This document discusses the use of narrative and storytelling in organizations. It provides exercises for participants to practice telling and listening to stories, and reflects on assumptions about storytelling. The document then explores what defines a story and how humans derive meaning from stories. It discusses the evolutionary purposes of storytelling, such as to attract others, expand thinking, explore new situations, prepare for the future, share information, build empathy and social cohesion, and organize complex information. The document also covers the history and definition of storytelling, and how it is used in modern business contexts.

1. STORYTELLING: THE
USE OF NARRATIVE IN
ORGANIZATIONS
Nancy Goldman, Ed.D.

2. My story

3. Exercise
 Divide into pairs. Each
person has three
minutes to tell the other
person about a time
he/she was inspired.
 The listeners will then
introduce their partners
to the class by
recounting their story.
 Keep in mind this is also
a listening exercise.

4. Journal - Take a moment to reflect.
 What did you notice:
 In your body?
 In the environment?
 In your thoughts?
 What assumptions did
you have about telling a
story?
 About listening to a
story?
 How do your
assumptions compare

5. What is a story?
“An account of incidents or events”
Merriam Webster Dictionary

6. Which is a story? Why?
 The king died and
then the queen
died.
 The king died and
then the queen
died of a broken
heart.

7. How we make meaning -
Gottschall
 Consider the following information:
 Todd rushed to the store for flowers.
 Greg walked his dog.
 Sally stayed in bed all day.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gLBXikghE0
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjCshHV4z70

8. “Stories fill our lives in the way that water fills the
lives of fish.” (Stephen Denning)

9. Exercise – Small group
discussion
 What is the evolutionary purpose of
story* - Gottschall

10. Attract Others
 Darwin - the evolutionary source of story is sexual
selection
 Miller (2000) suggests that our ancestors with
rhetorical skills may have appeared more attractive to
the opposite sex (in Yang, 2012)
* Gottschall

11. Expand our thinking
 Brian Boyd – evolutionary literary scholar – “a
work of art acts like a playground for the mind”

12. The evolutionary purpose of story -
Gottschall
They’re fun!

13. Explore new situations
 Bloom (2010) said, “Stories and daydreams
are social play, in which we vicariously and
safely explore new situations…
 Jane Burroway “Literature offers feelings for
which we don’t have to pay. It allows us to
love, condemn, condone, hope, dread, and
hate without any of the risks those feelings
ordinarily involve.

14. Prepare us for situations
 Psychologists – stories are “flight simulators”
for social life – Oatley and Mar.

15. Share information
 “First primates had a
hell of a lot to speak
about.” … first
communications were
about practical things,
functional things. –
Professor Phillip
Tobias, paleo-
anthropologist

16. Empathy and social cohesion
 Dartmouth researchers
had people watch The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly
while their brains were
scanned by fMRI.
Discovered that viewers’
brains “caught”
whatever emotions were
being enacted on
screen. When the
scene was sad, the
viewers’ brains looked
sad.

17. Organize Information
 We can only remember 7 plus or minus 2
things.
 Listeners try and store information in their frontal
lobes as a list, and within about 30 seconds,
their mental hoppers are full.
 Stories jump right into the deeper parts of the
brain, where emotion and memory work
together, the hippocampus and amygdala.
*Nick Morgan, PhD

18. What is storytelling?
According to the National
Storytelling Network:
Storytelling is the interactive
art of using words and actions
to reveal the elements and images of a story
while encouraging the listener’s imagination.

19. What is storytelling? Cont’d
1. Storytelling is interactive.
2. Storytelling uses words.
3. Storytelling uses actions such as
vocalization, physical movement and/or
gesture
4. Storytelling presents a story.
5. Storytelling encourages the active
imagination of the listeners.

20. How does storytelling differ from
other forms of telling stories?
 Poetry
 Stand-up comedy
 Improvisation
 Theater

21. Storytelling in modern times
 1973 – 1st
National Storytelling Festival in
Jonesborough , Tennessee
 1990 – published Narrative Means to Therapeutic
Ends by Michael White and David Epston, and
Acts of Meaning by Jerome Bruner
 1997 – think tank with the International
Storytelling Center, Harvard, World Bank, Ernst &
Young

22. Storytelling in modern times
 2000 – Published Storytelling in Organizations
by Yiannis Gabriel, The Story Factor by
Annette Simmons, The Springboard – How
Storytelling Ignites Action in Organizations by
Steven Denning
 2001 – First Smithsonian Event

23. Small group exercise – In what
ways is storytelling used in
business?
 Discuss in small groups

24. In what ways is storytelling used in
business?
 Set a vision for the future
 Set goals and build commitment
 Lead change
 Define customer service
 Persuade
 Define the culture
 Establish values
 Encourage collaboration and build
relationships

25. In what ways is storytelling used in
business?
 Value diversity and inclusion
 Set policy without rules
 Inspire and motivate
 Build courage
 Teach important lessons
 Provide coaching and feedback
 Demonstrate problem solving
 Delegate authority and give permission

26. In what ways is storytelling used in
business?
 Encourage innovation and creativity
 Sales

27. Insight Journal
 “Long before I wrote
stories, I listened for
stories. Listening FOR
them is something
more acute than
listening TO them. I
suppose it’s an early
form of participation in
what goes on. ―
Eudora Welty,
One Writer's Beginnings