Storytelling is a safe space for creative thinking, negotiating differences, and establishing commonality. Storytelling empowers the speaker and improves communication through speaking and listening. Stories are the most efficient way of storing, retrieving, and conveying information. Since story hearing requires active participation on the part of the listener, stories are the most profoundly social form of communication.
Showing posts with label organizational change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organizational change. Show all posts
During Jay Cross's trip to Monterey I had a chance to catch up and learn about his new work on 21st Century Leadership Skills. Of course we had to talk about a stories.
Jay posted this blog with a few impressions from our lunch.
In other words you can’t step twice into the same river. Habits are the ingrained patterns of behaviors and thoughts that we habituate. Change takes us outside our familiar zone of comfort.
There's a paradox here. Change is as natural to us as is habituation. Think about your body. Within seven years almost every cell in your body is replaced. There’s nothing permanent or stable about life. However, our perceptual system is designed to perceive the world as stable. If it weren't, we would have an awfully hard navigating the world.
For me change management is not about creating stability in the face of chaos; rather, it’s about giving people tools to imagine new possibilities.
What does a Greek philosopher, a raging river and the game of Fluxx have in common. Watch this two minute and see:
Create organizational and communication processes that are structured but flexible. Then let the possibilities emerge and the game begin.
How have you managed organizational communication and learning in your organization to support change/ How have stories been a part of that process? Have you considered how you might work with story-based communication processes to stimulate engaging, healthy responses to the raging change we find in our organizations?
Terrence L. Gargiulo, MMHS is an eight times author, international speaker, organizational development consultant and group process facilitator specializing in the use of stories. He holds a Master of Management in Human Services from the Florence Heller School, at Brandeis University, and is a recipient of Inc. Magazine's Marketing Master Award, the 2008 HR Leadership Award from the Asia Pacific HRM Congress, and is a member of Brandeis University’s athletic Hall of Fame. He has appeared on Fox TV, CN8, and on CNN radio among others.
Books: Making Stories: A Practical Guide for Organizational Leaders and Human Resource Specialists, The Strategic Use of Stories in Organizational Communication and Learning, On Cloud Nine: Weathering Many Generations in the Workplace, Stories at Work: Using Stories to Improve Communications and Build Relationships, Building Business Acumen for Trainers, Once Upon a Time: Using Story-based Activities to Develop Breakthrough Communication Skills, In the Land of Difficult People: 24 Timeless Tales Reveal How to Tame Beasts at Work, The Trainer’s Portable Mentor.
Terrence is a frequent speaker at international and national conferences.
