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leadership organizational storytelling

Using crisis in change management

There’s nothing quite like a crisis to focus attention and galvanize groups, organisations and even countries.  Many organisations routinely use crisis as a method of focusing attention, stimulating action, accelerating the pace of change and altering trajectory and focus. Typical organisational crises include reputational crisis, financial problems,  product problems and recalls, conflict, competitor action & […]

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organizational storytelling storytelling thinking skills

7 Questions to Perfect Your Story

From Idea to Impact So you have an idea for a story. It might be for a simple social media post or an elaborate brand campaign. But before you start writing, pause. A great story isn’t just told; it’s designed. The right questions can transform a good idea into an unforgettable narrative that resonates with […]

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about storytelling facilitation technique story circle storytelling training

Why do people like listening to stories?

We may as well ask “why do people read newspapers?”, or “why do people watch television?” Somewhere in our DNA there’s a compelling vibrating strand asking so be told a story, because stories help us to survive and experience happiness. For as long as human beings have had language, children have learnt about hunting, travelling, […]

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storytelling storytelling coaching storytelling for children storytelling for marketing storytelling in the digital age teaching story thinking skills

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 […]

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myth south african story storytelling for children

The two hungers of the bushmen

“The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert talk about the two “hungers”. There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger. The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning… There is ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply […]

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metaphor myth narrative storytelling

The edge of the village

Once there was, and once there was not that a traveler arrived at the outskirts of a village where he saw an old man sitting on a rock. ‘What kind of people live in this village?’ Asked the traveller. ‘First, tell me where have you come from and what were the people like there?’ Answered […]

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creativity metaphor organizational storytelling storytelling

Stories are not simply reflections of reality

Stories are not simply reflections of reality, but rather, they are constructs that actively shape our internal experiences and our understanding of the world. This is how individual narratives and cultural contexts interact: In summary, individual narratives and cultural contexts are in a constant state of interaction, with each influencing and shaping the other. Cultural […]