I love telling stories to my son. Last time we were in the car for quite a long stretch and my 1-year old became bored and restless. My eyes caught sight of a funny sign saying ‘island of birds’. I immediately started off talking about all the birds known to men living on a single islands. They wanted to learn to say ‘hello’, a word a parrot had once learned while living with an old man. This turned out to be an impossible task, of course. My son was all ears.
The different functions of stories
Stories have different functions in our society. Not only do they keep babies quiet, they also:
So isn’t it strange that stories are so little used in change and innovation processes? Well, they are being used but often only on an unconscious level. Because every-time someone speaks up, he or she usually tells a story though it’s never being put that way.
The world abounds in stories. But using them in our professional life is usually being frowned upon. Aren’t stories just for kids?
Time to take storytelling seriously
Storytelling should be taken more seriously. It gives meaning to the change ahead of us but also to the sorrow and pain in leaving the current state. It creates opportunities for ideas to be connected between each other (like in a visioning). It packages them into sequences the brain can remember giving them the ability to travel. It helps understanding the morality of the change or innovation and the values that go with it.
It can be of tremendous help to achieve the required change or innovation. And it soothed my son in his boring car seat.
And it helps improvising
Last but not least, stories are ideal for improvisations. We all know how to tell stories (though it might be on an unconscious level) so no need to be jazz musician to be able to improvise! And from a tensegrity point of view: stories are the soft elements in your change of innovation.
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