I recently subscribed to Shawn’s Worldwide Story Work group on Ning, and joined Steve Denning’s discussion on ‘Are we guilty of manipulation simply by using stories?’.

For me, the answer is ‘it depends…’. It depends on my intentions for telling the story - I may be telling the story because I hope to inspire others to share in my unique but currently unrealised vision, it may be that I tell a story so I can help others make sense of a complex and ambiguous issue, or I might be telling a story in order to seduce someone that I hope to become more intimate with.

Also for me, story telling is not inherently about guilt or manipulation, it is merely a vehicle for intention. I feel that if my intention is to manipulate a situation, then I will use whatever tools might be available to me, and story telling might be one of them. My manipulation of the situation may be driven by egocentric greed, or it may be inspired by selfless sacrifice, but the story telling is merely an expression of my specific intention, rather than something to be judged separately as good or bad.

The Steve Denning style of story telling process often becomes a one to many broadcast which is more about the story teller than the story listeners.  However, in Dreamwork we don’t really use story telling as a tool to attempt to effect some organisational change.  Instead we create a group space in which self authored stories can emerge from the seeds of group intention and individual experience.