Punctuation Points in Transformative Stories

When you read a book, go to a live play, the opera, or ballet, or watch a movie, there will almost always be bits that make you sit up and take notice, and that usually cause an emotional reaction of some kind. (Those who have attended Samuel Beckett's plays such as End Game, Waiting for Godot, in which the only reaction is boredom, more boredom, and even more boredom, will realise there are exceptions to this rule).

When you are in conversation with someone and they are telling you a story, it also always more interesting when you find yourself actively involved, wanting to know more - you will start asking questions, or providing the right noises to encourage the person to continue.

I like to call these 'punctuation points'. Usually, we won't remember the whole story but we will remember the things that made us exclaim, question, think more about something. These are usually aligned to key moments in the protagonist's journey.

For example, the slow build up of caring for a neighbour's child one day, full of routine activities like baking a cake, cutting shapes out of paper, watching Play School is not likely to engage the listener, unless of course there is a complication - 'He didn't realise the beaters were moving so fast and he jammed his fingers between them, there was blood everywhere and I panicked. What should I do?' (I bet you want to know what happened next). Or, for a less gory story, 'She got up and danced the whole Dying Swan scene, from start to finish, I couldn't believe how talented she was, you have to see it!

As you can see, these bits of excitement usually finish with some kind of punctuation - a question mark, and exclamation mark etc. These punctuation points usually preface some kind of transformation - the little boy who jammed his fingers was taken to hospital, plastic surgery was performed but he never regained full use of his fingers, the little girl's parents were astonished to hear she could dance so well, she had never done this at home - they enrolled her in ballet school and she won a dance scholarship at the age of 15.

Extending this, we can see how, in a transformational/applied story, it is important to identify the punctuation points that give life and meaning to the story, and to a person's life journey.

Applied Stories and Organisational Development

If you work in an organisation, how do you naturally describe the work you do, an event  or challenge, something you or another person has achieved. Chances are, you will be telling a story. Sure, there might be some facts and figures in there, but these are rarely enough on their own. Go to a meeting where you have to provide your sales figures, or some kind of information describing your work activities, and more often than not you will be asked for some kind of explanation.

It doesn't matter whether you are in charge of paper clip supplies or the CEO; everyone has to talk to other people about their work sometimes. It might being with: 'This figure/output/result is lower than we expected, how has that happened? As Team Leader, you might find yourself answering with something like this:

'Well, Paul (our best salesman) has been away all week, we couldn't get a replacement due to the systems upgrade that was scheduled. So instead of there being six of us there were actually only four, as Michelle was kept busy all week doing the testing of the upgrade.'

This is a story, told in the past tense. It has all the key story elements: characters; action; a plot; a beginning, middle and end; and a message. You might have to work a little to uncover some of these elements, but they are all there. The message, by the way is actually multiple: my team was busy as usual; there were some challenges beyond my control that impacted on our ability to meet our kpi's; I understand there are organisational priorities etc. Why didn't you say this outright? Because telling a story is natural, and it demonstrates all those things rather than just speaking them.

So, if storytelling is so natural, why don't we use them for organisational development purposes? Well, some organisations are embracing this, but not many. It is unclear as to why, exactly, but I think it has a lot to do with the implications of storytelling as making things up, not being serious, taking too much time, activities without outcomes.

Storytelling is none of these things. But storytelling is scary for organistions, because organisations work in a way that the outcome has already been planned for, perhaps even been documented, and storytelling is seen as a threat to this. It might lead to other (unexpected, unwanted) conclusions, endings, and priorities. It might give people in the organisation the idea that what they think matters, rather than what they can do. That could lead to all kinds of problems for the powerbrokers.

Another danger of storytelling is that related to the archetypal story elements of hero, antihero, perpetrator and victim. Somehow, in every story all of these are implied, even if they are not clearly stated. I would argue that no organisation can succeed without getting these out in the open and taking a good look at them. But once again, there are real risks - exposing and labelling individuals can lead to all kinds of issues that will detract from the main game.

It is easy to see why organisations are reluctant to employ storytelling as a tool in OD activities. Yet, I would argue, creativity is the order of the day, and the organisations that are most likely to be successful in the twenty-first century will be those who utilise the more creative tools.

Engaging a story practitioner, either as a paid staff member, as a storyteller-in-residence, or as an external consultant, could be the best investment an organisation could make. There are infinite possibilities: developing a global story in which all members have a common vision would be a great place to start.

Transformation - a new story archetype?

This site and Transformative Narrative Project are all about change, of course! So where does this fit into the story archetypes that Booker talked about.

1. Tragedy - the hero with a fatal flaw has a tragic ending
2. Comedy - a happy and/or romantic ending
3. Overcoming the monster - the good guy (or, as in the case of Lara Croft, girl) wins the day
4. Voyage and return - the protagonist sets out on a journey and faces many demons, leading to personal development, then returns and talks about it
5. Quest - the hero sets out to find an object or person of importance
6. Rags to riches (or riches to rags to riches)
7. Rebirth - the hero loses something important, and along with this the reason for living, then finds a new reason to live and is 'reborn'

In my last blog post I made the distinction between pure comedy and romance, creating an 8th category.

Also in the last post I asked people to reflect on what kind of story would inform their own narrative in an applied story sense. If you have tried this out, using a pivotal moment in your life, maybe you will have decided that none of these categories is sufficiently adequate on its own. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction - and real life stories are complex and often difficult to unravel. There is an art involved, and if the story is being told by someone other than the 'main protagonist', there is a great responsibility to honour that person's truth (which may also shift and change in the course of the relating and retelling).

I am making a bold assumption that Booker's story archetypes are of little use to the Transformative Narrative Project, except to highlight the differences between the traditional storytelling theory and methodology and those of applied storytelling.

For this we need a whole new category: transformation - my working definition of this being 'a story that follows a process of change that has an important impact on the hero's (or heroine's) life'. The story contains a journey, or a part of a journey, that the particular person sees as pivotal in their life, and which has changed/transformed them in some way. There could be romance or comedy, even tragedy involved, but the real life protagonist in transformational story telling actually goes through a fundamental change in the way he or she feels, believes, and behaves.

Which life events can be seen as transformative? The list is endless, of course. Obviously it is not the event itself that is important, but the impact it has on us. For some of us, a simple word or two by a trusted mentor is enough to change the course of our lives, for others, winning gold in a sports event may be meaningless. It all depends on our own raison d'etre, our personal goals, motivations, values. In this way, we can see that applied storytelling is a very democratic process - everyone has at least one story to tell.

Stories and Change

Why do we tell stories? Is it to entertain, or is it because of an innate need to share something? Is it because we understand an event really well, or because we want to understand it? Whether we are conscious of it or not, we tell stories constantly.
What makes for an interesting story? Arguably any story can be made interesting; it is in the art of the storyteller. Christopher Booker describes seven stories, believing that every story told fits into one of these categories:

1. Tragedy - the hero with a fatal flaw has a tragic ending

2. Comedy - a happy and/or romantic ending

3. Overcoming the monster - the good guy (or, as in the case of Lara Croft, girl) wins the day

4. Voyage and return - the protagonist sets out on a journey and faces many demons, leading to personal development, then returns to tell the tale

5. Quest - the hero sets out to find an object or person of importance

6. Rags to riches (or riches to rags to riches)

7. Rebirth - the hero loses something important, and along with this the reason for living, finds a new reason to live and is thus 'reborn'

I think Booker must have missed out on the romantic gene, as I would definitely differentiate between comedy (think Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Life of Brian) and romance (you know, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl).

So, let's just say there are eight kinds of story- which one would yours be?

You will probably answer: a bit of this and a bit of that. This is because real life stories are complex and multifaceted. A novelist who is well known (and hopefully well paid) has usually chosen just one or two of these kinds of stories, and created one or two themes and settings around it to add interest, such as a rite of passage (birth, marriage, death, bar mitzvah), perhaps something quirky like a dysfunctional family, or an observation on difference eg. city-country, rich-poor, old-young etc.

So, if storytelling is such a normal part of our lives, what is so special about applied stories?

Unlike other stories, the ones that happen ‘to’ us (told in the 1st person) or to others (3rd person), in applied stories we orchestrate the action, we are the architects of its structure, we are the designers who display the components. We have a personal investment in them; they are integral to our being. And more than that applied stories have transformation, or change, as a focus. Maybe applied stories have something in common with Booker’s 7th category – what do you think?

Defining the role of the story practitioner

This is not a recognised job title - yet! I hope that one day people will be taking degrees in story practice. This would be a sign that the world had, truly, come of age.

So if this were to become a recognised job title, how would the role of Story Practitioner be described? What personal and technical skills would be said to be important? What would the pathway to becoming a story practitioner? How would training be undertaken? I would be interested in input by others who call themselves story practitioners and those who find this subject even slightly fascinating.

If you have any ideas to kick off a discussion on this subject please post them here so we can build a profile.

About Applied Storytelling

Applied storytelling is telling stories with a particular purpose, or end result, in mind. Arguably, all stories have a purpose, even if this is not always clear, but applied storytelling essentially means that the purpose comes first.

In relation to this project, we are interested in learning how story can and does impact on career change across time. In the 'past' sense, we can find out how events are told, heard and invested with meaning. In the present, our current reality provides the pivot point, the hinge - exploring this in depth is essential as it holds the keys to our future; relating to how the stories we tell ourselves consciously and unconsciously can positively and negatively impact career choices yet to be made. The future is projected onto the existing canvas as a goal and a motivational tool, in which we embrace possibilities and prepare ourselves to make the most of opportunities that arise.

The applied storytelling model also requires career story practitioners to continue to learn and reflect on their own practice, to be more mindful of client stories and their power, and to develop specific skills and strategies to more effectively assist people wanting to make changes in their careers and lives.

Who are career story practitioners and what do they do?

Everyone has a story. In fact we have many; we are rich with stories, but how do we tell our stories in an interesting way? How do we make our stories meaningful - to us, to others? How do we apply our stories?

When making a career change, many people now realise the value of employing a career development practitioner to help them sort through the chaos. There is so much information to take in, it is hard to know what is most relevant. Careers become muddled through many changes, often forced and made with short notice, leaving us with no time to reflect on what we have learned along the way. We no longer know what kind of career is 'right' for us (if in fact we ever did), or else the career we really want is unavailable for some reason or another.

Over the past century, the main way people 'discovered' their true career identity was to do an assessment - these include personality assessments such as the MBTI, interest assessments like Holland's Self-Directed Search (SDS) or the more sophisticated Strong Interest Inventory (SII). There are many others as well, but these are the standards that have stood the test of time.

With the change of century (almost a decade ago now!), clients and practitioners alike have been noticing that the traditional assessments and matching of the results objectively to occupations no longer work. There are many reasons for this - the ever-changing jobs market, global influences, occupations coming and going rapidly, our lives generally becoming more complex, to name a few.

The ancient art of storytelling appears to be providing us with some answers to this dilemma. We all know that careers are now highly individualised; even within occupations there is less likely to be a 'standard' career path. We all have lifestyles of choice, working in diverse organisations and with many different types of personal, family and community arrangements. To cater for individual needs, we need to focus on individuals - this is best done through storytelling. Maybe this way we will even find some commonalities between us all, some common bonds, that we did not know existed.

In the twenty-first century, career practitioners who want their clients to achieve career success need to be story practitioners. This acknowledges that individuals are the experts in their own lives, and the story practitioner acts as a specialised facilitator. This in turn acknowledges that stories about and told by real people are neither simple nor easy to relate; they are full of layers, each one providing its own insights. Through developing specialised 'story' skills we can guide our clients as they develop their life narratives, helping them to delve deeper as appropriate to get to the 'gold' that lies within.

As yet, while many career practitioners are essentially story practitioners, we do not have a framework for describing what this actually is. We do know that this technique provides the necessary flexibility for building a meaningful career within the current fragmented world in which we live.