Circle of the 9 Muses: A Storytelling Field Guide for Innovators and Meaning Makers

The action-based guide to powerful, influential organizational storytelling Circle of the 9 Muses captures the best practices of the world's most influential story consultants and knowledge workers to help you find, tell, and draw value from your organizational stories as impetus for action. This rich toolbox is loaded with fun, graphical instructions and dozens of unique, replicable, and facilitated processes that require no special training or expertise. You'll discover your organization's hidden narrative assets, use different templates and frameworks to tell the stories of your past, present, and future and then draw team members into rich meaning-making dialogue that translates into action. These activities can be exercised in endless permutations, and expert advice steers you toward the right activity for a specific purpose, including managing change, setting strategy, onboarding, defining the brand, engaging supporters or customers, merging cultures, building trust, and much more. Organizational storytelling is a powerful managerial tool and an essential change management technique. This is about your influence as a leader. Knowing the right story to tell and how to deliver it effectively gives you and your organization enormous influence, and helps connect employees to strategy by providing understanding, belief, and motivation in their personal contribution. This book is the ultimate field guide to becoming an influential storyteller, with concrete, actionable guidance toward all the storytelling fundamentals. Identify your organization's "narrative assets" Craft an elegant, well-constructed organizational story Capture, bank, and share stories with extraordinary engagement Facilitate a dialogue to draw out meaning and induce change The growing interest surrounding organizational storytelling has many change agents focused on "trying to tell better stories," but goals are useless without a plan of action. Circle of the 9 Muses helps you weave narrative wisdom into organizational development activities, engaging employees and driving change.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Dispatches from a World of Stories 1 Scene I: A Small Club in Nashville, Tennessee 1 Scene II: A Cave in the South of France, 1994 3 Scene III: A Conference Room Somewhere in Paris 4 It All Began with a Sheep 7 What’s Inside 10 Stepping into the Stream 17 9 Muse Story Recipes 23 Branding Recipes 24 Team Building/Relationship Building Recipes 25 Leadership, Strategy, and Change Management Recipes 26 Organizational Development Recipes 26 Part I: Fundamentals 29 Chapter 1: The Four Core Stories 31 Identity Stories 34 Vision Stories 35 Values Stories 36 Stories of Change and Learning 38 What Are Your Core Stories? 39 Three More Cores! 42 Where Do I Go Next? 43 Chapter 2: Host a Story Circle 45 Decide How You Will Frame It 47 Find or Create a Third Space 50 Decide Who Needs to Be There 52 Set Ground Rules 52 Put Participants in Groups 54 Begin the Session and Manage the Time 55 Your Role as Host 56 Ready to Get Started? 56 Where Do I Go from Here? 57 Chapter 3: Story Prompts 59 First, Some Don’ts 61 Plant the Suggestion 63 “Tell Me about a Time   ” 63 Story Buckets 64 Extreme Prompts 65 Emotional Prompts 66 Aspirational Prompts 67 Go Wide Open 68 Go for the Heart 69 Stories Beget Stories  71 Where Do I Go from Here? 71 Chapter 4: Capturing Fire 73 First, Pick a Story to Work On 75 Clarify Your Intent 76 Your Turn: What Is Your Intent? 77 Connect Your Story to Universal Plots 78 Your Turn: Choose a Plot Archetype 86 Other Story Structures: FWA 88 Declare Your Intent 89 Other Tips and Techniques for Better Stories 90 Technique 1: Throw ’Em Right into the Action 90 Technique 2: Add Emotion (“The King and the Queen”) 91 Technique 3: Add Sensory and Motion Information 93 Technique 4: The “MacGuffin,” or Gleaming Detail 94 Technique 5: Play with the Timeline 95 Technique 6: Make It Shorter! 96 Your Turn: Provide Some Final Polish to Your Story 97 Bringing it All Together: Geoff ’s Story 98 Where Do I Go from Here? 99 Part II: Branching Out 101 Chapter 5: Twice-Told Stories 103 Explain the Process to Your Story Circles 105 Begin the Story Circles  106 Close the Story Circle Experience and Select One Story to Retell 106 Create the Story Theater and Begin! 107 The Critical Epilogue: Name the Bigger Story 108 Modifying the Exercise for Diff erent-Sized Groups 110 Capture it Visually! 111 Another Delivery Option 112 Where Do I Go from Here? 113 Chapter 6: Summoning the Muse (Story Listening and Sense Making) 115 Meaninglistening and Storymaking with Your Team’s Stories 120 Roll the Dice! 121 Listen Better 123 Taking It Deeper: A Geography of Meaning 124 Option: Use the Archetype Cards 127 The Power of the Spontaneous Invitation 127 Meaning Making and Individual Conversations 128 “For Lack of a System”: A Story from Lori Silverman 129 Where Do I Go from Here? 130 Chapter 7: Story Circle Variations (Riffs, Jams, Jazz Licks, and Sitar Solos) 131 Visual Story Mining 133 Stories in Words 135 The Client Sets the Frame 137 Invite the Witness 138 Story Distilling 139 Audience Carousel 139 Getting Personal: Stories and Signifi cant Experiences 140 Show and Tell (“Relics”) 142 Capture Family Legacies 142 Chapter 8: Leadership Story Archetypes 145 The 16 Archetypes of the 9 Muses 149 Putting the Archetypes to Work 155 Identify the Frame for Conversation 155 Present the Archetypes 155 Place Participants in Groups 156 Have Participants Each Identify Three Archetypes and Write Them on Sticky Notes or Index Cards 156 Present Your Cards 157 Analyze and Discuss What Just Happened 157 Taking It into the Future: The Transformational Question 158 Using Archetypes as a Directed Listening Framework 159 How to Apply Archetypes to Your Stories 160 Where Do I Go Next? 161 Chapter 9: Future Story Spine 163 Where Did the Story Spine Come From? 165 Get Ready for This Exercise 166 Introduce the Story Spine 166 Start with the Climactic Event: “Until Finally” 166 Identify a Single Event That the Group Will Focus On 167 Complete the Story Spine! 168 Where Do I Go from Here? 169 Chapter 10: Visual Timeline 171 Identify the Story You Want to Tell 172 Establish the Start and End Dates 172 Draw a Line That Tells the Story! 173 Reflect for a Moment 174 Fill in the Story Details 175 Draw out the Meaning 175 Applications 177 Other Options and Ideas 178 Where Do I Go from Here? 179 Chapter 11: Fractal Narratives 181 Let’s Start with an Example: Values Stories 183 Storytelling and Institutional Memory 184 Other Fractal Story Frameworks 186 Where Do I Go Next? 187 Chapter 12: Fractal Narratives and the Hero’s Journey 189 The Manager of a Thousand Faces 191 An Introduction to the Hero’s Journey 192 Introduce the Hero’s Journey 195 Connect Stories to the Stages of the Journey 195 Option: Ordeal Storytelling and Prophesying Your Ending 197 Where Do I Go from Here? 197 Chapter 13: Story Element Extraction 199 The Classic Version: Working with a Few Stories 200 Going Deeper with Story Element Extraction 202 Distribute the Stories 203 Collect Ideas 203 Cluster the Answers 204 Name the Clusters 204 Describe the Attributes of the Clusters 205 Transfer, Group, and Name All the Positive and Challenging Attributes 206 Assess and Reflect 206 Chapter 14: Creative Tension Pictures 207 What’s Going On Here 209 Options for Creative Tension Pictures 210 The Fast Version: Visuals Speak 211 Build it, via the Think with Your Hands Methodology 212 Where Do I Go from Here? 213 Chapter 15: Strategy Is a Story 215 A Journey of Heroes 217 Example: A Strategy Narrative “Message House” 220 Share the Story 221 Strategy Is a Storyboard 224 Option: Cast the 9 Muse Archetypes in Your Storyboard! 226 Where Do I Go Next? 227 Chapter 16: Innovation Storyboarding (and Storyboarding Frameworks) 229 Classic Innovation Storyboarding 232 The Fast Version 235 Other Storyboarding Frameworks 236 An Example: My Creative Process Storyboard 236 Building the Exercise 238 Now Begin the Activity 240 Where Do I Go Next? 241 Storyboard Your Offering Using Presentation Software 241 Chapter 17: Step into a Story: Story Field Trips 243 Identify the Special World 246 Issue the Call to Adventure 249 Cross the Threshold 250 Bring Back the Elixir 252 The Stories Keep Working on You! 253 Chapter 18: Digital Storytelling 255 Comic Book Applications 256 Movie-making Applications 258 Slide Applications 259 Photo Book and Storybook Applications 259 Image Resources 260 Appendix 263 The “Icon Cheat Sheet for Left Brainers” 264 The 10 Story Types, the Seven Basic Plots, and the 36 Dramatic Situations 266 Booker’s Seven Plots from The Seven Basic Plots 267 Polti’s 36 Dramatic Scenarios 267 Bibliography 270 Contributors, Partners, and Friends 274 About the Author 290 Connect with David 291 Index 292

About the Author :
David Hutchens is an author and creator of learning experiences for organizations around the world. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Learn more at www.DavidHutchens.com