Annette Simmons’ Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins is about using storytelling as a tool for communication in the workplace. Our principal chose it as this year’s assigned reading for the teachers, and it’s a great choice. It isn’t geared toward educators, but its lessons can be easily applied to the classroom.
Simmons’ target audience is businesspeople, particularly the kind who get hung up on objectivity and rational decision making. Her point: It’s okay to tell stories. In fact, it’s a great way to get people past their hangups and working together more productively. It’s not something about which I needed much convincing since I tend to tell a lot of stories in the classroom.
The bulk of the book is advice and strategies for using those stories that we all carry around with us anyway to enhance our communication, build trust and influence people. It’s a good read and her sense of humor – and her stories – keep things moving along.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
That was my mantra, when I worked in politics–I advised our candidate to tell stories whenever he could to illustrate ideas. People wondered what a fiction writer like me was doing in politics, but I thought it was a natural fit.
And I’m sending that next post to my daughter, who just started teaching (as a sub; she’s got no teaching degree but wants to try it out).
It does seem a natural fit actually. Pols are forever telling stories and it’s often effective, though sometimes they do so at the expense of depth in explaining policies. Still, story makes those kind of things more human.
Thanks for passing along the post.