Mentoring Through Stories
Everyone loves a good story. From our earliest days as children, to the movie we watched last night, our desire to be entertained and engrossed in a good story has not changed. Why? Because a good story fires our imagination, makes us feel fulfilled, and can even drive initiative and change in our thoughts and behavior.
Stories are also a great way to mentor and be mentored because they can convey deeper meaning and do so in a context that resonates more personally than a lecture or “how-to” listing. Why this is, comes down to the simple fact that a story, told correctly, conveys the mentor’s lesson with action, suspense, drama, and humor. Who doesn’t like to receive the essential elements of truth through humor?
The success of this method of mentoring comes down to delivery. As with any good story, your mentoring version needs to have the basic elements standard to any good yarn:
Setting. When and where does the mentoring element take place? Typically in mentoring, you’ll focus on the time, the place, and the social conditions—when, where and who.
Plot. This is the structure of the story: intro, increasing action, climax, falling action, and then the golden nugget of mentoring knowledge.
Conflict. Without conflict, there is no plot. In our mentoring story, the conflict will come from some problem we solved. Perhaps the problem is about interpersonal skills, continuing education, how we overcame tight deadlines or the nightmare project. In literary terms, the conflict in your story can be cataloged as internal or external; you vs. someone else; you vs. circumstances; you vs. society (the machine); you vs. yourself.
Characters. Your story will have protagonists (you) and antagonists (everyone else).
Point of View. The POV is the angle from which the story is told. In mentoring stories, this is most likely first person. However, stories about the success or failure of others can be relayed for mentoring purposes as well. I’m a strong supporter of learning from others’ successes and failures.
Theme. This is the controlling idea or thought. In mentoring storytelling, you need to select the piece of knowledge you intend to impart, and then build the story off that theme.
I’ve delivered mentoring via stories for years without even thinking about it, and if you’re a mentor you may find that you do as well. Besides the elements listed above, you’re mentoring story needs to be impromptu, personal, and delivered without formalized structure. Otherwise, it’s not a story ... it’s a lecture. And all of us learn more from a good, personal story than a lecture.
“Any event retold from life that would appear to carry a meaning, however small, is a story.”
—Ben Okri
