Chapter 2
For this exercise, you will need:
- A comfortable space or third place (as described in “Find or Create a Third Place.”)
- Chairs or cushions
- A reason to tell stories
Here's how to host a story circle:
Step 1: Sit in a circle, facing one another.
Step 2: Take turns telling stories.
That's all there is to it. Really. Class dismissed.
Recently I visited my teenage daughter, Emory's, high school on a pretty day, and I saw her and her friends sitting together on the grass just after lunch. They were in a circle facing one another and telling stories: stories about boys, about chemistry tests, about driving, and about music. No one instructed them to do this, and they didn't take any facilitator training on how to host a good story circle. But they looked deeply engaged to me. I suspect my daughter will never forget those conversations on the lawn.
The story circle is the foundation of all of your narrative practices. It is an exceedingly simple structure that delivers incredibly robust data about the work, the organization, your shared leadership … and so much more.
A story circle is a universal organizational structure, one that is created spontaneously and naturally wherever Homo sapiens have gathered over the millennia. Since the beginning of humanity, every community that ever gathered around a fire naturally formed a circle—driven equally by a need to absorb the fire's warmth and to see one another's illuminated faces fully. King Arthur seated his knights at a round table where position was equalized and learning was a shared responsibility. And today, organizations all over the world are discovering the group mind, the emergent collective intelligence that is generated when its members purposefully engage themselves in the circle structure to tell stories.
In its purest form, a story circle operates a lot like my daughter's friends on the grass; there is no defined driver or outcome other than the human need to meet in a place of shared connection. But leaders are tasked with creating movement and alignment, so often some specific outcome is desired. Shawn Callahan, of the Australian firm Anecdote, brands his process as “anecdote circles,”1 which are distinguished by a thematic framing, a strategic direction, a targeted question, and a purposeful intent to draw usable meaning from the story.
Whether you call it a story circle, an anecdote circle, or something else, this chapter introduces you to one of the most fundamental building blocks of your story work. As you'll discover, story circles can be combined in endless configurations with other activities.
Here, we will stay focused on a single purpose: creating meaningful experiences where your team members can tell purposeful, value-creating stories toward some strategic end that you define.
Honestly, you could probably host a story circle right now without reading any further. After all, you do it all the time. Just set aside a little time, and follow the two-step process above.
Of course, a few nuances will make the experience even more valuable.
Decide How You Will Frame It
In an organizational context, a story is defined by purpose. Why are you bringing people together to tell stories? Here are some scenarios where I have applied story circles:
- A national association of librarians needed to uncover new, innovative ways of thinking about their changing roles and the value they offer in the instant-information age of the Google search bar.
- A small nonprofit organization wanted to uncover emotional and inspiring stories of its impact in the community. (Its original intent was to use the stories for fund-raising and marketing, but it discovered the process to be equally productive for organizational development.)
- A bioscience sales organization known for its aggressive approach wanted to uncover new and fresh ways of thinking about how it engages with customers.
- A group of graduate students, facing a tough job market and their first experiences with interviewing for employment, wanted greater insight into their own stories of marketplace vocation. (“Who am I beyond my grade point average, and what is the change I wish to be in the world?”)
- A consumer products company had a new generation of young employees who did not know the company's history (recent or distant), and leaders wanted them to have an opportunity to connect their own stories to that history. (In the process, leadership was shocked to discover how many seasoned members of the organization were also unaware of the company's identity stories, and they expanded the scope of the offering.)
- A food products company was making difficult organizational changes and wanted to give all team members an opportunity to process their mixed feelings about the future while envisioning how their work might evolve.
- An engineering firm, facing declining market share, wanted project teams to envision new ways of thinking about their future and drive the conversation for defining the strategy.
- A multibillion-dollar energy firm in the Middle East wanted to capture the history, or institutional memory, of a complex project that it was still in the middle of, to identify key challenges and decisions that could be used in knowledge transfer for future employees.
- A medium-sized company wanted to do a better job at collaborating and learning from one another across functional lines.
- One of my colleagues uses story circles with small businesses in her community as an alternative to the traditional focus group for research purposes. That is, instead of bringing a group of (say) customers together and saying, “Do you like your spicy buffalo wings breaded or unbreaded?” she has them tell stories about their most special dining memories at sports bars. The data she gathers is so much more robust and enlightening than traditional customer surveys.
- A global retail organization wanted its technology leaders to develop stronger teams with members who were emotionally engaged and personally committed to the work.
- A small team in a small organization simply wanted to build their appreciation for one another during a retreat.
- A global consulting firm wanted to help new employees in their onboarding process connect their dreams and aspirations to the mission and history of the firm.
That's just a sampling of the kinds of purposes where a story circle can generate a bottomless well of insight and learning. That said, if it is what your context requires there is nothing wrong with leaving the agenda as open as possible, with only the stated outcome of increasing connection.
You should expect story circles to serve as divergent structures that open up ideas and generate possibilities. It is a prime-the-pump experience, as opposed to putting the team in execution mode. The pure story circle experience should be framed in terms of creating possibilities, although it can certainly be connected with other exercises in this book for generating specific, actionable outcomes. (For some of those ideas, see the Story Recipes in the Introduction of this book.)
Articulate the frame—the big-picture why—of the session before you begin. Broad is good. When you invite participants, tell them the purpose: “We're going to set aside some time simply to hear one another, share our experiences around the new product launch thus far, and begin imagining where we could all go together next.”
Come to the circle. This universal structure works in every culture and any context. Notice how much these storytellers and listeners are using their bodies and their hands. (Notice, too, the complete lack of smart phones, tablet computers, PowerPoint slide shows, or any other technology crutch.) This is the purest form of human connection and meaning making.
A spirit of generosity should accompany this framing. Mary Alice Arthur is a leader (they call themselves stewards) in the global Art of Hosting2 movement, and she says that the framing is really an invitation. “People like being invited,” she says. “And people often don't have that feeling of invitation. Maybe that's why so many people are so forceful when they want to make a point—they don't feel listened to and they get that they are not really invited; therefore something in their psyche has to push their point into the conversation.”
Find or Create a Third Space
Here's a sure way to kill your story circle. Have your participants come to the conference room, and say, “We are here to tell stories. But I know you're all busy, and another group needs us to clear the conference room by 3:45. So let's get to work. Ready? Start.”
The more you structure the story circle like a meeting, the more you can expect to see meeting-like behaviors, such as participants self-editing, deferring to the senior people, leaning back disengagement, and conversation marked by short, imperative statements as people grit their teeth, glance at the clock, and hope that their to-do lists aren't getting too much longer. An important first step in creating a story circle, then, is distancing the experience from people's expectations.
Starbucks says that its rapid growth can be attributed equally to its customers' insatiable thirst for coffee as well as their social hunger for a third space—an alternative location that is neither home nor work—where spontaneous encounters and social connections can emerge. The idea of the third space was popularized by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book, The Great Good Place. He says that the third space is defined not so much by its physical location but by its psychic location. A true third space is typically characterized by the presence of chance connections and unhindered dialogue, as in the famous French salons of the seventeenth century, which became hothouses of new ideas and social reform.
Storytelling needs space to breathe, and for that it needs a third space.
If we're going for the ideal scenario, we would find a third space that feels like a retreat, and is separated from our daily, distracting reality, that is relaxed, open, and flooded with natural light and surrounded by natural beauty or perhaps among inspiring architecture where the hum of exotic, urban energy draws out our best creative impulses.
Oh, but your only option is the old, windowless conference room in the basement? We can work with this. The third space can be symbolic. The idea is to do something that represents separation from the typical.
At the very least, I always have people push away from tables and desks and sit facing each other. I usually make a bit of a ceremony out of this: “No tables between us! We are going to be fully present and facing each other. Move your chairs into the empty spaces of this room. Move the furniture! Make a mess!” This has the effect of establishing a third space with an expectation for increased presence, even if you're not able to take more dramatic measures.
Even having a table of food and drinks can help create the sense that this is not a meeting, but something different, social, and open, where we can encounter one another in more human ways.
You can plug your laptop into the room's sound system and play some rock music as people walk in. (I like to play The Beatles. No one complains about The Beatles.) Music acts as a social lubricant. Social engagement increases in a room where music is playing.
If the weather is nice, and there is a nice grassy area outside, you should certainly seize that opportunity. It almost feels like playing hooky from work, which is a bit of a paradox because urgent work is taking place.
My colleague Barry Rellaford is a master facilitator for FranklinCovey, and I'll never forget his approach to creating a third space. He calls it “walking stories,” and he simply invites everyone to pair up and leave the room or the building and walk around the parking lot, around the hotel lobby, or down the street and back. This has several advantages. Because participants are side by side, it reduces eye contact, which may decrease vulnerability and increase a feeling of social ease and comfort,3 and the walking increases heart rate and endorphins, which stimulate the brain to think more freely. It's a great way to create a third space, and because it is a dramatic pattern disrupter, the event tends to be extremely memorable. It also offers an elegant time management structure: “When you get to the corner of 18th Street, turn around and start heading back. That will be the second person's time to start their story.” I can still recall vividly the first time I experienced walking stories when Barry sent us all out of the room on a sunny day in Salt Lake City. I was surprised how willing I was to share some personal things with my new friend walking next to me.
A “third space” for stories. At the European Center for Executive Development (CEDEP) in Fontainebleau, France, executives will take their story circles to the lovely wooded lawn when the weather is nice. It almost doesn't feel like work.
Decide Who Needs to Be There
This is up to you and depends greatly upon your objectives. But if you are in doubt, it is good to err on the side of diversity. Having participants from different functions, different regions, different levels, or different stakeholder groups can lead to enormous appreciation between groups that are normally separated by silos. My friends at Plexus Institute are creating exciting change in complex health-care environments by bringing surgeons, administrators, and even janitors and other environmental services staff into the same circle for shared learning. You'd be amazed by some of the surprising insights that surgeons can draw from the team that brings in the linens and wipes down the beds. And imagine the impact it has on the environmental services staff to feel truly heard by the leaders at the top of the organization.
Think outside the typical players! My colleague Christine Martell, creator of VisualsSpeak image prompts, says she is astounded by how often her clients have story sessions about the customer—but they fail to invite the customer to be a part of the event!
Sometimes when I work with groups, there is a good reason to keep members in their functional groups for the story circle. But when that's not a requirement, I always prefer randomizing the group so that people can hear stories from others in the organization whom they might otherwise never have the opportunity to talk to. These surprise connections tend to deliver the most impactful and transformational story experiences.
A story thrives in a diverse environment, and it can be a powerful way to knock down the walls between groups.
These are examples of ground rules I use frequently, but your unique gathering may demand different rules. The principle is to keep them simple and minimal.
Set Ground Rules
When the session begins, frame the boundaries of conversation with some minimal ground rules. The rules should have the effect of liberating behavior—not limiting it.
Here are some examples of rules that I will often include on a flip chart.
- Don't Disagree. I always point out that stories are subjective, and that you may hear people tell stories with style or even content that you disagree with—or may not even like. As my dad always says when my mom starts correcting him, “Pat, this is my story!” (If you wish, this is a good place to talk about mental models and the fact that each of us views the world through a unique lens.)
- Thank the Storyteller. It may seem like a small thing, but it creates such a generous environment when every story you tell earns a response of “Thank you for sharing that with us.” It can be a vulnerable feeling to share a story; affirmation is like sunlight to a spring garden. If participants forget to thank a storyteller, you can model the behavior. After you say “Thank you” to a story once or twice, the habit will quickly catch on.
- Talk Like Yourself. In most cases, I will emphasize that this story experience is not about performance. We aren't asking participants to become charismatic public speakers. “Just talk the way you always talk,” I'll tell them, “even if, you, stutter or say um and ah too much. I'd rather you tell the right story, a strategic story, than to tell the story well.” I've discovered that people need this permission. It's amazing how I always feel the anxiety leave the room when people are released from story-crippling performance expectations.
The exception to this, of course, would be any scenario where you are focused on the quality of presentation and delivery—such as in a communications skills or media relations program.
- The Rule of Two Feet. My colleague Graham Williams uses this, and it is a recurring principle of Art of Hosting methodologies.4 The rule of two feet is a dramatic statement that says, “You don't have to be here. Your presence is an act of free will, and we want this event to include people who want to be a part of it. At any point, if you feel like there is more value to be found elsewhere, you're welcome to leave.” What a bold statement! And yet, it establishes an enormous amount of trust, neutralizes any feeling of coercion, and increases the commitment in the room: Simply by remaining present, the participants are testifying to the relevance of the event.
- Respect Confidentiality. If you anticipate that the story session may contain sensitive information, then make a statement about respecting confidentiality.
Communicate any other minimal ground rules that you think are important to the participants.
Also communicate any other expectations or unique procedural items. A story circle is the most basic structural element in storytelling, and it can be combined in endless combinations with almost every other process in Circle of the 9 Muses. Do you intend to capture the stories on video or audio? Do participants need to capture story elements on flip charts? Are you going to ask them to write their stories down for input in a story bank or database? Will you include any feedback processes (such as those described in Chapter 6, “Summoning the Muse”)? Are there other activities on the agenda? Make sure your participants know what is going to happen during the session and after their stories are told.
Story circles are scalable. Whether I have just four people or a crowd of 1,000, the setup and facilitation is the same. The only adjustments are for space and number of chairs.
Put Participants in Groups
Smaller groups are better. Make it clear that everyone is expected to share. Most often, for a typical story circle I work with groups of four or five, rarely more than six. Three is a minimum. (Of course, one-on-one dialogues or interviews may leverage a story, but that is a different structure that we will explore elsewhere.)
If you have a large group with many participants, the smaller groups take on an added dynamic. Once the multiple groups start sharing stories at the same time, the room will fill with voices, laughter, and infectious energy.
Begin the Session and Manage the Time
What story do you want people to tell? Share a prompt or framing question. (You might wish to review Chapter 3, “Story Prompts” now.) Write it on a flip chart, or project it from your computer onto a large screen. I find that participants keep looking back to the framing question, examining each word as they begin searching their brains for the story they want to tell.
I ask whether there are any questions before getting started, and there usually aren't.
There will be an awkward moment at the beginning of the experience when people feel the pressure of starting the process with a story. I even tell my groups to expect that: “You will feel hesitancy at first. That's because we are putting a structure on something that you normally do naturally. But that awkwardness will pass quickly. So whoever has a story can go first. If you don't have a story yet, don't worry. It will come!”
Then just say, “Okay! Go!”
You will also manage the time for the session. I know many colleagues who impose no time structure for their story session, and they allow the day to unfold with its own self-organizing structure. However, I often find myself in workshop or meeting settings where it is important to manage time, so I'll tell members approximately how many minutes they have for their story. Three minutes is a pretty fast story, but workable. Five minutes allows for a comfortable amount of detail. I find that 10 minutes is too generous for a single story and may result in a meandering or unfocused story. (Better to have two 5-minute stories than a single unfocused 10-minute story.)
You'll need to crunch the numbers based on how many participants you have and the time. At 5 minutes, a story circle of four people can share in a period of about half an hour. (Four people times 5 minutes is 20 minutes, plus extra padding for comments and conversation. Always pad with extra time!) If you are adding rounds of listener feedback or meaning harvest, as described in Chapter 6, “Summoning the Muse,” you'll need to build in time for those conversations as well.
If you are not limited by time and you are creating a more open story session, it may still be advisable to run a single cycle at 30 minutes so that participants can practice telling their stories under constraints. Then you can run additional cycles of the story circle with those time limits loosened or removed.
So far I've taken quite a few pages to capture the nuances and details of the story circle, but in reality much of this will be invisible to participants. Story circles work best when they are brisk, loose, energetic, and not burdened by a lot of formality.
Your Role as Host
As host, your role includes some basic facilitation duties. These include answering any questions and monitoring the time and the progress of the story circles. If it looks like some teams are lagging, you can make announcements at the halfway and three-quarters points: “We are about halfway through our time now. Ten minutes left.”
During the actual telling, I stand off to the side and become invisible. I don't want people telling stories to me. They are there to connect to one another.
Most important, your job is to believe sincerely in the wonder and value of every human being who is in the room with you. Believe it, and wonderful things will happen.
Ready to Get Started?
See? I told you this would be easy.
Building your skill in hosting a story circle is foundational. There's nothing more basic than bringing people together and asking them to tell stories.
It's basic, but it also takes a little bit of practice. You might want to try hosting a few story circles before you move on to the more advanced techniques (such as the fractal narratives or the archetype extraction). Make note of what works, and what doesn't. Graham Williams compares this work to fishing. Sometimes, you drop a line in the water and don't get any bites. When that happens, be still and remain present. The stories will come eventually.
And sometimes, there is a gift. Someone will bring something true, human, electrifying, and unforgettable. This doesn't always happen. I can't predict when it will or won't, and I can't predict who will bring it. But when it happens, you will cheer, you will cry, you will be shocked or astonished, and the experience will stay with you forever. When was the last time that happened to you in a business meeting?
In this chapter, I have dedicated many words to this process that, at the start, I claimed was very simple. Don't be intimidated. Yes, your story circle deserves all the disciplined planning and design you wish to bring to it. But you'll likely find your loose and spontaneous experiences just as rewarding and surprising.
In fact, if you haven't made any plans for lunch tomorrow, why not reach out to a few colleagues and friends right now and ask them whether they will meet with you to share some stories?
Where Do I Go from Here?
Story circles connect to everything in this book! This is the keystone—or, if you prefer your metaphors to be imbued with a living pulse, the heartbeat—of your leadership storytelling practice.
A natural next step is to simply turn the page and begin reading the next chapter, “Story Prompts,” so that you can think more specifically about framing the story experience.