Storytelling

STORYTELLING

Communication tool used in organizations, allowing individual to share their knowledge and personal understanding with others through inspired narratives. Telling a story is a deceptively simple and familiar process, a way to evoke strong emotions and insights. The language used is authentic (experience, not fact oriented); it is the narrative form that most people find interesting and attractive. Storytelling has existed for thousands of years as a means of exchanging information and generating understanding. Using it as a deliberate tool for sharing knowledge within organizations is quite recent, but growing rapidly. Working with stories in organizational settings is more complicated but they provide powerful mechanisms to aid reflection, build communities, transfer practical learning or capitalize experiences. Storytelling has numerous advantages over more traditional organization communication techniques. It enables articulation of both emotional and factual content, allowing expression of tacit knowledge that might otherwise be difficult to share. Additionally, storytelling can increase the potential for meaningful knowledge sharing; by grounding facts in a narrative structure, learning is more likely to take place, and being passed on.

Potential applications of storytelling are:

Breaking down barriers between multidisciplinary or multi-cultural teams;
Team or community-building exercises;
Workshop warm-ups;
Debriefings;
Project reviews;
Monitoring systems

The story should have the following characteristics whether it is used for social or institutional change:

It needs to be simple and powerful;
It should be in response to a demand, and timed with specific opportunities;
It should provide a solution to both immediate and broader problems;
It should be targeted at people with the power to make decisions and change things;
It should play to what is already in people’s minds. ^[1]

Organizing a Story Telling

Steps

Before

Choice of the story
- Type of story:
  - Folktale, meaning a story from oral tradition
  - Literary Tale, by a single author, made for publishing
  - Real Life Story, form history and personal experiences
- Characteristics of the story
  - It should be simple, with a single, clearly defined theme, and powerful
  - It should be in respons to a demand, and timed with specific opportunities.
  - It should have a nice style, with vivid word picture, pleasing sounds and rhythm,
  - It should provide a solution to both immediate and broader problems;
  - It should be targeted at people with the power to make decisions and change things;
  - It should play to what is already in people’s minds

Preparation
- Read the story several times
- Analyze the word pictures you want the lstener to see and the mood you want to create.
- Research back ground and cultural meaning of the story
- Learn the story as a whole and not in fragments, whithouth memorizing it.
- Map out the story line:
  - Beginning: Whenere caracters are introduced,
  - Body, in which the plot gets to the climax
  - Resolution, where the conflicts are solved

During

The narration should be characterised by:
- Emphasis,
- Repetition
- Transition
- Pause
- Proportion
Some tricks for keeping the attention:
- Involvement or Participation of listeners
- Distinct changes in pace, voice or mood
- Unusual or unexpected twist in narrations

After

Once the story is over stop talking, without feeling that you have to explain the meaning of the story, everyone has to think on the meaning himself. ^[2]

References

↑ www.personneltoday.com (17 July 2008), www.ijea.org(17 July 2008); www.daretoshare.ch/en (19 July 2008), www.odi.org.uk (19 July 2008)
↑ www.eldrbarry.net (1 September 2008), www.daretoshare.ch (1 September 2008)

[1] www.personneltoday.com (17 July 2008), www.ijea.org(17 July 2008); www.daretoshare.ch/en (19 July 2008), www.odi.org.uk (19 July 2008)

[2] www.eldrbarry.net (1 September 2008), www.daretoshare.ch (1 September 2008)

[1]

[2]

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Storytelling

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References