20 Tips and Pearls about Working with Story
I recently asked Bob Dick to share what his 10 tips and pearls of working with Story might be… I found them so inspiring I decided to add my own along to the list! 
Here they are:
1. Once upon a time, someone told a story. And learning began.
2. You want to remember what happened? Remember it in the form of a story.
3. One person tells a story. This triggers a story from another person. This triggers yet another story …
4. Stories for diagnosis — they yield meaning at many levels
5. Homo sapiens, certainly. But also homo fabulator: story-telling humankind
6. To tell a story: where did it happen, what happened, who was involved? — setting, plot, characters.
7. To elicit a story: What happened? Where did it happen? Who was involved?
8. Stories of achievements: an energising and involving way of catalysing a change program
9. Archetypes are powerful communicative elements. Stories are their container.
10. A powerful start to a diagnostic interview: Tell me about … or Tell me what happened …
11. Collective identity is shaped by shared story. Telling the shared story revitalisea that identity.
12. All stories are true but some have happened.
13. Get a group to create a fairy tale. We all know how they begin, how they end, and the characters inside.
14. Fairy tales are like metaphors packaged and ready to use.
15. To be a great Story listener: Be totally present to yourself and the story teller.
16. To be a great Story listener: Remember that stories are told twice. Once by the teller, once by the listener.
17. Stories are irreducible.
18. Stories can embody complexity, paradox and uncertainty.
19. What’s the untold story? What’s the alternate story?
20. Stories are action methods, they both show and tell us what’s happening.
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