REFLECTION- STORYTELLING

CHALLENGE

The first tool I used was the tool of storytelling. It takes years to study

and pratice Design Thinking, but for some it is natural. A team of me and my friends started a venture called Little big Stories, and we were looking at how to essentially coach storytelling at Little Big Stories. There were various people trying to codify things and put them into decks, but it didn’t seem to be getting traction. We wanted to do something experiential, to give people the experience of developing and presenting a story in hopes they would become advocates of storytelling. We started doing events in many parts of Pune city in the state of Maharashtra, India. Tim Brown in his “Change by Design” book mentions the fact that “we mostly rely on stories to put out ideas into context and give them meaning. Without a story, many ideas fade along the way, products don’t succeed, brands fail, and people are forgotten. Stories and storytelling is what we create and do everyday. From telling your loved ones how was your day, to telling your project manager how to move forward with a project, everything we say needs to have a story behind, so it can be understood and remembered.

SELECTION

We initially got people to tell stories from their own lives. We wanted to take

people away from the professional mode of storytelling. We had this concern that people in Little Big Stories projects felt the work was so important they had to tell the stories a formal way. We deliberately got people telling stories about their lives, but coached them through a structured process on how to tell those stories. The idea was there would be a transference effect going back to their working life; they’d have this experience of how to develop a compelling story.It was a rewarding process because we had these events where people surprised themselves with how good a story they could tell, and we had this unforeseen effect that Little big stories people telling their life stories brought everyone together in a new way. It was like, I’ve been working with you this whole time and I never knew that about you. It worked as a cultural bonding and was really gratifying.Stories can help activate a sense of purpose by really connecting

you to the person you’re creating the product for.

APPLICATION

Through stories we move people, we convince them to support our

ideas, we encourage them to spread our message. We have developed many ways over the years on how to deliver our stories: from books to movies, to coffee-talks and social media; storytelling is what sets us apart from other species and makes us human.Storytelling is fundamentally a subtractive medium. A good story is about reducing down to the essence. We can use the analogy of the stars. If you look at a sky full of stars, you can’t make sense of it. If you take a few stars, link them together and make a constellation, now you’ve got a cool picture of a bear and that’s memorable. It’s the same with storytelling, you need to reduce it down to something essential that people can engage with.

INSIGHT For this reason,Brands rely so much on storytelling. As an example, in any perfume commercial, the viewer gets plunged into heavenly world in which one gets superpowers and can achieve anything. The brand tells a story about how the buyer feels and how their life will change if they buy the product. “Stories reinforce the emotional reasons” and that is why we remember, and we pass it on to other people. Stories are crucial for brands because they are a powerful tool to make a significant

impact.

We were trying to do education in disguise; it was kind of sneaky. What seemed

really fun and human, actually had an education component. The surprise was the effect of the stories, it was like an exercise in people bringing their whole self to work, and everyone responded in a terrifically positive way.There’s something really interesting happening in education. We tell ourselves a myth about beating creativity out of kids—that kids are really creative and by the time we become adults, we stop being creative. I don’t think we beat it out of kids. I think it’s more subtle, that kids abandon creativity because it doesn’t give the quick reward other behaviors do. In the same way they abandon carrots because Cheetos are more fun, or they abandon wooden toys because Call of Duty is more fun. If you look at how the brain works, we’re wired for rewards. Extrinsic rewards are attractive to kids, and creativity falls by the wayside because it’s actually an intrinsic reward.

APPROACH

People should now recognize storytelling as a design discipline in its own

right. Even though storytelling is as old as time, it is still the most common activity we do every day. Therefore, this ability that makes us unique is at core of innovation process and problem solving, and hence the key element in Design Thinking.

