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STORY TELLING TECHNIQUES
Introduction
The purpose of this reference is to illustrate how stories may be used by facilitators/teachers and how they can use them to elicit stories from participants. The purpose of this paper is to explain why we use of story telling in our work. Its relevance to teaching and organisations; illustrate various story telling techniques; tell favourite stories and why we use them; describe exercises for facilitators to introduce participants to story telling and draw conclusions and make recommendations. Reasons why we use story telling in our teaching and work with organisations
Introduction
The purpose of this reference is to illustrate how stories may be used by facilitators/teachers and how they can use them to elicit stories from participants. The purpose of this paper is to explain why we use of story telling in our work. Its relevance to teaching and organisations; illustrate various story telling techniques; tell favourite stories and why we use them; describe exercises for facilitators to introduce participants to story telling and draw conclusions and make recommendations. Reasons why we use story telling in our teaching and work with organisations
Why tell stories?
People like them. They like to tell their own stories and they like to listen to them. But, we don't all have the same levels of skill to tell or listen to them. Story telling is not only a combination of skills, but also an art form. Stories take us back to childhood. The traditional children's stories are related to the world and help them understand life through the adventures of archetypal figures, for example the hero, the martyr, the wanderer etc as described by Pearson (1989).
In organisations and society stories play a dual role, they act as powerful directives for member's behaviour, and they can also teach specific lessons. They are the "glue" that holds the culture of an organisation together. The stories provide a blueprint for "the way we are in this place", how we deal with things here, what is "ok" and "not ok". They articulate the way in which the organisation is special, different from other organisations. These stories are for the most part unconscious. At a conscious level, stories can embed values, articulate vision and give meaning to events.
Affective Domain
Hogan teaches story telling techniques to her Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Development students. Story telling and listening engage everyone in the affective domain. Many learning situations involve participants in cold, analytical, left brain activities. Story telling evokes a different response from participants in workshops when compared to more analytical approaches. For example, in a workshop to facilitate the development of a policy on the handling of violence in a hospital Hogan sought to bring the rationale within the policy to life. She asked the group "Are there any stories you have got of ways in which violence occurred and was dealt with well and not so well?" The results were stories told from the heart with great feeling and emotion for the perpetrators, victims and onlookers. As one story was told people "hooked in" their experiences. When she suggested that we stopped for lunch there was a consensus to continue..."just a bit longer as this is so interesting".
Organisational life and Empowerment
Just as individuals are products of their stories, so are organisations. Maintenance of stories helps to add stability and purpose to departments and organisations. Yet in these days of "turbulence", "restructuring" and "downsizing", stories are lost and/or different stories are told. The major stories circulated at this time are stories of decline, injustice and despair. Many individuals are left alienated, depressed, even ill. Management frequently dismiss or repress these stories, there is no opportunity for them to be told.
Working in organisations, Finlay uses "The Hero's Journey" to enhance the empowerment of others so that they can see their situation in a different way, as an archetypal journey. (Archetypes are deep and abiding patterns in the human psyche that remain powerful and present over time) Joseph Campbell first wrote about the Hero's journey in "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" (1973). He describes the stages of the universal journey and the challenges and dangers that faced the hero at each stage. The hero is the person who "takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost, or to discover some life giver elixir"
The stages are:
The stages are:
- innocence, where all is well and stable
- the call, where someone is called to be more than he/she currently is
- the refusal
- the second call, often comes with a "push" eg a lost job, an accident
- initiation, the acquiring of the skills to undertake the journey
- allies, the hero/heroine doesn't go it alone. Allies can be human, technical, spiritual
- the road of trials/the descent. The obstacles to be overcome
- breakthrough, the moment when the change becomes conscious/clear. The hero/heroine has "come through" celebration
- homecoming: the hero/heroine returns changed and/or with a gift for the tribe.
Working with the journey, Finlay tells the story of "Star Wars", a modern myth, a story most people are familiar with and a wonderful example of the mythical journey. After the story, Finlay invites people to tell personal stories. In describing, for example, the role of Ben Obi Wan Kenobi she asks people to tell a story about the people in their lives who played the role of helpers/mentors. What was the gift they gave? What meaning does this have for the present situation? This questioning is repeated at various stages. Finlay also uses the story of local/national heroes/heroines such as the late Fred Hollows. The process places individual experience in a larger context, work lives are seen as heroic, each person a hero in their own story. It gives meaning to the changes being experienced and strategies to cope with them.
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