Inspiring Tables
Inspire and motivate a group through the sharing of personal experience
Practice
Inspiring Tables
Inspire and motivate a group through the sharing of personal experience
The purpose of this method is to inspire the group by having one or more people tell a real-life story related to a topic that is important to participants. By using embodied narrative, this exercise feeds the organisation’s culture as it allows knowledge or values to be passed on and appropriated through emotion and empathy.
First-person storytelling is a way to reconnect with the ancestral tradition of storytelling. A poetic bond of transmission is forged between the members of the audience and the narrator, with his or her story becoming, in a way, our own.
Time needed: 40 to 60 minutes
Materials:
As a facilitator, you work beforehand with the people telling their inspiring stories so as to ensure they share their experience and not give a presentation: the first person must be used and no PowerPoint allowed!
Prepare Your Storytellers
The people sharing their life experiences at these “inspiring tables” can be managers, colleagues, experts, leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, innovators, etc. The profile of the people sharing depends on what you want to inspire. Here is the outline you can give them to help them in preparing to share their experience:
Each person sharing their experience sits in one of the previously prepared conversation spaces. Participants then join them. When there are no more chairs, there is no room: a natural invitation to choose another person to share their story.
The last 5 minutes of this time are devoted to noting down the key points to remember from the discussions. To do this, you invite participants to complete the harvest canvas.