Kevin Brooks made me tell a story
by petermeToday at UX Week, I attended Kevin Brooks’ presentation on storytelling. Dan has written extensive notes on the session, so I won’t repeat that.
What really struck me was the exercise Kevin had us all do. We paired up with someone we didn’t know. For 2 minutes, one person told a story (about something they made of which they are proud), while the other person simply listened. The listener said nothing, just attended to the storyteller. It’s a remarkable exercise, because, among other things, you realize how exhausting it is to tell a story for two minutes straight to someone who is not vocally responding. As a listener, it’s fascinating to be forced to simply listen, to not look for opportunities to intercede, follow-up, be heard.
Within 5 minutes (after both people told their story), the tenor of the room had changed dramatically. Most obviously, the exercise had forced us to explicitly consider the acts of listening and storytelling. Surprisingly, you learn the power that you can have through listening without responding.
It’s an exercise that can be a great way to break the ice between teams that have never worked together before, and definitely something to add to the toolbox.
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August 16th, 2007 at 2:29 am
I went on a creative coaching course where this technique is used… the second excercise after the one you describe is to do it again but with the listener responding empathetically without using words… even more difficult which shows why observing people in close quarters is challenging… it’s doing it for real that’s the challenge!!