Last fall at the annual meeting of the Organizational Development Network, consultants Lisa Marshall and Karen Balding led a workshop on storytelling and its use in leading change. For the million or so years before human beings settled onto farms and began lives of relative predictability, they gathered at night around campfires and told stories. Through those stories they learned from one another. They learned of the past and for the future. Thus the human brain became hard-wired for holding complex information through stories and for learning through stories.
Stories are powerful because they bind information and understanding over time.
They may stay stuck in the pit, or they may win that battle, confront the monster and climb out, to new heights, and on to the next story. When people you care about perceive that difference and resolve that tension by travelling the difficult path and slaying or confronting the monster, you have successful resolution of the creative tension, and something wonderful and new has been created. Each of those elements has implications for how well we tell a story. Completeness allows us all to pause and notice where we are on our journey for a moment, allows us to reflect on having completed some distance on the path. It allows for a sense of accomplishment, along with knowing we are part of the bigger pattern.