idealawg

Zombie expert says storytelling is as important as oxygen

I am becoming more and more of a fan of Dr. Steven Schlozman. You may recall my past posts (linked to here) about his expertise in zombies and how he uses that expertise to explain in a memorable way the workings of our brains. This morning I read a touching post he wrote for his Psychology Today blog. He wrote about a man who just died, a man with a doctorate in storytelling, a man who sounded like a wonderfully unique artist. This storyteller was called Brother Blue (aka Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill).

Dr. Schlozman was sorry that he only just learned of Brother Blue and never met him; the two men lived not far from each other. Schlozman describes the importance of storytelling.

As a physician and perhaps especially as a psychiatrist, I find stories as necessary as oxygen. I am an obligate listener, not only because it is my job (though I am lucky enough that it is) but because stories make me feel.

Although he never met him, Dr. Schlozman had seen Dr. Hill in the movie Knightriders.

And Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill could make you feel just by looking at him. I know there are others out there who know a lot more about the man than I do, and I'd love to hear more stories about his life. I read in the article in the Boston Globe that his last story, on his deathbed, was a love story. This is a man I wish I had met.

For now, I will remember him puffing on the harmonica in Knightriders, butterflies painted on his face and forehead, a little bit sad but always smiling, as he watches humans go through the motions of trying to understand. I know this is maudlin, but I will miss him despite having seen him only once, in one movie, and it bugs me that I work in the same town where he passed on. Perhaps going forward I can look around more carefully. I don't want to miss another one.

Yes, I like this Dr. Schlozman.

Note: Another article about Brother Blue from the Boston Globe. Read it. Did it lift your spirits?

Free e-book - Storied Careers: 40+ Story Practitioners Talk About Applied Storytelling

I am honored to be one of the story practitioners included in this excellent e-book. Click to download Storied Careers: 40+ Story Practitioners Talk About Applied Storytelling [pdf]. From the Web page:

The book compiles all the Q&As with story gurus that have appeared in A Storied Career since the series began in September 2008.

The Q&As are arranged by topic; for example, all the responses to my question about defining story will appear together. Bios, photos, and contact information for all Q&A participants appear in the back of the book.

I hope you read this e-book. If you do, please let me know what you think.

Online presentation: “Getting Unstuck: Creative Storying at Work” with Andrew Rixon

The event will be held from 4 to 5 PM Eastern on October 14. You need to sign up for the ning in order to register. From the ning page:

This session will provide you the chance to bring along a ‘stuckness’ and see how creative storying can get you unstuck. When I find myself stuck, often it’s because of my tendency to forget that I live in an organic, complex and highly non-linear world. I have personally found that stories – if we are able to reflect, listen and find their meanings – hold the key for helping us to remember that we live and work in a complex world. By becoming aware of the processes that create stories we begin to open ourselves to the possibilities that lie within and get moving. Creative storytelling, through the genre of fairy tale, has found its way into the workplace and this session will provide you the opportunities to learn how creative storying enables movement and change.

If people got the best of your session, what would they leave with?

They will leave with a knowing of the 3 signs that we’ve forgotten we live in a complex world and how remembering these signs helps us to approach creative storying to not only get unstuck but also get moving.

About the Author

Andrew first discovered the power of storytelling when, at the age of 14 when, during a classical

Blog Glob: Storytelling in Appellate Brief Writing

Excerpt:

At the end of July, both Professor Michael Smith and I attended the Applied Legal Storytelling Conference at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.  The conference was entitled “Chapter 2:  Once Upon a Legal Story” and focused on storytelling in “ways that will directly and tangibly benefit law students (i.e. future lawyers) and legal practitioners (i.e. former law students).”  The presentations I attended addressed ways to use storytelling to create a stronger narrative theme in a case and how to handle the ethical issues in storytelling.

One of the most intriguing presentations was Professor Kenneth Chestek’s talk “Judging by the Numbers:  an Empirical Study of the Power of Story.”  Professor Chestek conducted a study where he wrote four fictional test briefs ... .

Click to read the rest of Storytelling in Appellate Brief Writing (Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog).

Note: "The Plot Thickens: The Appellate Brief as Story" by Professor Chestek.

Review of new book Management Rewired and some words about our stubborn brain

Here's a review of another book I have in my possession that sits unread. Near my pile of books, I have a coffee mug with this emblazoned on it: "so many books ... so little time." That's how I feel so I'm always grateful for book reviews in order to help prioritize all my unopened books.

Here one from strategy+business of the book Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn't Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science. From "Books in Brief: Storytelling’s Value for Management":

[W]e don’t record an external reality so much as we create it, making multiple drafts as we try to fit it into coherent patterns. The drafts that survive determine what we notice and what we accept, what we ignore and what we reject. And we hold on to these drafts with great tenacity, resisting external efforts to change them. As a result, management actions based on Newtonian dynamics have perverse outcomes. Rewards may be seen as punishments, and vice versa, because people continually use deeper contexts to interpret them. Extrinsic rewards, as well as incentives, may undermine commitment because they trivialize the behaviors they are designed to encourage.

I certainly appreciate those first three sentences; that's part of what I teach about the brain. Nicely put!

Blog Glob: "Stories we tell about national trauma reflect our psychological well-being"

Excerpt:

"Our findings suggest that different ways of writing about the events of 9/11 relate to different psychological outcomes," Poulin says, and that the different ways people describe traumatic national events -- even those they do not experience directly -- are linked to different levels of psychological adaptation.

"To sum up," he says, "we found that psychological well-being was associated with post-trauma stories that were high in closure, high in redemptive imagery and high in themes of national redemption. Psychological distress, on the other hand, was significantly related to accounts that were low in closure, high in contaminative imagery and high in themes of personal contamination."

The researchers looked at personal accounts about experiences of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 written by 395 adults from across the country, some of whom were more intimately connected to the events in question than were others. They then compared the narratives with various measures of their psychological well-being.

Click to read the rest of "Stories we tell about national trauma reflect our psychological well-being" (University of Rochester via EurekAlert).

Final argument: How do stories fit in? And what's the worst mistake lawyers make?

Read this article from July's ABA Journal to learn the thoughts of one judge about that worst mistake lawyers make in final argument. The article "The Arsenal of Persuasion: Make your closing argument a really good story" also contains some of the benefits of storytelling.

[S]umming up doesn’t help much except in cases that have taken too long. Then it may be necessary. In cases that only take three or four days to try, the jury remembers the testimony as well as you do—maybe better. After all, your mind is still cluttered with what the witnesses were supposed to have said. But the jurors only know what they heard.

“So there’s a better answer to your question besides sterile recapitulation and dry logic. It’s to tell a story.

“People don’t make their decisions with syllogisms and rational progressions of principle. Stories—not rules —are what really influence our thinking.

“Since the dawn of time, we have used stories to teach, explain, understand how the world works, memorialize events and instill moral values.

Click to read the rest of "The Arsenal of Persuasion."

Note: Story is such an excellent way to communicate that Daniel Willingham devotes several pages to it in his book Why Don't Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom.

Image credit: ABA Journal.

Little Red Riding Hood was no victim: The wolf was framed! More on storytelling in the law

In the new edition of Plaintiff, Diane Wyzga, author of one of the included articles [PDF] tells us about Little Red Riding Hood, that wolf, and lawyers as storytellers. Excerpt:

The story of Little Red Riding Hood is a cautionary tale. The Brothers Grimm wrote it to warn children, especially little girls, about whom to avoid. Then, like now, the wolf was seen as an animal to be feared and destroyed. So, it’s no surprise that the Brothers Grimm chose this creature as the metaphor to make sure children understood what form danger took. ...

Lawyers, too, tell stories. Often we tell our clients’ stories pretty much the same way each time. We begin at the beginning and end at the end. We stack up the facts and hope that the lawyer with the most facts wins. We hope that the decision maker writes the ending we want to the story we’ve told because our stack of facts towers over our opponent’s stack. But what if the wolf was framed? What if there is another way to tell the story? And what if that approach gives you, the skillful lawyer, an advantage over the old way?

Click to read the rest of "The Wolf Was Framed!" {PDF].

"The CEO As Storyteller In Chief"

Excerpt:

"The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms," wrote the poet and social activist Muriel Rukeyser. To the schooled and scientific mind, that may sound sacrilegious, yet we know there is some truth in it. Our lives are a series of stories woven together--our own stories and the stories of those around us.

Great leaders--religious, political or business--realize this and are good storytellers. Jesus spoke in parables. Krishna and Rama came to life through the stories they told. The Torah, Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious text, the first five books of the Old Testament, is not a boring list of rules but a set of moral lessons and commandments intertwined with a wealth of life stories.

In the business world, many successful top executives are very good storytellers. They entice us with their stories all the time, telling us how they started their businesses, what they stand for and where they are going. ...

Click to read the rest of "The CEO As Storyteller In Chief" (Forbes).

Have you and your firm asked these five questions?

These questions are richer than they may seem after just a first reading. Spend some time with these questions presented by Margaret Wheatley in an exclusive for the Berrett-Koehler blog. They have a depth and breadth that I find rare in this age of lists of questions that often hold little value because they are obvious or in the style of Mother Bloggers.

Excerpt from the post containing Wheatley's questions:

Margaret Wheatley is an internationally known bestselling author who has spent a lifetime studying the nature of human interactions and the impact they have. In an exclusive for the BK Communique, she contributed the list below for the five conversations she feels we must have with ourselves as well as with others for the sake of our future:

...

2. How can I cultivate curiosity rather than judgment? It’s not our differences that divide us, but our judgments about each other. Are we willing to be curious to listen to the stories of those we’ve distanced ourselves from?

3. What is my role in creating change? We can no longer wait for leaders or laws to create the changes we need. It’s up to us, and it’s the only way the world ever changes--when a few friends start talking. Am I willing to assume the responsibility for creating the changes I want to see in the world?

Click to read the rest of The Five Conversations We Need to Have Right Now.