The power and versatility of storytelling … and some personal learning

Published anonymously from a CILIP GIG Member. 

Two mentions of the knowledge management storytelling tool in different contexts in the space of just a couple of days, and recollections of a previous GIG webinar, provided me with stimuli to reach new insight into the power and versatility of storytelling. I am sharing my thoughts with you in order to promote some really excellent resources and in the hope that this may also enable you to look at storytelling in a different and broader light. But this reflection also demonstrates how learning can take time to develop and that sometimes multiple exposures to the same or similar information, and time for reflection, really are needed for full and deeper learning and understanding.

 

Mention #1. Towards the end of an excellent CILIP Webinar (23/2/22) Reflective Practices and Learning via Professional Communities of Practice, Professor Meri Duryan (University College London) took a question on winning over senior management to support the establishment and continuation of communities of practice within an organisation. Without hesitation and with considerable enthusiasm, Meri suggested storytelling. In this context storytelling could be used as an advocacy and engagement tool. The story does not just recount the potential or known impacts on the bottom line (time or money saved, product or service innovation creating new income streams, or future disasters avoided). Oh no, storytelling goes deeper, providing a rich picture of tangible and intangible benefits, but vitally also tapping into the listeners’ emotions. Engage the emotions and stories are more likely to be remembered, to be influential and to win over advocates who may then go on to advocate with others, and in doing so possibly re-tell the story.  In this context storytelling is an engagement tool, hopefully winning over the senior management to the values of KM.  For me the penny drops. Storytelling is an advocacy and engagement tool. Bingo – new appreciation. [The webinar recording will hopefully be available to watch for CILIP Members via the eLearning Hub shortly.]

 

Mention #2. The cornflakes moment, reading Information Professional Jan / Feb 2022 edition over breakfast later that week. Ian Rodwell (The real reason you may miss working in a building, p.28-31) argues that physical contact with colleagues is important and that bringing people together in the office and other places enables them to share and develop learning through storytelling. But Ian posits that lots of this storytelling occurs informally and often serendipitously in the liminal spaces of the office. And where are these liminal spaces? Corridors, changing rooms, toilets, kitchen or smokers’ spaces or on the commute back home. I know how useful chance conversations, those watercooler moments, can be; and boy have I missed them during the pandemic! But, and it is a big “but”, I just had not seen these in the context of storytelling! Ian categorises stories as problem stories, frustration stories, warning stories, solution stories and even ghost stories. So that eureka moment: storytelling happens informally, serendipitously, it happens because we are social animals, and in this context it has real value!

 

Image source: Unsplash

Memory trawl. Hang on a minute, didn’t GIG provide a webinar on Storytelling? Too right they did: Luke Spencer (Home Office) – Storytelling and knowledge sharing  (July 2021) – available to CILIP members from the GIG News Page. In this webinar Luke outlines how storytelling can be used in a formal way to harvest and develop knowledge, to access tacit knowledge through interview style conversations. These conversations may provide participants with valuable time to reflect on, distil and reach their own new understandings, which can then be captured. In being re-told to others within the project team the story builds and develops, encompassing a wider range of experience and learning, developing that richer picture and enriching the emotional engagement points. I had remembered and clocked storytelling as a knowledge capture tool. But from first viewing of the webinar this is clearly where my learning had stopped!  Viewing the presentation again I see that Luke is really clear that storytelling can then be used as a tool for engagement and advocacy as well as a vehicle for enabling others to develop their own learning. So Luke shares Meri’s view that storytelling can be a great tool to engage and win over people, as well as Ian’s view that storytelling can help people learn, problem solve etc.

 

So what do I take from this? Storytelling most certainly is an excellent tool for knowledge development and capture, and that through telling stories we can also help others to solve problems, gain new knowledge, think again, or to be won over to a cause or for a course of action. And I also have a new appreciation that storytelling can and does happen informally as well as formally. But I have also learned about myself. Clearly sometimes learning does not happen first-time round, even when the learning stimuli are there in plain sight! Webinars, however engaging, are usually passive learning stimuli. Re-exposure to information, as well as possibly more active reflection and engagement with the topic matter, may be required for full and deeper learning. Webinars are great, but for fuller learning the process needs to be more active and more challenging!

And finally, having just penned this account I suddenly realise that I have just crafted a story! Storytelling is hardwired in us; it happens without us appreciating it! For me this has been an incredibly useful, revelatory experience, but will this story take you anywhere? …