Storytelling - how to enrich the learning experience, by Sue Lickorish, Training Journal, February 2009

This article confirms that, despite its relatively low level image, the Training Journal does, by inviting learning professionals to share their practical ideas, perform a valuable service.

I am perhaps biased towards a favourable assessment of the article because of my own history of writing business novels, having been inspired by the first and famous example of that genre, The Goal by Goldratt and Cox. The author of this article is discussing stories in more of a formal training course context and our team MTP share many of her views; all our tutors are aware of the power of stories and anecdotes to bring business learning to life.

The author starts with a definition - a story is a sequence of events that occur in a different time and place - and then provides some helpful confirmations of why they are so effective at activating the brain to learn, combining left and right hemispheres. She quotes fifteen ways to use a story - as with Hamel, far too many, writers should follow the rule that going into double figures will almost certainly lose your audience - and makes the valuable point that story-telling can and often does go over the top. How many of us have heard trainers telling too many stories that seem to be for their own benefit, rather than for the purpose of learning?

The author suggests that some trainers tell other people’s personal stories as if the events had happened to them, which raises an interesting ethical dilemma. I have from time to time encouraged other MTP tutors to use my own stories on the basis that it is the learning that matters, but have seen some understandable reluctance; maybe a story is only truly convincing if it is owned by the original teller. I once heard of a business school tutor who was well known for taking other tutors’ anecdotes and after many years couldn’t remember which happened to him anyway!

The article moves on to broader areas than training and mentions the importance of stories to communication in the organisation, suggesting that smokers who congregate together can get information through stories that others will not hear. The author also suggests that pro-active use of stories to communicate values and vision can be more effective than mission statements on printed cards.

Generally the article is well written and helpful in putting into words what many of us experience and believe. Ironically the only time when I lost patience and wanted to skip was when the author told a story about her four year old child. I would like to think that this is because the story was not needed to make the point. But perhaps it’s just me. I always did prefer telling them to hearing them!