Stories that explain while creating, maintaining and legitimising behaviour
On my walk with Darren this morning I was being the proud parent recounting last week’s parent-teacher night and telling him how well my eldest daughter is doing academically. Being the father of two daughters I was mindful of the importance of balancing my praise between my girls so I made a point of also recognising my youngest for getting into the school netball team. Darren then told me the story of how his brother was always reminded by his parents how he was good with his hands and how Darren was the one who had the brains. His brother became a carpenter while Darren went to uni and started work as a scientist.
The stories we tell not only help explain and provide meaning to our experiences, they also shape and legitimise our actions. This point is well made by David Boje et. al. (1982) where they explore the role or myths—which equate to dominate stories—within organisations. The stories you tell and retell, which become the accepted explanation of how things are around here, become difficult to dislodge and can only be replaced by another dominant story. The stories you tell about your children will be instrumental to the creation of their identity and therefore what they consider is possible. The same is true for the stories we tell about staff, managers, leaders and any other identity we wish to single out.
Boje, D.M., D.B. Fedor, and K.M. Rowland. 1982. “Myth Making: A Qualitative Step in OD Interventions.” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 18(1):17-28.
Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on:
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its more interesting if there is funny stories too