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Tell stories to hear stories

Monday 29 September 2008 19:28 GDT

  




Title

Tell stories to hear stories
WeblogGurteen Knowledge Weblog
Knowledge LetterAppears in the Gurteen Knowledge Letter issue: 100
Posted DateMonday 29 September 2008 19:28 GDT
Posted ByDavid Gurteen
Linkshttp://www.greenchameleon.com/gc/blog_detail/eliciting_stori ... 

Like Patrick Lambe, I loved this story of telling stories to hear stories. Only wish I had thought of it when my children were younger. It's a great technique - well actually its not a technique at all - that would soon be seen through and is manipulative. What it is really about, is treating the person you are talking to with as an equal; not talking down to them or patronizing them. When you do that then you can have a conversation of equals.
When I see my teenage daughter after school I would often ask how her day went, whether anything interesting happened at school, and the standard response is often monosyllabic: yep, nup. In fact the more questions I’d ask the shorter the answers. So I changed tack and rather than ask questions I simply recounted something that happened in my day. I would launch into something like, “I met a bearded lady today. This morning I drove down to Fitzroy to run an anecdote circle for …” and immediately my daughter would respond with an encounter from her day. A conversation starts and it’s delightful.

Its also what I try to do in my knowledge cafes - ensure that everyone is an equal - there are no table leaders; no people nominated to report back. Everyone has an equal voice and this helps free up the conversational flow.



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Tuesday 2 December 2008
12:16 PM GMT