Reflection – Story telling

Challenge & Selection

I have heard many leaders in my organization start the town hall meetings with a small story, which narrates  the purpose of what, we do and why we do. It really connects us with the speaker and creates curiosity in  listening to his talk for the next 45 minutes. I am passionate about training and teaching. I use to conduct  workshops for regulatory writing team who are responsible to write the documents required for the approval  of the dug by Health Authorities. Writer’s job is to narrate a story – making complex content in to readable,  clear, concise and complete. I always think that something is missing in my workshops, which i could do  better. Later, I realized that a small story to connect the audience would be beneficial to break the eyes and  direct the focus of the audience.

Application

I would like to take this opportunity to share an example where i used story telling during my lectures. I use  to take classes for students in my leisure time. Before, I start my lectures I used to ask two questions to the  students. Why are we here? How can we utilize this irreversible time a memory. Always students learn  theory in their classes and often struggle to connect with the real world application. I used to tell them a  story about my learning journey – reading theory without orientation towards its application in the real world.  It takes a lot of time to connect dots – what we learned, how are we applying in a given scenario. Students  use to question me curiously about the situations where i applied the learnings and I use to cover my content  of the talk while answering those questions. Most of the time, the lectures use to be conversation and  provoke their thoughts on asking right questions (which i feel is an important attribute to inculcate in  students).

Insight & Approach

Sometimes due to diverse questions, the focus of the topic is slightly diverted and it ends up in an  opportunity to learn and discuss how people pursue their learnings. Slowly overtime, I observed that  students started the habit of narrating their views using small experiences, which they face in day-to-day  life. I use to give assignments and as a group, they use to present a topic during the class. I was a surprise  to me to see different patterns of their narration and it was a revelation for me to dig into more tools related  to storytelling. I realized that, I am a boring teacher with unstructured stories. This session gave me an  opportunity to reflect on myself and think how we can keep receiver in center and how they would like to  hear from us. I understood that, it was not just telling a story but it was about how you connect with others  using this tool. How do we maximize our impact in a short time.

