Thanks for visiting. The start of this 100 day journey with days 1 to 10 can be found HERE. The posts previous to this one i.e. days 11 to 19, can be found HERE.

Day 20 – Where are the stories?

Today asks us to reflect on where stories are used. This is quite a tricky one, as I visit MK very rarely. From my perspective as an AL I see stories via email, OU Social media, tutor home and occasionally when I meet people face to face. Overall there is very little face to face engagement, which is possibly the best disseminator of stories. People on campus may have a different perspective.

Most of the stories I read are about academic or student success, there seems, imho, to be very little about leadership or transformation.

I am curious to see what my OU Social Leadership “tribe” come up with for this day.

Day 21 – Formal or Social?

Generally as an AL, most of the stories I receive are of the formal variety. Typically delivered by email or tutor home and occasionally at a professional development day. I do not sense that within my AL community that much social storytelling is co-created. Partly this I think is due to the nature of the work being part time and so there is possibly less need to engage with the broader organisation.

Secondly and I think a bigger issue is that the communication systems are not set up to work / lead socially. We still use systems that assume that mail, occasional conferences and telephone calls are the way communication is done. Outside of the OU, I am using MS Teams, yammer, basecamp, wikis, skype, zoom, Adobe connect, Trello, WhatsApp, Telegram and Slack to manage communication across projects and teams I am involved with. We need to use the systems we have better (ALS are not yammer / skype for business integrated) and consider what else is needed. Training on current tools could help. Between Adobe Connect, Yammer and Forums, there are a lot of possibilities.

Day 22 – Responding to stories

I recognised after posting my tweet on this topic that I could be pretty negative about this topic. I imagine for those that are MK based, sharing stories and arguing opinions is fairly easy to do, as people are in the same spaces / areas. Being an AL means that there are less physical “spaces” to discuss things. I think we have the technology to create dialogue via virtual spaces via Adobe Connect etc  but we certainly do not have the habit.

Current spaces I have “easy access” to are: AL Forum, AL Facebook group, Module Forums. Potentially I could add Yammer, Skype and the phone PLUS grabbing a coffee when in MK (A very rare occurrence).

I started playing around with a few images for today’s post and thought in the end I should share them all. I am most happy with the lowest one, which seems to be the least negative.

Day 23 – Bridging the Gap

Interesting questions on stories…

How can I be a filter? I think I can engage and challenge people around what they / we / I am hearing.

Where and how can I hear feedback? See previous day. Mainly asynchronous channels

What can you do about it? Listen more, engage more positively create more dialogue around what is being said (goes back to Fifth Discipline / Systems Thinking).

An example with noise: The whole OU Transformation / Students First debacle with the previous VC. So much noise and very little “adult” conversation.

On reflection, we all have a role to play is raising the quality of conversation and the use of stories We can raise or reduce the noice created around topics of interest. Dialogue is a critical skill that everyone needs in order to do this well.

Resource wise, I really recommend “Illuminate” by Nancy Duarte & Patti Sanchez. This is a great book on the use of stories and more in transformation. HERE is one of my earliest sketchnotes on key content pieces of the book (a really poor drawing though).

24 – Narrative and story

This day asks us to write a story about how stories are used in the organisation. I am really struggling with this and so will have to “pass”. I am keen to bring this up at the next MeetUp in order to see what others have done.

25 – An action day

Today is an action day and we are asked to share our story. As I am struggling with a story, I am going to reflect on storytelling. I have run course on storytelling and I am comfortable with telling stories but I am just not getting clarity around a story on storytelling. Here is my action day image again….

Day 26 – Charting difference

The idea of sense-making and helping people work through differences seems pretty natural to me as my day job is as a professional facilitator. I am not sure the storyteller role is that of helping/ shaping others stories. It is that of giving your perspective on a situation. Where I can can do this in the OU, is in the communities I am currently a member of. The challenge is how and where (once again). Face to face seems easier.

Day 27 – Types of story

This day asks us to consider what types of story we share. Most of my storytelling is written. To some extent this is the nature of the organisation and I guess for me, the easiest. I rarely develop other types of media. Time is the biggest barrier. Developing video, animations and audio is on my “to do” list. I am also looking at how I can use visuals.

Day 28 – Length of stories

Generally I think stories shared across the OU are short. They often seem to expect the listener / reader to know the context and this is not always true. Quality is critical and the pressure of day to day means that often messages are sent out that are incorrect, addressed to the wrong people or missing essential context.

Generally I feel we need to get better at storytelling and communication in general.

Day 29 – The best storyteller

There are a whole number of people crafting and sharing great stories.

Overall I am really impressed with the “Acting VC”. She seems very engaged and collaborative and seems very proactive in asking for feedback, stories and engaging people in co-creations.

This ends the section on curation. The next segment of the 100 Days journey is “sharing” and this can be found HERE.

Thanks for reading. I would love to get your feedback!