Transform by Daniel Goleman

Author:Daniel Goleman [Daniel Goleman, et al]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781934441480
Publisher: More Than Sound
Published: 2014-12-03T05:00:00+00:00

The Role of Storytelling

Goleman: Howard, one of the points you make about leadership, which I find very important—and it’s really missing in my model of emotional intelligence and leadership—has to do with the power of storytelling. Or, as you say, leaders achieve their effectiveness through the stories they relate. You make a very important point: You can make an impact by embodying the story—you can be the story as well as telling a story. In my own work I talk about how great leaders move us, but I look at more the emotional exchange—not what the medium is of that exchange—and I think very often it’s what you’re saying. It is these stories—it’s who the leader is, how the leader is, what the leader tells us. You talk about three kinds of stories. One is the ordinary story. These are the stories that everybody tells—in this sector, in this domain, in this company, in this school. Then there are the innovative leaders who bring some new attention or a new twist to these same old stories. And then there’s the visionary leader who creates an entirely new story. It makes me think of the role of storytelling in innovation and in creativity.

Gardner: I would want to make a distinction between the role of stories in the actual creative process and then the role of stories, as it were, in spreading the creation to others. I’m absolutely certain that a very important part of any new invention, whether it’s mechanical or literary or artistic, is a narrative vehicle which helps people relate to it—particularly if, as you say, it’s quite innovative and helps them understand the ways in which it is complementary to, or consistent with, or directly in conflict with, what you did before. I mean I’m thinking of probably the most iconoclastic painting in the twentieth century: Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. That was such a shock that he kept it under wraps for a decade because almost nobody could handle it. So I think the narrative around the introduction of something new is imperative. When it comes to the actual creative process itself, I think that would vary enormously. And I’ve never worked at an ad agency, but I would imagine at an ad agency narrative is very, very important. If you were working in a science lab and you picked up something askew—and you decide rather than ignoring it or throwing it away, you dig really deep into it. I think you could talk about a narrative in a kind of metaphoric way; namely, we used to phrase this one way, and now we frame it another. But I don’t think we need to have the story to tell yourself, though it’s an interesting idea to see how far you can push this story angle—not just in terms of public presentation and convincing, but actually in terms of creating the new ideas themselves. The reason many of us fell in love with Barack Obama is we read his book Dreams from My Father, and we said “What a fantastic human being to write this kind of thing.

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