David Hutchens, organizational story expert and best-selling author of Circle of the 9 Muses talks about how companies can create knowledge more effectively using stories that support learning and meaning-making.
In this interview, we build on our previous Vital Presence Interview #69 with David exploring how storytelling serves organizational learning.
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Here’s the entire interview:
You can also find it on the Vital Presence podcast on Itunes, episode 81.
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Quotes from the interview:
“There’s a geography of meaning when a story is told, there is meaning all around that story. There’s the meaning that you bring with you. As the teller, there’s the meaning inside the story – the text – and then there’s the meaning that’s in front of the story [the connections that people draw from the story that get drawn out in dialogue.]”
From the Show
- How we need stories for sense-making in a changing world that is becoming less predictable.
- Why it can be useful to look for examples of positive deviance.
- How to support your audience’s listening by giving them a job.
- Why we need “question literacy”: –finding the questions that will lead us into to the future.
- How to set up a strategic story session for knowledge creation.
About My Guest
David Hutchens is a bestselling author, business writer and learning designer who creates communication solutions for The Coca-Cola Company, Wal-Mart, IBM, GE, Nike, Bank of America, and others. He served as chairman of Storytelling in Organizations, a special interest group of the globally renowned National Storytelling Network.
He speaks to organizations and leadership teams all around the world on the topic of storytelling as an organizational capacity. His new book is “Circle of the 9 Muses: A Storytelling Field Guide for Innovators and Meaning Makers,” Wiley & Sons 2015
He is creator of the Learning Fables — a book series that uses narrative and metaphor to illustrate principles of organizational learning. With titles that include “Outlearning the Wolves” and “Shadows of the Neanderthal,” the popular business fables have sold more than a quarter-million copies in over a dozen languages.
He is author of the book “A Slice of Trust: The Leadership Secret with the Hot & Fruity Filling,” which features a foreword by Stephen M.R. Covey.
In partnership with The Conference Board, he is creator and lead facilitator of The Team USA Leadership Experience, at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado springs; and he also facilitates The Apollo Leadership Experience at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
A nationally recognized developer of innovative learning products, David’s work has been recognized with distinctions such as Training & Development’s “Training Product of the Year” award; ASTD’s prestigious “Excellence in Practice” award; Brandon Hall Gold award, and more. David’s newest product is “GO Team: Powering Teams to Perform,” a just-in-time team training resource. GO Team’s library of 18 team-related topics allows you to build your own learning agenda tailored to your team’s needs.
The Show Notes
David’s book: Circle of the 9 Muses: A Storytelling Field Guide for Innovators and Meaning Makers
David’s website: www.davidhutchens.com
One Response
Delicious!
We need to hear this prompt over and over as we discover (some of us more slowly than others) the way we can each bring the story way of being into the world. In chaordic times we must all be leaders as story tellers and evocateurs of story. We are needed everywhere and at all levels. As an anthropologist I cannot resist reaching back to a time when oral tradition and the story way of transmission of wisdom was central to human experience and shaped collective knowing.