I've made a surprising discover lately regarding narrative practice and the business world. I've read two business books over the last couple of months and it seems to me that narrative ideas are beginning to bleed into corporate America in a surprising way. Now how is it that capitalist's are more accommodating to narrative ideas then our own mental health practitioners? Not sure, but a little of what I have found follows:
Exhibit A: Tell To Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story by Peter Guber. Yes, it has the unfortunate "win at all costs" title that sells books in our culture, but inside what you find might surprise you. Some of the headings in the book include;
The Beauty of Metaphors
Witnessed Experience
The Hidden Power of Backstories
What Fuels Emotional Transportation
Playing The Story Forward
I would argue that you could find several of those headings or similar, in many books about narrative practice. This book still suffers from the discourse of competition and ideas about winning in business, but it was surprising all the same.
Exhibit B: REWORK by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson. We all know how narrative practitioners love to put RE in front of everything, Re-author, Re-story, Re-whatever, its become code for narrative practiced here. Well now there's Re-work. The authors, not narrative folk by any means, have done a very nice job of building quit a counter story to many of the dominant discourses that have floated around business for quite some time, unexamined. Some of their headings include;
Don't Be a Hero
Reasons To Quit
Throw Less at The Problem
Welcome Obscurity
Make Tiny Decisions
Go To Sleep
Yes, they do still fall into several dominant ideas out there in the business world but for the most part, they work to build an effective counter story for much of the discourse that still commands corporate America.
So I'm on the look out for that next book that moves these ideas further into the business world. Maybe it could be mine. I mean, I do have some material I could start pulling together...
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