Everyone has interesting stories to tell. If you have a story about how stories change lives and organizations that you’d like to share, send us an email at info@storytelling.co.za
Story and conflict
Conflict is an essential element of story; without it, there’s no real framework around which to develop a story. Without conflict, there is no need for a hero and no reason to change. It is not surprising that conflict in an organisation is normally seen as something to avoid at all cost. What sane person would want tension between people and departments? There could be open…
Creative Conflict Management
Conflict manifests in many ways in an organization. At times it rises to the surface in the form of defensiveness, disagreements or uncooperative behaviour. Most of the time, however, it remains hidden and is evident from symptoms such as poor morale, high staff turnover and absenteeism, lack of enthusiasm, alternative forms of organisational communication embodied in “the grapevine” and frequent confrontations. This facilitated presentation addresses important…
Eugenie
Eugene May was born in Boksburg, Transvaal on April 22nd 1949 into the Gericke family. Her father was a carpenter in the gold mines. There were 4 children in the family, the youngest of whom was Eugenie. At 8years old, Eugenie’s mom died and within 2years, evil stepmother arrived with 4 children of her own. The Cinderella experience made Eugenie want to leave the house as…
Facilitation training for Isivivane
The Isivivane is a knowledge creation and sharing model designed for organisations of all kinds and sizes. Isivivane can be used for a variety of applications including KM, Change Management, Conflict Management, Teambuilding, Innovation, Project Management, sustainable system design, branding & identity work. A key benefit of the game is that it creates shared understanding and commitment that wins the support of key players. We offer…
An African Dilemma Tale to Stimulate Change
This is an example of allegorical storytelling in business using the model of an African Dilemma Tale – In the African dilemma tale storytelling tradition, the story is left open ended and so it is up to the listeners to suggest probable outcomes are and answer ‘what happens next, where do we go to from here?’ question. The dilemma tale poses a quandry, a cliffhanger, a…
Why doesn’t innovation happen in corporate?
“I once had a really great idea and sent it in an email to the MD but it was ignored. That’s why I’m not going do anything innovative again” I have heard stories like this on many occasions and the association between innovation – or the lack of it – has become clear in my mind. Innovation does not occur easily in a space where there…
Narrative collapse: when stories disintegrate
All stories have a shelf life, a time beyond which they start to fall apart and forgotten. This is a natural and normal process and applies to all entities that make use of stories. Empires, kingdoms and reputations are all ultimately narrative based; all political and economic power is contained in story. Since all power is story based, it is important to pay attention to signs of narrative…
The Fifth Business
“Those roles which, being neither those of hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which were none the less essential to bring about the Recognition or the denouement were called the Fifth Business in drama and Opera companies organized according to the old style; the player who acted these parts was often referred to as Fifth Business.” Robertson Davies – The Deptford Trilogy – quote about…
Metaphors of the mind
Exactly how to portray the human mind has preoccupied philosophers for centuries and more recently psychologists, educationalists and physiologists have contributed to the debate. [technology creates new metaphors, tools to manipulate our experience that create our stance towards the world]. With the advent of information and communications technology, the brain has been compared to a computer that processes in a logical, consistent and systematic way. Sylvester…
Storytelling for Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The key driver that determines the quality and profitability of customer relationships is grounded in storytelling. Whatever your customers know about you, your organisation, your products and services is story based. Telling better stories in the right way empowers customer relationships and ensures customer loyalty. Effective brand managers know this secret and a lot of time and energy is spent polishing, rehearsing and telling these stories…
The power of edutainment to change behaviour
The greatest stories are all about change. What does a story have to do to change someone’s behaviour? Well, we should firstly admit that it is not just the story that changes people, but whole communities talking about stories. Behind all behaviour patterns and thought patterns lies the “weight of past experience”. That experience determines the way we interpret future experience. Our past calls our future…
Victory of desperation: the useful stories to tell
Stories of overcoming adversity are always powerful and inspiring. Here are some ideas for stories that focus on the theme of “victory of desperation”: Someone who has lost everything finds a way to rebuild their life and achieve success. A group of people who are facing impossible odds come together to achieve a common goal. Someone who is struggling with a physical or mental disability finds…
Virtues Training Workshop (Self Assessment)
Workshop Art and Science of Change
The Art and Science of Change explores change and transformation as complex, multifaceted phenomena that are constant and inevitable in both personal and organizational life. Change is defined as an alteration or transition, while transformation implies a more profound and fundamental shift in identity and self-worth. Effectively managing these processes requires a multidisciplinary approach, integrating insights from diverse fields such as systems theory, psychology, storytelling, cultural…
Eunoia and why you should do more of it
‘Eunoia’ is the shortest English word that contains all the five vowels. It derives from the Greek word εύνοια which means ‘well mind’ or ‘beautiful thinking’. It is a rarely used medical term referring to a state of “normal mental health”. By contrast, we have a vast vocabulary for states of mental dis-order and dis-ease. So what is a state of ‘normal mental health’ or ‘well thinking’?…
Conflict first aid
While conflict is normal and natural in organisational and community life, many people experience difficulties in engaging conflict situations because of the emotions and “feelings” conflict brings up. Here are some ideas and approaches that will help you transform the way you feel about it: How do you frame conflict? Is conflict scary and to be avoided or could conflict be an opportunity to achieve positive…
Brand and Brandstory Assessment
The nature of story
We can only appreciate story through engaging it wholeheartedly, telling it and then reflecting upon it. Does story describe? Does it possibly create as well? Is story simply the only way we have of organising memory? What is the link between language and time? What is your story? Who are you? To what extent is a sense of identity created by the way you talk about…
Relationships with brands and how they are developed
I know exactly how I fell in love. There are some of us who are not very smart around technology. Our thinking tends to be more in the realm of ideas and random connections than remembering what F9 does. We get nervous and confused rather quickly and feel inadequate, especially when we’re around techno-wizards. After years of bashing out copy on sturdy contraptions that were really…
How to live in the now
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. Lao Tzu Living in the now is made more difficult if you pay attention to any form of media whether it be internet, TV and movies.The reason is that that the messaging or the stories…
The power of non-violence
Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the M.K.Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, in a lecture at the University of Puerto Rico, shared the following story: I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and…
Storytelling for Self-Discovery and Growth
By consciously engaging in storytelling, both by sharing our own narratives and by analyzing the stories that influence us, we can gain valuable insights into ourselves, challenge limiting beliefs, and actively shape our personal growth and future. Aspect of Self-Discovery/GrowthHow Storytelling Facilitates ItUnderstanding Self and IdentityOur understanding of ourselves and the world is constructed from the myriad stories we hear, tell ourselves, and pass on. These…
The power of narrative in edutainment
The advertising industry has known for a long time that education (changing behaviour) and entertainment can be combined into a powerful propaganda tool. This is education, not through repetition, but through intensity of experience – not by rote but by rite. Edutainment is a combination of the concepts of education and entertainment. It refers to attempts to create media that makes education more attractive, fun, emotionally…
Dreams of the Mushroom Forest
Many years ago, I had a dream of walking in a forest of mushrooms. It was cool, still and dark and I looked up the slender white stems to the caps high above me. Touching the cool stems, I knew they were nothing like tree trunks. They were much less dense, much lighter, much more open. Overcome with celestial peace, I thought ‘it is all so…
The Eight Secrets Men Carry Within
Men’s lives are as much governed by restrictive role expectations as are the lives of women Men’s lives are essentially governed by fear The power of the feminine is immense in the psychic economy of men Men collude in a conspiracy of silence whose aim is to suppress their emotional truth Because men must leave Mother, and transcend the Mother complex, wounding is necessary Men’s lives…
Organisational Archetypes and Shadow Archetypes
An archetype is a highly defined and crystalised idea that represents a particular ‘type’ (meaning ‘stamp in Greek) – it is an original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form. There may be many different archetypes in organsations in which you work and if you look carefully, some of…
How to value storytelling in an organisation
Meaning – Stories are used to convey meaning, whether it is how to close a sale, reprimand a subordinate, motivate someone, give a presentation or something more profound Planning – Cognitive scientist William Calvin suggests that we gradually acquire the ability to formulate plans as a result of storie s we hear in childhood. From stories, a child learns to imagine various courses of action and…
Storytelling and the world of work
At first the idea may seem a little puzzling – what has storytelling got to do with the world of work? Well, quite a lot it seems. Think of this – whatever we know of the world and of ourselves is grounded in story; either stories that we have been told or stories that we’ve made up ourselves – of a combination of the two. And…
The Story of the Cloud
Early one morning a wispy cloud bumped into a story…..
Conversations that count
Conversations that Count: In an age where digital monologues, selfies and superficial chats are the norm, the power of conversation is waning. Disconnected in our connected world, text, email and social media exchanges are hardly interactive, let alone conversational. TV, live-streamed and public-event ‘conversations’, from political debates to discussion groups, tend to be immature, combative and divisive because there is something to ‘win’, the audience are…
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