Building a Storytelling Culture and What’s Next

We’ve been at the centre of the story sharing and the interviews we do are each a gift. Maybe it’s time to share that gift.

Thursday, December 11, 2014 -- Peter Pula

Culture will eat strategy for lunch – and stories shape culture. This article, Building a Storytelling Culture, by Julie Dixon points out that most of us agree our organizations and communities should develop a storytelling culture but that knowing what to do about it is a bit dicier.

One of the key points is engaging people in the story finding and telling process. For the last 15 years of working with clients, Axiom News has been reaching out to the grassroots members of our client organizations to discover what is alive in their work at the moment and sharing those stories in written and video forms.

Julie makes a perfect point about engaging people in the story gathering journey. We’ve been experimenting with this too. Some things have worked but usually only for a time. We are now experimenting with small-group dialogues to bring people together in close conversation about questions that matter to them.

By interviewing one person at a time and sharing their story we have seen some remarkable things occur in client systems. Our thought and wonder is: What would happen if we took the same approach but involved more people in small-group conversations about the stories alive in their lives, invite them to hear from each other directly, and then work with them to explore what story comes next?

We’ve been at the centre of the story sharing and the interviews we do are each a gift. It seems that maybe it’s time to share that gift. By hosting intentional conversations and inviting more people into the experience our thought is that the intention of the stories in the first place will be felt more deeply.

More to Come

You can comment on this blog below, or e-mail peter(at)axiomnews.com.

Blogger profile

Peter Pula

Peter Pula has been exploring the pathways to social evolution since founding the Grassroots Review in his hometown of Peterborough in 1992. Since then he has served on the boards of civil society and arts organizations and served as board president on two of them.

He has been actively involved in federal politics and led a corporate communications firm. Axiom News was incorporated under his leadership in 2009 and went on to establish the practice of Generative Journalism in an international arena.

In 2015, Axiom News founded and funded the Peterborough Dialogues in its hometown. The Peterborough Dialogues hosted over 350 deep community dialogues, established and refined hosting arts, and has had lasting impact in the Peterborough community. For this work in community, Peter was awarded the 2017 Brian L. Desbiens Community Service Award by Fleming College after being nominated by his peers and members of the community.

Peter works in support of deep democracy and passionately but lightly-held spaces for citizen-led community development. He believes that artfully hosted dialogue and generative media making are together a necessary social innovation for cultivating local-living abundance.

Peter is an artful dialogue host, newsroom director, team leader, mentor, trainer, and consultant. He can be a supportive force in the cultivation of initiatives in your community, network, or organization.

He has been invited to host dialogues, summits, workshops, and learning circles in Canada, the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and most recently in France.

If you would like to enjoy an exploratory conversation about engaging Peter in appropriate ways to enliven or enlighten your initiatives, you can reach him directly by writing to peter@axiomnews.com.

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