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High Tech, Soft Touch |
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Storytelling, although an ancient practice, is currently emerging as an important management, employee and organization tool. Leaders, managers, and employees in all professions are finding that storytelling is an excellent tool to enhance their communication skills. Opalanga Pugh, a widely known storyteller, trainer and facilitator, is particularly interested in the power of stories to teach, to increase productivity, to implement change and to motivate employees. Some of the places where she has shared her stories are SunMicro Systems, Hewlett Packard, City of Longmont, Kaiser Permanente, Denver Water Board, Colorado Dept of Transportation, and US West. Objectives: At the completion of this training participants will be able to: See how human beings are “hard wired” for story. Learn how stories can assist companies in the four important “C’s”: communication, cooperation, clarification of intention, and creation of shared vision. Develop brief business metaphors. Look at work place opportunities for strategic storytelling. Understand, create, and share the basic corporate story types. (ain’t we great, kick in the pants, hero, how we got that sale, this is the way it is around here, steam valve, stuck stories, we survived it). Encourage the heart through the power of acknowledgment, to celebrate individual and team success, rituals. Know how to incorporate stories to influence organizational culture. Understand the authentic power of story as a communication technology. Appreciate storytelling as an ancient and essential leadership tool. Build community through sharing. Recognize the power of metaphors and develop personal metaphors. Establish the power of inquiry, the power of questioning as a leadership tool. Recognize the difference between linear and nonlinear learning (whole brain). Understand the role of traditional storyteller and its modern day descendants. LEADERS TELL • Without storytelling, any culture—whether it is a traditional tribe or a large corporation—would have a very difficult time protecting and passing on the best of its legacy. Tribal chiefs and elders have never handed out statistical reports or lists of facts to teach their followers what is right and wrong in their world. They are master storytellers • Similarly, every leader tells a story. Business leaders need a teachable point of view—a set of ideas about success in the marketplace and a set of values based on personal and organizational success. The best leaders use stories to answer three simple questions: Who am I? Who are we? Where are we going? Leaders must first know their own story; understand their roots, their experiences, and what it means to be human. On the individual level leaders mentor, coach, and motivate. At the group level, they build teams and resolve conflicts. At the organizational level, leaders build culture. Harvard University prof and author Howard Gardner said “The key to organizational change is leaders taking the initiative to become teachers. And the prime tool in their arsenal is storytelling” • Storytelling is a vehicle, a communication technology on which managers, supervisors, and leaders can ride in sharing accomplishments, acknowledgments, and stories of change and visions of the future in a way that touches both the heart and the mind. • Story is a tool for personal development • A vehicle for education • A force for social change STORIES CREATE RELATIONSHIPS-----First thing people do when meet is tell a story • Storytelling helps deal with the modern problem of lack of authenticity. • Deals with the human condition, how we think and feel, plot and scheme, and love When we share ourselves open the heart neither one of us is the same boding takes place STORIES MAKE MEANING FROM EXPERIENCE A LEADERS JOB IS ALSO TO MAKE MEANING. Why? Because in times like these, people depend on their leaders to absorb all of the chaos, all of the information, all of the change, and to find some meaningful pattern and compelling purpose in the midst of all of the splatter. STORIES and METAPHORS CAN DO WHAT FACT/INFO CANNOT STORIES CREATE MENTAL SCRIPTS THAT GUIDE BEHAVIOR STORIES MAKE INFORMATION EASIER TO REMEMBER |
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