Danger of Stories

In this week's class we are studying the power of stories as well as the limitations of speaking and how people listen. The jury is out on how just how much people "listen" by usage of body language versus spoken word. As a matter of fact two of texts contradict each other on this idea. The Professional Communicators Toolkit (Whalen) says 75% of communication is body language, while Denning's The Leader's Guide to Storytelling pretty much says Mehrabian, the guy responsible for the study that came up with that number, derived that from a specific set of laboratory environments and added a great deal of extrapolation. I'm inclined to agree with Denning as I have interacted with people with whom there is a significant language barrier and while my posture, facial expressions, and gestures may indicate mood and intent they cannot deliver meaning. To assign a number to that seems meaningless. There is no doubt that body language is crucial to communication but to pin a number to it would be an attempt to quantify a variable that exists on a sliding scale.

Another distinct limitation is something I am going to call the Storyteller's Myopia. I will elaborate on that more below but it relates to the video of a novelist's experience with what she calls the "single story." Chimamanda Adiche gave a talk on the dangers of the single story. Before I elaborate on communication and stories it will help to understand Adiche's point. People will draw conclusions on things that are foreign to them based upon the stories that they are told regarding that subject. In her case she had drawn conclusions about Mexico that weren't accurate. Likewise she had encountered the dangers of the single story while interacting with her roommate. This gets into ethnocentric behaviors that aren't germane to THIS entry but need to be addressed in the greater scheme of leadership. Modern organizations may span the globe and ethnocentric attitudes are a barrier to effective leadership.

 What Adiche is also saying and what I am going to call the Storyteller's Myopia is as a storyteller you need to be aware that the stories you tell are going to influence your listeners in many ways. You want to take care to not interject ethnocentric ideas into your stories. Also you want to be aware of how your actions within a story may be perceived by your listeners. The rule "know your audience" is just as important here as well.