Four excerpts from a fantastic storytelling exercise at the Lean Culture Meetup by Mark Tweddle.
Mark Tweddle Asks, “What’s Your Story?” at Lean Culture
In the clip below, Mark shares his passion for connecting groups and building strong teams. Mark Tweddle is co-founder of YouTellYours. He’s highly qualified with a degree in Electronic Engineering and an MBA from Imperial College, London. Intensely practical, Mark initially focused on project delivery, management consultancy, and then video production. Now his mission is to help people connect through the practice of storytelling, seeking to end the dysfunctional team experience that we all too often endure. His podcast is at https://anchor.fm/mark-tweddle
One tip he shared was to ignore the shrimp. You just might learn something new!
Mark Tweddle reminded us that while sharing our own experiences and knowledge is good, we often underestimate the importance of listening to others.
Mark skillfully guided us through some storytelling exercises. One jigsaw exercise started with Mark sharing how his wife enjoys jigsaw puzzles. We talked about what each of us enjoyed doing during the pandemic, how jigsaw puzzles and legos were a good/bad problem-solving metaphor, embracing constraints to unleash creativity, trips we are looking forward to taking again, and mistakes we made putting diesel fuel in a hybrid car.
In the short video snippet below, Mark shares a significant reason we fail to use the power of storytelling.
As a result of our storytelling session, we have made deeper connections among the attendees. We made lasting bonds.
Ed Ipser wraps up the session with his favorite goodbye –
SKMurphy take: Mark’s warmth, insights, and facilitation skills made for an engaging and thought provoking hour. He outlined a very practical approach to story telling that is clearly effective for team building. I found two of Mark’s guidelines particularly compelling: “The Truth is Enough” and “Avoid Opinion: Consider the Senses.” A story is more effective if opinion is replaced by a more detailed exposition of multiple sense memories.
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We also have a category of the blog devoted to founders stories.