TV and movie scriptwriting that I really don’t like.

If a dog — or a cat or horse, but most often a dog — is introduced into the plot, there is a better than 50-50 chance that the animal will die as part of the story.

Occasionally this story convention works, but much of the time, it is quite gratuitous.

Because I feel particularly strong empathy with suffering pets, I immediately steel myself for the possibility that the animal will be killed off by saying (aloud): “Dog’s gonna die” as soon as I see the canine on the screen.

The most recent offense was on my beloved Mad Men. The dog isn’t actually killed, but if you let an Irish setter go outside of a Manhattan office building — even in 1962 — what are the odds? Poor Chauncey.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Here are two sites that offer slightly different takes on storytelling and health:

Healing Story Alliance is a special interest group of the National Storytelling Network that "explore[s] and promote[s] the use of storytelling in healing. Our goal for this special interest group is to share our experience and our skills, to increase our knowledge of stories and our knowledge of the best ways to use stories to inform, inspire, nurture and heal. We also wish to reach beyond our storytelling community to share with those in other service professions; therapists, clergy, health care practitioners of all kinds, anyone who can see the benefit of story as a tool for healing."

Medicine Chest is an online collection of traditional remedies and folk wisdom to do with health and healing. It aims to gather and record traditional know-how before it gets lost so it can be passed on for the benefit of future generations.

On this site you can upload your health-related tips, stories and information that come from traditional sources such as your own family. You can watch topics unfold as people discuss their own experiences alongside related scientific evidence and other relevant perspectives. Find stories here.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I’m delighted to initiate this series of interviews with some of the gurus of both performance and applied storytelling. First up is Molly Catron, whom I had the pleasure of hearing speak at the 2005 Golden Fleece Conference. Read more about her below.

Bio: Molly Catron left her day job in the corporate world in 2001 to become a storyteller. Like most storytellers, she felt a “calling” to tell stories aimed at uniting the heart, mind, body, and spirit. Her stories come from characters and personal experiences of childhood and as an adult. She has learned to observe life through the lens of a storyteller and can see value in the simplest encounter. In her work as a change agent in the corporate world, Molly often uses stories to “hold up the mirror” for others to observe their behaviors and assess their values. She has a master of arts in storytelling from East Tennessee State University and is currently on the Board of Directors for the Tennessee Storytelling Association and a performing member of the Jonesborough Storytellers Guild. She lives on a farm in East Tennessee with her husband, Wayne, and is Nana to four grandchildren. See her current projects here: Current Work for Molly Catron.doc

Q&A with Molly Catron

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative?

A: I came from a family of people who told stories. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I was faced with teaching the principles associated with some of the organizational change efforts, I found myself telling stories. The stories put the facts in an emotional context working in the 18 inches between the heart and the head where true change occurs.

Q: What attracted you to the field?

A: I had worked for years in a manufacturing environment first as a chemist and later as an organizational change agent. I had always felt out of step with my peers (chemist and engineers). Because of a large donation to the International Storytelling Center, my company was asked to partner with the center to study the use of story in business. I was known for my stories so was the natural one to be selected to lead the effort for the company. When I became engaged in the storytelling community, I found my home. I belonged with them. In one of my stories I describe them as a group of people who laugh and cried with east, who applaud difference, thought deeply and used delicious language ….and they DO NOT wear golf shirts or use sports analogies.

Q: What do you love about it?

A: I always amazed at how a powerful, yet often simple, story can reach deep within the heart of a total stranger and bring them so very, very close. You see it in their eyes and feel a resonate energy. It is that magical moment of connection that delights me and feeds my spirit.

Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now?

A: When getting my master’s in storytelling from ETSU, I remember sitting in a class and hearing Dr. Joseph Sobol say, “Anthropologists say storytellers arise when the society has lost its way.” Wow, that resonated in every part of my body. I think too often storytellers do not understand the power they hold in the spoken word…power to influence…to inform…to inspire…to change. We are needed more than ever in this society which, in my opinion, has somehow forfeited their soul in the name of progress.

Q: What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?

A: Everything was mechanized in the Industrial Age. We became “human doings.” We severed our connections. We learned to praise logic and ridicule emotions. We became like our machines…different parts operating separately at breakneck speed disregarding any interdependency. I think we long for the lost connection. We were not machines. Our emotions reflect are humanity. Without them we are cold and deep down within us, we feel the void and fill it with a lot of bad things. We want to love and be loved (warts and all). We want to share our experience with life. We need it to have meaning. Somehow, in that magical space between the teller and the listener, we feel that connection and once felt, it isn’t easily forgotten.

Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

A: I think it is very important to find your own unique voice. Some say that stories seek out the teller to be told and I know I have experienced that feeling. If I come from an authentic place and take the journey of the artist, I will be a good vessel for the story. When I first met David Novak, he reminded me that you don’t construct a story, you grow it. It is an organic process. Some stories take form in a matter of minutes and others take years. If you rush the process, the story is not all it could have been. This was hard for me because I had been trained to produce a “product’ and usually with a deadline. I had to learn to love the process and wait patiently for the story to form first in my heart, mind, body and spirit before I could carry it out to the world with my words.

Q: You write about a model of love and grace: The body carries us. The mind teaches us. The heart warms us. The spirit inspires us.

How does story fit into that model?

A: The rest of that thought is important: When they unite we are passionate, joyful and committed. I have often added the fact that stories can take us there. I think a powerful story manages in the most magical way to work on our heart, mind, body and spirit in a beautifully choreographed dance. I have studied some brain topology and understand some of the mechanics of how story functions in our neural networks but I prefer to think of story as a wonderful return to a very basic way of balancing our human experience. Stories have always been with us but we forgot them. We stopped gathering around the fire, the quilt, the dinner table. We left to sit silently in front of some form of media. We let ourselves wither in the desert of our beloved technology.

Q: One of the workshop topics you list on your Web site is Personal Mastery, and you talk about writing personal “life scripts.” Do you believe it’s possible to change one’s life by changing its story or script?

A: I taught the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey) as part of an effort to encourage character building (personal mastery) within the company culture. As part of my certification process, I went through the painful process of writing a personal mission statement. Although, it was painful, it was one of the most beneficial things I have ever done for myself and it ultimately led to an early retirement and a change of career. I had let society write my life script and had never questioned its interpretation of my purpose and value. As part of getting the master’s, I took a postmodern psychology course and was so absolutely excited to learn about the “dominant story” we tell ourselves and how it influences our lives without our conscious knowledge. I studied the woman’s movement and realized how that movement fragmented because groups within the movement could not agree up the new dominant story for women. I think we still haven’t defined it and that contributes to all the stress for women and men. Well, anyway, that’s a whole other area of work I am interested in and that’s bringing women back together in groups to redefine our story. When we were in the red tent or gathered around a quilt, we shaped our story and supported each other in its plot but now we are apart. Women must to gather again.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Susan Scanlon writes about the Leadership Story in The Type Reporter, a newsletter about [Myers-Briggs] personality type “and how it affects you in all stages of life.”

Her husband, John, developed the concept of the Leadership Story, “a narrative that excites people about what you stand for.” John, she said, “began to discover that everyone, armed with a leadership story, can become a leader.”

Using the aspects of Myers-Briggs types, Scanlon talks about:

• Feeling: “We become leaders when we become enthusiastic about something.”
• Sensing: “The ‘defining moment’ … tells about a specific moment, with specific sights and sounds, so it lets people experience what we experienced. We can feel what they felt, and it can be a defining moment for us too.”
• Intuition: “Defining the future we want to see adds the Intuitive part to our leadership story, where we ‘see’ what isn’t there yet. It advances us from saying ‘I want to go somewhere,’ to “I want to go THERE.’”
• Thinking: “This is the final piece to our leadership story, the Thinking piece, where we design a game plan to lead us to our goal.”

The other view of the Leadership Story comes from Katie K. Snapp, writing on the Neuroscience of Leadership on her Better-Leadership.com site. She writes:

A life story — whether we read it in a bestselling memoir or participate in it each day —contains silent assumptions and emotional scripts. Our assumptions tell us what to look for, and how to perceive and process experiences.

What about your identity as a leader in that story? Who defined it up until now? What events formed it? Were you an agent of the change or were you a victim? Change is not simple …

The good news is that we are not hard-wired for life. With new experiences, new neuronal pathways and new neural networks are formed. New highways to new communities in your brain. And, some remarkable new research shows, consistently repeating new experiences even alters gene expression. When we write a new story—and change our minds — we change our brains.

Snapp goes onto detail four principles of change, one of which is: “A new story can only occur by living in the present moment.” I have trouble with that one. The message has been coming at me from several directions — yoga class, my brush with Eckhart Tolle’s teachings this year — but I still find it a hard concept to embody.

She closes with: “The powerful use of story to examine what your leadership history leads to intention. Take control of the author in you. Rewrite what needs a change.”

I believe my life is slowly leading me in a direction in which I can impart this message to to others: Change the story, change your life.

Snapp teaches a 3-part workshop that seems similar to what I’d eventually like to teach: Reinventing Your Leadership: Using Brain Business and Mind Matters to Author Your Future.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

My five-question interviews with some of the best-known folks in both applied and performance storytelling will commence Tuesday, Sept. 1.

Eighteen practitioners are featured in these Q&As: Molly Catron, Terrence Gargiulo, Jon Hansen, Loren Niemi, Gabrielle Dolan, John Caddell, Shawn Callahan, David Vanadia, Svend-Erk Engh, Sharon Lippincott, Tom Clifford, Ardath Albee, Sharon Benjamin, Carol Mon, Ron Donaldson, Jessica Lipnack, Cynthia Kurtz, and Stephanie West Allen.

Among others who’ve agreed to participate are Annette Simmons, Christina Baldwin, Tim Sheppard, Michael Margolis, Victoria Ward, Steve Lovelace, Sally Strackbein, Thom Haller, Karen Dietz, Tim Enerata, Eric Wolf, Erin Fogarty, Rick Stone, David Drake, Nicky Fried, Natalie Shell, Madelyn Blair, Lori Silverman, Kivi Leroux Miller, Karen Gilliam, and Kathleen Golden.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.