Storytelling is recognised as a powerful tool for success.
From the World Bank and IBM to high street chain stores and family firms, storytelling enhances team communication, HR management and knowledge management.
If you want to call it 'interactive narrative', go ahead...
Stories capture attention and impart messages. They stick in the mind. Plain delivery is best - no great performance skills needed! Storytelling in the workplace can simply bypass entrenched ideas, prejudice and resistance.
Creating a story demands fresh thinking
Delivering a story builds confidence and communication skills
Putting across a specific message demands a well-chosen story and some skill in the telling - because listeners are free to interpret what they hear in their own way!
You can use story (narrative) to support the handling of workplace issues such as:
- Workplace bullying and harrassment - Read about HR Conference Special
- Work/Life balance
- Safe working practices
- Team communications
Workshop Content
- Story structure
- Memory techniques
- Voice skills
- Creative storymaking
- Choosing and preparing a story
Exercises involve talking and listening as a whole group as well as in pairs and individually. You'll find it useful to make a few notes but no writing is assessed.
The workshop leads to a Story Round in which everybody is invited to tell the tale on which they've been working. You can choose to tell your story yourself or with others. You are strongly encouraged to take the opportunity to tell, perhaps, your first ever story out loud to others but it is not compulsory.
Some people need time to process and use what they've learned.
Some people need to learn to listen!
Level of experience required:
None.
If you've done some public speaking or storytelling you will benefit from the review of essential skills. And you'll discover how to apply storytelling to your workplace.
SPECIAL PERFORMANCE
Ella At Work - A Grimm story for HR conferences
She had a name. They took it away. They systematically reduced her from beloved daughter to kitchen skivvy. It's the nastiest case of workplace bullying your ever heard...
Naturally things aren't as simple as they look. The stepmother is scared - desperate to hold on to social status. The sisters copy their mother's ugly behaviour in a hopeless bid for approval. All the women depend absolutely on marriage to have any quality of life.
But why didn't the Father put a stop to the bullying?
What happened when the Fairy Godmother gave Cinders some basic assertiveness training?
In the end, was Cinderella a winner or a wimp?
Running time 45 minutes