Professional Documents
Culture Documents
of Self
* This section is intended to be used as a guide. The best trainers will take
this material and make it their own, working in their story of self throughout
the presentation and pulling on actual exapmples from their lives and their
organizinatiosn or campaigns.
Tell your 6 min story of Self, Us and Now as it relates to this particular
training group, campaign etc. Use the Story of Self Worksheet in the
participant guide and the Barack Obama video to help develop your example
story.
Trainer Tip: Assessing your audience, illustrate stories that will resonate
with the participants i.e. David and Goliath or Moses.
We tell stories to motivate others to take action with us. We tell stories to
enable others to understand who they are and why to take action. Story
telling is a leadership art that “enables others” to understand their individual,
community and immediate calling. A good story helps us make decisions in
our own lives, by illustrating how a particular character overcame a challenge
There are 2 ways in which we understand the world around us : why (story)
the heart; how (strategy), the head. Both lead to action, but we need to learn
to lead with the head AND the Heart. Organizing without a strategy isn’t
driven, doesn’t lead us anywhere, like walking blind. But having the best
strategy in the world doesn’t matter if we’re not motivated to implement it
and we can’t get anyone to join us.
Audience Engagement: I want you to think about the lived experiences that
have moved you to action…we’ll be drawing on those a few minutes as you
start to craft your own stories.
There are emotions that inhibit action and others that motivate us to act.
• Has anybody felt these emotions before? Have they inhibited you from
doing anything, from taking action? Have you seen a community with
some of these feelings? What are the actions of a community that has
these feelings?
• Have you been in a moment that your community felt with URGENCY?
Has anyone felt that in your communities – ANGER? Have you felt
HOPE, SOLIDARITY AND YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE (YCMAD)?
What is a Story?
Trainer Tip: Ask participant to name a recent movie that has just come
out. Using that movie, illustrate how every movie and story follows that
same basic structure. Pull out from the participant the specific details of the
character’s
Stories havechallenge,
a commonchoice and A
structure. outcome.
Plot: something unexpected happens to
the character, and then the character needs to make a choice, then that
choice yields an outcome – and that outcome teaches a moral.
What happens when there’s no challenge? What happens when the story is
all challenge and there’s no outcome?
In this session you will be learning how to tell your story of self, but there are
3 parts to public narrative:
Trainer Tip: Because your audience may have differing opinions opinions
of Barack Obama, make sure to explain that we use this video because he is
a great speaker, and this is a craft he learned and we are here to teach you
the same craft.
Debrief:
Audience Engagement: How do you feel after hearing that? What specific
stories or examples painted the challenge and choice for you? What did you
want to know more of? Would it have had the same impact if he had said “
My name is Barack Obama, I went to Harvard Law school where I learned x
and y. Then I was ran for Illinois State Senate, and won. I really support John
Kerry because of x,y,z and you should too?”
Review the story of self worksheets and learning team agenda before the
groups break out.
Trainer Tip: Remind the participants to focus on 1 or 2 choice points in
your life that teach others about what values move them to be here.
Roleplay
Roleplay the learning team breakout agenda. Have a team of 5 people come
up and go through the agenda and model a good breakout session.
Call up 2-3 participants to share their story of self. Ask the audience to
provide good coaching feedback
Leadership Definition
Go back to our definition of leadership. How does public narrative fit into this
way of practicing leadership? (Stories help us learn to make choices in the
face of uncertainty).