What's Your Story?
Categories: Corporate Culture | Creativity | Education | Management Skills | Leadership
Posted by
Dean Zatkowsky
at
2:01 PM
6
comments
By Dean Zatkowsky
Years ago, coworkers, friends and family of Kelly Anderson and Gina Ruskauff gathered at the Kinko's Corporate Headquarters in Ventura to plant two trees in their memory. Most of us had already attended their funerals, but the shock of their sudden departure still hit hard, and no one knew what to say or do as we gathered around the saplings. We were frozen, dulled by loss.
I told a story, because the trees reminded me of the myth of Philemon and Baucis, as related in Ovid's Metamorphosis. The short version goes like this: Zeus and Hermes visit Earth disguised as beggars to evaluate the state of mankind. Everyone treats the gods barbarously, until they reach the humble hillside cottage of aged Philemon and Baucis, who although they have little, share it all with the wretched travelers. The gods determine to flood the rest of the area, but to grant the old couple a gift.
Zeus asks the couple to reveal their greatest fears. Each confides a desire to die first, because the thought of living without the other is unbearable. Touched by their love, Zeus promises to grant their wish. Many years later, as Philemon and Baucis stand together gazing at the sea, reflecting on the joys of their long life together, they suddenly feel strange sensations, as roots grow into the ground from their feet, branches and leaves from their arms. The loving couple transform into two great trees, an oak and a linden, with their branches entwined. They stand together to this day.
Suddenly, people around me were sobbing and smiling, remembering Kelly and Gina. A story told and retold for thousands of years touched our moment in time, and opened our hearts. But that's what stories do.
Storytelling shapes human culture; it is arguably the most human activity. If you want to know a people - or a person - learn their stories. In business, government, academia, art and religion, our greatest leaders have typically been our greatest storytellers. They simultaneously preserve a culture while inspiring listeners to discover something new within themselves. Societies - nations or companies or hobby clubs - disintegrate when they lose their stories.
Throughout history, we have cherished the keepers of stories, whether they carried them in buckskin medicine bags, printed them on ornate, gilded pages, or projected them on silver screens.
For the tenth year in a row, I'll be spending the first weekend of May at the Ojai Storytelling Festival. I invite you to join us and see for yourself how the greatest storytellers in the world ply their craft. Anyone who must communicate well to succeed -CEOs, managers, parents - will benefit from this immersion into the power of the spoken word. At an interview with an employer or a venture capitalist, on a first date, or as we set foot in a new land, everyone involved silently asks the same question: What's your story?
Comments
Sarah Trumble wrote on 04/26/09 8:13 PM
Effective communication is crucial to success. It may be my credentials that qualify me to apply for a job, and my resume that gets me an interview, but it will be my communication skills that determine whether I am hired and effective in that position. It is unfortunate that in today's world, particularly amongst the millenial generation, speaking in complete sentences is not emphasized in our education or relations. Text messaging has made grammar obsolete. Role models in popular culture may be able to sing well, but their lyrics would make an English teacher cry. Twitter has taught us to abbreviate "you" to "u" and "you're" to ur. Unfortunately for my generation, the people interviewing and hiring us understand the proper use of apostrophes, do not know what it means to "drop it like it's hot," and think tweeting is something a bird does. After eight years under George W. Bush, America has finally elected an eloquent and articulate president. Hopefully his communication abilities are contagious.
Jana Gallus wrote on 04/26/09 9:41 PM
Like Sarah, I had to think of the modern developments that work into the directly opposite direction of storytelling - unfortunately! The shortcuts (by the way, I love Jack Johnson's lyric "Shortcuts can slow you down"), but also the broader development of family relations.
Many families don't even spend a day of their week together, and having dinner together seems to be something they have not even thought about - why not rather go to McDonald's and play computer games afterward ?! (and no: no board games, it's better to be completely isolated and at best communicate with an anonymous person who's one's adversary in the online game).
That's why I am glad that I can TELL you that I experienced a lot of story telling in my family, and I'll never forget the mornings I woke up in my grandparent's bed as a child and my grandfather told me the most exiting stories ever!
Michelle Langer wrote on 04/26/09 11:53 PM
I really liked this blog. I completely agree with the statement that stories can preserve a culture. For example, in Judaism there is a strong value of Torah (the first five books of the Bible) for more than just the history and laws it explains. After the destruction of the second temple, the Torah became a way for the Jewish people to stay connected, even if separated into distant communities. Through the biblical stories, the Jewish people could preserve their culture and maintain unity. Without the continued storytelling, the culture may have disintegrated. Another part of the blog that struck me was the connection between CEOs, managers, and parents. I liked that all three professions were mentioned together, as all three types of people must communicate well to succeed.
Brian Lantos wrote on 04/27/09 12:39 AM
Sitting in class and listening to my 1st grade teacher read an elaborate story is one of my first childhood memories that I can remember to this day. Story telling is emphasized all throughout elementary school and seems to fade when entering the higher grade levels. It's a shame that such an important subject gets lost as we get older because story telling requires characteristics such as confidence, patience, and enthusiasm, just to name a few. I've learned that there is a certain art about story telling, a special way to deliver the story itself that is so special. All these things that story telling requires are such helpful tools to communicate in today's world. It doesn't make much sense why they would take this wonderful subject out at higher levels when it seems to be the most important time to learn it.
Alexis Cabrito wrote on 05/01/09 4:14 PM
I think storytelling is one of the greatest things of our time, as well as in previous centuries before us. Storytelling is perhaps, the key to the past. Sure, you can learn a lot from the different historical perspectives, but ultimately, history is about what human beings went through, rather than just a jumble of dates and events. Storytelling tells us what an individual went through at a particular time in his life. I still remember the stories that my grandpa told me when I was younger about WWII. He was just a little boy and he didn't know what the war was about, but he recalled seeing the Japanese on the shores near his house (in the Philippines) and he also remembers when the US soldiers came and gave him and his brothers chocolate because that was all they had on them. I think that storytelling will always be a significant part of someone's life and of teaching your children or even the world a lesson or a moral.
Lara wrote on 04/26/09 12:24 PM
The novel "Dreams of Trespass" discusses the importance of story telling and one of the central characters in the harem, Aunt Habiba, tells young Mernissi that her husband may have taken everything when he kicked her out of the house, but he could never take her two most important possessions: her laughter and ability to tell stories. Habiba repeatedly tells Mernissi that good story telling is the most important skill a woman can have, because in stories you can reach beyond the boundaries that normally hold you in.