Narrative: The strength of Story

Daniel Pink writes about story as a key competency in the new conceptual age. He writes about the importance of narrative in selling and in communication generally and about how we respond at an emotional level to story. We therefore remember a story where we may forget the facts.

Even doctors are getting into the action. Narrative medicine is become a popular and effective way to solve medical mysteries. One of my favourite doctor TV shows, House, uses this approach as they unravel the mysterious diseases that plaque their patients.

Narrative mediation has been a popular means of assessing resolving conflict for more than 20 years. Teaching as a profession has embraced story telling as an instructional method since the time of Socrates and beyond. Most cultures pass on their mysteries and puzzles through stories.

Stories are important and if you can learn from and teach with stories you are ahead in the conceptual age. This week I completed my first novel. It is a story I wrote for my grandson, a speculative fiction set in 2025 to encourage him that his future is his to design and with the competencies that Pink revealed to us in his story of the whole new mind; design, empathy, symphony, transcendence, imagination, narrative and yin and yang which represent balance to me, my grandson and you both have a bright DESTINY to look forward to.

Tell a story today. Practice story telling and watch how people respond. People listen to stories and relate to them finding equivalents in their own lives. What is your story?