According to an article by HBR – Storytelling can make or Break your Leadership.
How many leaders in your organization are great storytellers?
History is full of evidence that the worlds greatest masters, leaders, influencers and change makers were great storytellers too. Storytelling is not to India though. The Foundations of one of this oldest deep rooted civilization on earth seems to be storytelling. I often say that India is a land of stories. This could be the reason why, inspite of several attempts to uproot their culture, rituals, beliefs and places of worship, we still stand strong.
Why Storytelling is THE most powerful way of communication?
It’s a fact that we are fundamentally narrative creatures. Right from the time a toddler crawls and plays with toys on the ground and suppose he or she breaks something and you ask them – who broke this? and don’t be surprised if they reply saying that spiderman came from the window and pushed this glass and it broke. Without any formal training of storytelling, it seems that we are naturally wired to communicate through stories.
India has always had stories being told and retold in different ways, mainly through performances. Infact the whole tradition of this country has been through art and the literature embedded with stories, especially the ways the stories are told.
One such form of storytelling in India is the Pandavani.
Pandavani literally means stories or songs of the pandavas, the legendary brothers from the epic of Mahabharata.
The storyteller in the Pandavani get so immersed in the story with flawless transitions from a male to a female and to a demon, the act can be rated nothing less than brilliance.
The storyteller was infact the custodian of the tradition of the community, the rituals of the community and also the narratives of the community.
One more form of storytelling I am reminded of is the Yakshagana.
A semi classical dance drama that began more as an oral tradition but has today transformed into a classified form of enactments and songs. It’s a folk tradition in the southern part of India that is said to date 1600 years back. The enactments are stories of gods and goddesses and other beings in a way the audience can understand.
Another storytelling tradition in south India is the Nangiar Koothu, a powerful mesmerizing group that narrates the story in Sanskrit and re narrated in the local language like Malayalam with modern day living moral lessons.
Kavad form of storytelling in northern India, Kathakali and kalamkari again in south India, Baul in Eastern India, and many many more.
India, Mythology and Storytelling
India has some voluminous literatures like the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagvata, Puranas, Upanishad, folk stories to name a few. These stories were the foundations of the almost every society in India. The Master Disciple wisdom and knowledge transfer was mainly handed down to generations through stories. Maybe this verbal transfer of wisdom could be the very reason that the Indian culture stood and survived the attacks and destruction on its land, people and literatures. However let me also open up the flip side of these invasions. There was such a mockery made of this culture that stories were replaced by black and white texts. They had a silent agenda to belittle stories and anyone who would tell a story would be tagged a immature fool. To their success, this agenda worked so well that in India we lot at the word STORY from a made-up or fabricated negative connotation. “abbey story muth bol, dekh abb ye ek naya story bolega, chal suna tera story are dominant in local vocabularies. However, it is the west that once again popularized this word and it is spreading across the world like wild fire.
Can Storytelling help in Business?
Storytelling need not be confined to the framework of wisdom transfer in a social setup. Since storytelling is a powerful proven way to bond and connect with humans at the core level, we can pick up the art and science of storytelling and apply it to the business environment as well. Its just like saying that, if you know to play cricket with the leather ball in a stadium, you can very well play cricket with a tennis ball or a rubber ball on a small ground or even a small lane and ooze out the fun of playing.
So if you know the art and science of storytelling, you can introduce it to any other dimension of life, be it teaching, coaching, mentoring, training, leading, selling, business or even politics.
So where would business leaders learn storytelling?
So here we come to the point. Leaders need not necessarily have a huge stock of stories. To learn how to practice leadership storytelling, you can invite the master storyteller from Mumbai – India, Mr Mathew Thomas.
I tell Stories to simply wake up stories in other people. Every living being is a mountain of stories.
To learn and master the art and science of storytelling, it’s a great idea to connect with Mentora India’s Mathew Thomas and infuse this skill in your leadership team TODAY.
Hey, still unable to decide ? why not take a quick masterclass course on Udemy by Mathew Thomas. Its selling like a hot cake there.
Now with these two quick options, choose on any one. Happy storytelling.
To know more about the business storytelling workshop click here
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