The Power of Story

“We think in story. It’s hardwired in our brain. It’s how we make strategic sense of the otherwise overwhelming world around us.”

Lisa Cron, Wired for Story

Leadership is all about  enabling others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty and it requires engaging the heart, the head, and the hands: motivation, strategy, and action. As we shape stories we articulate our experience of choice in the face of urgent challenge and we can learn how to draw on our values to manage the anxiety of agency, as well as its exhilaration.

It is the discursive process through which individuals, communities, and nations make choices, construct identity, and inspire action. Because we use narrative to engage the “head” and the “heart,” it both instructs and inspires – teaching us not only how we ought to act, but motivating us to act – and thus engaging the “hands” as well.

Marshall Ganz

Marshall Ganz teaches us that our public narrative is woven from “three elements: a story of why I have been called (a story of self), a story of why we have been called (a story of us), and a story of the urgent challenge on which we are called to act (a story of now).

Over many years I have learnt this moral tradition; the telling of stories. In creating a call to action; in designing social policy; in the art of leading others; in the building of a social movement and as I have sat by the bedside of  patients and in the counselling room with clients – I have listened to stories and told stories in response.

I have relied on the solid understanding that stories are the connective tissue of our relationships with others.

“If I ask you to think about something, you can decide not to. But if I make you feel something? Now I have your attention.”

Lisa Cron

I love to be around people who understand the importance of creating narratives. This is why I have curated a workshop in Melbourne on 4th September 2015 that is all about The Power of Story. You can read  more about the workshop here //www.eventbrite.com/e/the-power-of-story-tickets-17979321635
I hope to catch up with you there.