Story Listening for
Teams & Organisations
Clinics, Experiences, Workshops
& Graphic Facilitation
by Digital Storytellers
Most of us now realise the value of good storytelling - to be able to convey authentic and emotive experiences, is to connect with people in a much deeper way.
An ancient skill, with modern applications, stories give us an unparalleled capability to navigate change, make sense of the world, and chart a path forward that is equal parts inclusive, insightful and inspiring.
At Digital Storytellers, we have built a culture of creating impact through storytelling, the kind that helps amplify the good work happening in the world around us. Over many years, we have taught the craft of storytelling, often using accessible and smartphone technologies in both 1: few and organisational environments.
However, what we've found is that - to navigate the challenges of our time - we don't just need capable and purpose-driven storytellers. We need leaders who can combine story telling, with story listening - one of the three core pillars of what we call: Story Leadership.
Story Listening is both the art and the science of actively, consciously and mindfully listening to someone’s story and responding thoughtfully. It is both receiving and having your story reflected back to you with engagement and empathy.
Story Listening also involves creating spaces, rhythms and architecture or mechanisms in your organisational or community where people are invited and encouraged to share their stories and experiences, and - critically - have those stories heard.
Listening is arguably the single most important element in the communication process, even more so than speaking (Flynn, Valikoski & Grau, 2008). And while the ability to listen, evaluate and respond to the ‘story data’ around you is a critical skill for individuals to develop - research also suggests that listening is also characteristic of organisational culture, and something that will become increasingly more important for leaders.
“Story can go where quantitative analysis is denied admission – our hearts”
-Harrison Monarth,
The Irresistible Power of Storytelling as a Strategic Business Tool,
Harvard Business Review, 11th March 2014
Here's how Story Listening can be used in your organisation:
- Foster team connection, engagement and resilience
- Deepen levels of trust and increase wellbeing
- Surfacing your team or community's collective values, purpose or vision
- Co-create and build strategy
- Strengthen empathy and engage in problem-solving through lived experience and cultural intelligence
- Collective sense-making, building shared context and language
- Creating adaptability in navigating change, complexity and transformation
- For human-led collaboration, inclusion and belonging
- Empathy-driven design for creativity and innovation
- Move beyond hierarchies to flatter, more democratised organisations with greater transparency
Story Listening can be integrated within broader organisational initiatives such as:
- Strategy - building a long-term strategy or crystallising your vision and mission
- Flexible work - creating a more caring and flexible workplace with hybrid or remote teams
- Workforce development - leadership training and upskilling programs
- Change management processes - culture shaping and navigating change (scaling up or down)
- Employee or stakeholder engagement - transparency and trust-building
- Impact measurement - reporting, communications and key messaging
- Innovation - think tanks or creative ideation processes
“Leadership is about being better able to listen to the whole than anyone else can.”
― C. Otto Scharmer, Theory U: Learning from the Future as It Emerges.
Clinics & Experiences
Whether it's a half-day clinic or a series of Story Listening sessions, here are some ideas for how we can help:
- Celebrate the start or end of year, or mark the launch or close of a project
- Include a fun, interactive team-bonding, discovery and learning activity at your company retreat
- Invest in personal and professional development for your employees, or leadership development for your executive team
- Use Story Listening as part of a story-driven process to inform and shape organisational strategy and planning
- Working with complex ecosystems change? Use story listening to help the system see and understand itself
- Run a foundation or CSR initiative? Engage us to hold a Story Listening process with your beneficiaries and use the gathered stories as part of awareness building or impact measurement
- Undergoing organisational change or a restructure? Use story to help the team navigate change
- Engage us as Storytelling Partner for workshops or programs to build your beneficiaries' capacities for Story Leadership.
We build bespoke Story Listening Clinics and experiences for your organisation or community's unique needs. Sessions can be done in-person or online, and can include Graphic Facilitation.
Graphic Facilitation
Map your story out in an engaging and shareable takeaway (virtual only for now) during the Story Listening process
A Graphic Facilitator or 'Story Scribe' can help you create a visual capture or 'story artefact' as the session unfolds. This will provide participants and wider community with valuable visual information of the key insights and takeaways that engage all types of learners.
The strategic or story illustrations created during this process can be used by you and your team/group for testing the story with the community and stakeholder, but also for creating collateral for social media, brochures, documents, and more.
Our artist can deliver a high quality summary of the sessions key themes, messages, ideas, and vision as a digital export in JPEG, PDF or video. You will have a rich graphic illustration of all your thinking in one place, easily able to bring engagement to your future communications of your story, however you want to bring that life.
Professional Development, Education & Capacity Building
We also facilitate seminars and workshops to teach individuals and groups practical, applicable story skills that they can integrate into their personal and organisational practice.
Story Listening is part of a suite of Story Skills we call: Story Leadership
Focus on Story Listening, or develop broader Story Leadership skills across the three areas of: story telling, story listening and story weaving.
Our workshops are participatory, and can be run online or in-person, for both small and large groups.
Based on your needs, participants will:
- Learn and experience firsthand how story is processed in the brain, and why it is so powerful
- Engage in interactive exercises and hands-on applications of Story Leadership skills, so they walk away with new skills to apply in both personal and professional contexts
- Unpack real examples of organisations that have successfully applied Story Leadership in the field
- Receive resources and takeaways on each of the three pillars of Story Leadership (telling, listening and weaving)
Are you ready to unlock Story Leadership in your organisation or community?
Our Work
Here's what some other organisations have created with us.
Shining A Light on Paediatric Sepsis – Queensland Health
Over 8000 people die of sepsis in Australia each year, with 11 million deaths globally.
While anyone can develop sepsis, infants and young children are at a higher risk, and statistics show that sepsis is a leading cause of mortality in children.
We conducted a series of Story Listening and capacity building workshops as part of a new strategic plan for sustainability in the sector, helping to grow awareness and capture the stories and recommendations of those impacted by paediatric sepsis in an effort to improve its diagnosis, care and outcomes. The results provided a story-powered foundation for a Five Year Sustainability Roadmap, which centred around personal stories and illustrations to help them continue their life-changing work.
“We’ve been tackling paediatric sepsis from a clinical perspective, but this year – with everything going on – we were willing to try something different to get our message heard. I suggested storytelling might be a good way of engaging with our stakeholders, but also staying true to the experiences of clinicians and families impacted. I could not be more thrilled with how the project turned out, and we now have so many rich and heartfelt stories to draw on when talking about our work.” – Kate Weller, Manager Queensland Paediatric Sepsis Project
Read the full case study here.
Virtual Campfire Team Storytelling Session – WorkFront
In today’s fast-paced digital world, it is increasingly difficult to build authentic human connection and engagement.
WorkFront approached us to host a story-driven experience for their employees to reflect on the tumultuous events of the year, to nourish connection and to celebrate the year’s end.
We designed a 90-minute ‘Virtual Campfire’ for team members to gather and share stories. Taking participants through a process of individual reflection, sharing in small groups and open discussion, and using story and narrative as a sense making tool - the group’s stories were brought to life visually.
This 'story artefact' harvested key insights and went on to spark further discussion amongst the team, in addition to a three minute edited ‘highlights’ video featuring key ideas from the session.
Learn more about the project with WorkFront here.
A ‘Story-Driven’ Process: Strategic Communication & Visioning – SAP
SAP’s Social Sabbatical is an industry-leading volunteering initiative that connects the business skills and expertise from SAP employees with social enterprises and non-profits globally.
SAP wanted to find a memorable way to engage, shape and share a narrative and embed a culture of storytelling in their program for even greater impact.
We facilitated Story Listening workshops with stakeholders to gather stories and insights from experiences with the program. Using our unique story-led facilitation process, participants journeyed through the past, present and future of the SAP Social Sabbatical initiative, exploring rich storytelling themes from transformation and culture change to empathy and diversity.
Our team then drew out key themes, messages and discussion topics, producing an exciting visual tool to promote further conversation and ideation beyond the confines of the workshop.
Based on the insights generated through the workshops, together we were able to craft the building blocks of an Impact Story Strategy using our Story Canvas and Campaign Roadmap.
Learn more about the process with SAP and results here.
Leading Through Story
Seminars and Workshops
– University of Wollongong
The University of Wollongong’s UOWx Seminar series aims to prepare the next generation of leaders with the tools to lead in an uncertain and rapidly changing world.
Digital Storytellers presented a session for the series, introducing 80 students from various disciplines to the power of storytelling for organisational change and business transformation. The highly interactive session comprised group activities and individual exercises to engage participants with the concepts of story listening, story weaving and story telling as leadership tools.
Coupled with real-world examples, the session highlighted how storytelling can be used effectively at a senior level in organisations to engage and innovate. The session was live scribed by Graphic Facilitator, Devon Bunce, who created a visual snapshot of the discussion for students to take away and for UOWx to share more broadly.
“This workshop was very educating and fascinating! Great skills gained from it and the activities were fun and it was good to reflect on our experiences.” - UoW Student, participant
“This was a wonderful seminar and I hope that it continues in the following years to come.” - UoW Student, participant
– Australia Awards / Scope Global
The Australia Awards are prestigious scholarships offered by the Australian Government to emerging leaders from around the world, giving them the chance to study and research in Australia.
Digital Storytellers was invited to deliver a virtual workshop for current scholars and alumni, focusing on how story can be used as a tool for leading in communities, organisations and initiatives, through listening, engaging and understanding stakeholders views and perspectives.
The participants also learned practical tools and techniques for creating and sharing stories to inspire and persuade across various platforms and mediums, including virtual presenting, digital storytelling and written stories.
“I am very much thankful to Australia Awards for organising such an impressive professional development training on storytelling. This session was an enriching experience for me. I have found many of the techniques and tips from the session directly relatable and applicable in my workplace for persuading and inspiring positive change.” - Kencho Lhamo, an Australia Awards scholar from Bhutan who is currently studying at Edith Cowan University
Find out more about Australia Awards in the full case study.
Want to learn more about Story Leadership, our story ethos and approach?
Visit our blogs on Story Listening, Story Leadership and story-powered systems change:
- Story Listening: the underrated skill of good leaders
- Why story is exactly what we need to navigate this VUCA world
- What it means to lead through story – five organisations doing it well
- How to create a storytelling culture and why it matters
- Story-powered systems change – using story to imagine a more regenerative economy
"When we hold space, we become like a container that can host more of the complexity of the situation" - Ash Buchanan
More about us
Let’s change the world together, using the power of storytelling.
In this distanced, fast-paced and digital world, storytelling can bring people and communities together and tell stories of impact and empowerment.
Digital Storytellers is a purpose-driven storytelling agency with decades of collective experience working with communities and organisations to craft a narrative for a better world.
Through film production, bespoke storytelling workshops, animation, and story clinics - we help people learn the skills they need to change the world through story.
We are also a Certified B Corporation and a Social Traders Certified social enterprise, meaning we embody the change we seek in the world through our products, practices and profits. We see interdependence between stakeholders and the community as a strength to be celebrated.
Together, we can redefine success through storytelling.
Our Team
Movers, shakers and changemakers
Our creative team has been organically sourced from the best changemaking communities around the country. For eight years we've been making stories that drive positive impact.
Why does this matter? Because, working with us, you'll benefit from the insights and experience of a team who are experts in their fields and passionate changemakers in their own right. We believe that because of our expertise, teamwork and creativity, you'll receive a higher quality result for your project than any one individual can achieve alone.
As a business, we work hard to ensure we have a positive and evolving culture, and we believe that shines through in the passion and dedication we bring to our projects.
Learn more about the backgrounds of our team and the communities we play in.
