Explain the Process to Your Story Circles

After you have organized your Story Circles (as described in Chapter 2), but before they begin sharing their stories, explain the steps. Here's how I explain the steps:

The First Teller Tells a Story.

The story circles will begin as they traditionally do. Explain this first step: “John, let's say you agree to go first. You'll begin by telling your story.”

Group Members Suggest Titles (Teller's Choice).

“Group members, after John tells his story, don't forget to thank him! Then take turns suggesting a title for his story. The title can be funny, or exaggerated, or straightforward. A compelling title is good, because it will increase the interest from members of the other groups. But ultimately, this is John's story, so John gets to choose his title. John, you can us one of the titles generated by your teammates, or you can come up with a completely different one on your own.”²

Capture the Title on the Flip Chart.

“Write the title of John's story on your flip chart.”

Repeat until Everyone's Story Is on the Flip Chart.

“Now it is the next person's turn to tell their story. You will go around the circle and repeat the process. When you are done with the story circle, you will have four fascinating story titles on your flip chart.” (Or three, five, or six, depending on how many people are in the story circle.)

Ask whether there are any questions. If not, begin the story circles.

Begin the Story Circles

Allow enough time for the groups to complete multiple rounds of the process described above. Remain mindful of the progress that the story circles are making. If necessary, help them manage time. (“We are at the halfway mark.
Fifteen minutes left.”) Because you will be able to see each group post their story titles to flip charts, you will have a clear visual cue to each group's progress. For example, you can see that the group in the picture below is now exactly halfway through their process.

Close the Story Circle Experience and Select One Story to Retell

After the story circles have ended, explain to the story groups what will happen next. “Look around the room. There are a lot of stories that were told today! I bet you're wondering what some of your colleagues said. Let's find out.”

Have each team select one story that will be shared with the larger group. I think the phrasing of this instruction is important. I do not ask the team to select the best story or their favorite story. This implies a judgment about the quality of the stories, and we're not interested in judging quality.

Instead, say, “Of these stories, which one do you think the rest of the room needs to hear the most?” Yes, this criterion is ambiguous and that is by design. If the team asks for clarity, instruct them to interpret the instruction however they wish. But I almost never encounter resistance. The group always knows intuitively which story needs to be heard! The story that the larger group needs to hear the most may be defined by urgency or by some special connection to the organization's most challenging problem—or it may be a story that greatly moved the team emotionally. Trust the team's collective intelligence. They will choose correctly.

Paul Costello says he has heard some team members complain that choosing a single story isn't “fair.”

Costello explains that whether it is fair or not, story is always subject to a selection process. Communities always decide which stories have power. This, too, can be a rich topic of exploration: What criteria are the community using? Whose stories are being heard? Whose stories are being suppressed? What does this say about the power dynamics of the community? Are there steps that must be taken to restore justice?

Recently I had a team tell me that they truly had a four-way tie and that they couldn't choose one story over the others. They asked whether they could read their four titles out loud and have the larger group vote on the one that sounded the most intriguing. It was a fun solution that produced a lot of laughter and energy. It also reinforced the idea that creative, skillful use of language can add to the value and intrinsic interest of a story.

Now each story group has selected one of its stories to present to the larger group, which means that teller gets to tell his or her story a second time. I always point this out to people. “If you wish, you can tell your story exactly the way you told it to your group. Or, you may be thinking there are things you'd like to change or present differently. It is up to you.” This gives participants an opportunity to begin thinking about presentation, style, and crafting. But improvement is not the driving focus.

Create the Story Theater and Begin!

This is another small gesture that should not be skipped because it makes a significant statement. Until this point, your story circles have probably been scattered about the meeting space, along with their flip charts. Instruct all the teams to take their flip chart stand (or flip chart page) and put them all together in a common area, such as against a wall. The idea is to see all the flip chart pages side by side. This invites participants to scan all the pages and see all the story titles—their own and those of the other groups, including several stories that they won't get to hear.

Next, invite all participants to either move their seats or stand in front of the wall with the flip charts in a theater crescent configuration. Thus, as each teller shares his or her story, all participants will be able to see him or her easily, as well as the full panorama of story titles.

Invite the first teller to step forward. Ask him or her to read all the story titles that his or her group generated. (This will create intrigue and interest.) Then invite the teller to tell his or her story.

After the teller is done, be sure to applaud and thank the teller. If you are comfortable doing so, you may make some appreciative observations about the teller's personal presence as well as content.

Repeat the process for all the groups until each group has shared its chosen story.

The Critical Epilogue: Name the Bigger Story

This is yet another symbolic gesture that has big implications.

Let's pause and reflect on what the participants have experienced at this point. They have had a chance to share a story with a small group, heard one of their colleagues repeat a story to the full group, heard a series of stories from other groups, and, importantly, seen the titles of many other stories that they haven't heard yet.

Something significant is happening here that you should not overlook.

At the beginning of the exercise, participants were naturally self-focused on the challenge of telling a story to their colleagues. For some this may have been a source of performance anxiety or social pressure. But at this point in the exercise, participants now see the title of their individual stories alongside the titles of many others' stories. This makes a big impact, and participants will palpably feel a shift from individual self-awareness to collective self-awareness. My story is not isolated. It exists alongside all of these other stories . . . and together they all come together to create a bigger story. It's the story of us. Our work, our identity, and what we are creating together.

I make it a point to draw that out explicitly.

To drive this point home, Paul Costello does something with groups that I now do as well. Take a marker, open a new flip chart page, and say to the team, “We need to come up with one final title. Imagine each of your stories is a chapter in a book. What is the title of the book?”

I find that the titles people generate tend to be somewhat predictable: “The Story of Our Values in Action,” “Leading with Quality and Excellence at Company X,” and so on. And that's fine.

The point here is not to generate something brilliantly creative but to create the awareness of a larger story and to validate that larger story by giving it a name. (In that way, this exercise connects to Chapter 11, “Fractal Narratives.”) You may only need to capture three or four ideas, because participants will sense the significance of this gesture almost immediately.

If you do wish to capture richer titles, and bring your team into a deeper discussion about the bigger story of us, Dr. Madelyn Blair recommends breaking the team into pairs and having them discuss title ideas. Their ideas will be much richer, and the process allows them to reflect more deeply on the idea of our shared story.

This is a celebratory moment. Congratulate all the participants, and encourage them to give themselves a round of applause. Sometimes, participants get excited and say, “Hey, we really should turn this into a book!” Whether these stories would make a compelling book (and whether you wish to get involved) is for you to decide. I just point out to people how this is a sign that they are energized and invested in their collective story. They are justified in wanting their stories to live and be heard.

In my work this activity always seems to end right before lunch. I encourage participants to continue to share their stories with one another over lunch, and to ask questions about some of those other intriguing titles!

Modifying the Exercise for Different-Sized Groups

This exercise is sensitive to numbers. It doesn't automatically scale upward or downward based on how many people participate. You'll need to make some adjustments.

Twice-told stories works ideally with a group of nine to 30 participants, with at least three story circles, and ideally no more than 10.

If you have a small group of three to five participants, the exercise will need to be modified. Keep everyone together in a single story circle. Have participants share their stories and generate titles on a single flip chart page. Because there are no other groups and therefore no other stories to hear, you will skip the story theater experience. Instead, go straight to the conversation about each story title being a chapter, and have the small group of participants generate ideas for the title of the book. Draw out the same points about individual contributions to the collective story, as described.

If you have six to eight participants, create two small groups. Run the exercise as described. However, when you get to the story theater, it may be a little anticlimactic to hear only two stories. Have the two selected storytellers take their turns, and then ask whether anyone else would like to volunteer—or whether anyone would like to volunteer a teammate. This may have the effect of bringing in a couple of more stories, or it may even result in everyone sharing. It's all good.

If you have a very large group, you'll need to do some pruning. Let's say you have 60 participants. If you place participants into groups of five, that gives you 12 story circles. Each story circle will need around 30 to 40 minutes to share their stories; then once everyone comes together, it would take well over an hour (12 stories at 5 minutes each) to hear each group's story in the story theater. If you have created a story retreat, in which participants expect to spend an entire day telling and sharing stories, then this may be acceptable. In a workshop setting with an active agenda, that feels a little long.

There are several options. Let's say you have 12 groups. If you have both the space and the time, you can create two separate story theaters in different rooms of 6 groups each. At the end, each can select a single story, so that when you bring the 12 groups back together each will hear the single story from the other. (This further illustrates the “emergent” selection process that is constantly happening with stories in social groups.)

Alternatively, you may simply wish to break up the 12 or more stories across the event. (“Let's hear eight stories now. We'll hear two more over dinner tonight, and the rest tomorrow morning.”)

Or limit the number of stories by asking for volunteers: “We don't have to hear from everybody today. Which teams feel especially motivated to have one of their members share their story with the larger group?” This serves as another level of filtering that will help the most urgent stories rise to the top.

Another Delivery Option

In the process described above, the facilitator introduces the idea that these stories might be imagined as chapters in a book. This is done as a creative exercise to make a point.

Paul Costello says his aim is to lead the listeners to become an “interpretive community,” and he, Blair, and Dietz have several creative ways to keep listeners immersed in the content. They will break the large group of participants back into groups. (They can remain with their original story circles, or you may wish to mix them up to bring some fresh energy into the exercise.)

There are several questions that Paul asks to engage the interpretive imagination, including:

If Hollywood made a movie out of this larger story, what kind of movie would it be? Tell me about the movie. Would it be a comedy? A tragedy? A drama? Why?

What actors would be best in the key roles? (Who here would be played by Brad Pitt or Meryl Streep?)

Would the movie have a sequel or a prequel? What would those movies be about?

Sometimes, Costello, Blair and Dietz will have the teams pursue the idea of imagining their collective stories as books by working on different assignments:

One team will create a cover for the book. Using a flip chart and markers, they will imagine what the front of the book looks like—including the image, any creative thinking they wish to do about authorship, best seller status, and other elements one typically finds on the cover of a book.

Another team will write a review of the book. Imagine someone—perhaps a literary critic, a famous business consultant, or someone completely unexpected—read this book about your organization. What did the reader say? How did the book make him or her feel? What made it strong?

Another team will create testimonials. This will be a series of short quotes from famous people, all saying positive things about the book. Why did they love it? Why do they recommend it to others?

As you might imagine, this exercise is a lot of fun and generates laughter and energy. But there's more going on here than just whimsical brainstorming. Costello says this is a process of defamiliarization. By running the story through these many filters, participants find themselves standing outside of the story where they can examine it with objective curiosity. “It's like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Costello says, “and reading about a lost community where all we have is this limited evidence to piece together a missing narrative.” More important, it keeps participants immersed in the idea that they are living a broader story while exercising their critical role as an interpretive community.

Where Do I Go from Here?

Because you are in the mind-set of enriching your story circle experience, you can add another level of engagement through the meaning-making exercises described in the next chapter, “Summoning the Muse.”