Thoughts on Storytelling
It’s 4:50 AM on a Saturday. The funny thing is I told my wife I wanted to sleep in today, but as fate would have it, I cannot. My mind, instead, is racing with an obsession that has permeated my thoughts for quite some time. I should probably be utilizing this time to get some reading or homework done for my PhD or continuing the writing of my second book, Fables of Laknohl: The Scorn of the Centaurs, but since this other obsession has gripped me, this is what we, you the reader and I the writer, are getting.
My thoughts drift toward storytelling. This is prompted by my wife, who asks me how this concept fits into my PhD as I often discuss my thoughts toward my dissertation with her. And it is difficult for me to explain. But I am usually more articulate in writing than speech, so I thought, “Why not try to capture it in writing?” My last post regarding this asked questions about leadership and storytelling, which I wish to explore. I’m not the first, however, as others before me have seen the connection between storytelling and leadership (Boje 1991, Boje 1995, Denning 2001, Denning 2010, Denning 2011, Brown et al. 2009).
Of those I’ve read and digested, storytelling is a tool used by leaders or organizations for various purposes but directed at growth and change at the organizational level or for the leader’s constituents. But I believe storytelling goes deeper than that. It is not simply a tool, and as I continue to read the literature surrounding leadership, organizations, and institutions, I’ve become more convinced of this. In essence, storytelling is everything and can be viewed through storytelling. If you’ve read this far and are beginning to think it’s getting too philosophical, you’re probably right, but stick with me.
Scientists uncover the universe’s secrets by revealing a story and trying to retell it as accurately as possible, which is the same with anthropologists and human history. Psychologists, whether behavioral or therapeutic, seek to understand why someone is doing what they do, which tells a story, and on the therapeutic side, try to help the patient rewrite their story with better outcomes. Politicians say to a story trying to convince their constituents of their capacity to accomplish the job using storytelling methods, among other things. I can easily go on, but the categories are endless, and this is a bit reductionistic or, at the very least, a deconstructed ideology to a base showing the nature of stories in all things. From here, you can understand at least the argument that stories and storytelling can be found almost everywhere we look. But arguably, this can also be done with virtually any subject.
That’s a great argument, but I don’t believe it is a dichotomy. So, let me continue with a personal example of what I mean. A previous supervisor once told me that we ought to be the best at whatever we do as Christians. This isn’t strictly biblical, but some verses to support this idea would be 1 Corinthians 10:1 and Colossians 3:23, which state to do everything we do for God for his glory. Often in the Old Testament, we see examples of people who did and those who did not do this and the results that complement those decisions. Soli Dei Gloria is a Latin saying meaning “for the glory of God alone” and has been in the church since the Reformation because this idea is written throughout the meta-narrative of the Bible. In any case, I bought that small tidbit of information hook, line, and sinker. I was a bit predisposed to buy it as Colossians 3:23 was one of my favorite verses to ponder, saturating my life. That does not mean I always do the best, but it is something I think about.
Well, I now pass that idea along to those under me. But I don’t just pass it along; I give them tools and stories that also embody the ideology. I work in customer service, and I tell my employees to answer every call with a smile because people can hear a smile. Usually, I give a little heart-throbbing example of a love interest you talk to on the phone for hours, hearing that smile on the other end of the line. So, really, I give them a bit of rhetoric, then I follow it up with a story. As far as I’ve seen, it’s an effective method since they begin to do it and self-police when it does not happen.
How does this connect? Well, the theme of Soli Deo Gloria seen in the meta-narrative of the Bible was emphasized to me and coded in my brain through a story-like method by a supervisor whose book on that same subject sits on my bookshelf at work (Way 2018). I retell that story and had some flair of my own for that to permeate the way my department does things. In truth, this is just one example of many which work this way. And a storyline much older than me is continuing to be passed down. As for my employees, who knows how they’ll continue the story, but the one thing for sure is that if I’ve done my job right, they will. I am also sure this is not a unique event for me. I believe this is just the human experience.
This small example shows that storytelling is more than just giving a story to someone else. It can be spoken, but it can also be unspoken. It can be a narrative, or it can simply progress one already written. While I don’t have a working definition, storytelling is much bigger than a tool, maybe even more significant than a framework. It may be that storytelling can be placed among the theory, which is why it isn’t easy to define. In any case, it is an obsession that I see through all the elements of leadership I’m learning.
I’ll leave you with this: in the first Pirates Of the Caribbean movie, Captain Barbosa, after revealing he and his crew are among the living dead, tells Elizabeth Swan, “You best start believing in ghost stories because you’re in one,” then slams the door. For a long time, this was a favorite movie of mine (still among the top), and this line always got me. In the same way, we can walk away from this probable incoherent blathering with one concept firmly rooted in our brains as long as you’ve stuck with me this far: we best be paying attention to stories because no matter where we are in life, we’re telling one.
References
Boje, D. M. (1991). The storytelling organization: A study of story performance in an office-supply firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36(1), 106–126. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393432
Boje, D. M. (1995). Stories of the storytelling organization: A postmodern analysis of Disney as "Tamara-land." Academy of Management Journal, 38(4), 997–1035. https://doi.org/10.2307/256618
Brown, J. S., Denning, S., Groh, K., & Prusak, L. (2009). Storytelling in organizations: Why storytelling is transforming 21st-century organizations and management. Routledge.
Denning, S. (2001). Squirrel Inc.: A fable of leadership through storytelling. Jossey-Bass.
Denning, S. (2010). The leader’s guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Denning, S. (2011). The secret language of leadership: How leaders inspire action through narrative. Jossey-Bass.
Way, J. (2018). Producing worship: A theology of church technical arts.
I especially loved the ending! Very meta. 😁
In the last few years, I have become a representative of an organization that promotes “Intentional Christian Grandparenting”. It is called The Legacy Coalition. One encouragement that I was happily intrigued with was the call on grandparents to be the “storytellers of the family.”