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Inspiring Tables
Inspire and motivate a group through the sharing of personal experience
Pratique
Aims
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.
Instructions
Time needed: 40 to 60 minutes
Materials:
- Conversation spaces (without tables) for 5 to 10 people
- Pens or markers to write
- One harvest canvas per table (see example below)
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:
- The environment: where is your story set, who are the main characters and what is their situation at the beginning of the story?
- Key Points:
- What were the original intentions of your story, of the project?
- What were the facts, milestones and encounters?
- How did the story develop with the people you interacted with? Successes, difficulties, fears, impacts, etc.?
- What was your personal experience as an actor in this story?
- What did you learn / take away from this experience at a professional level? on a personal level?
- Finally, remind them to pay attention to the pace of storytelling, i.e. to identify beforehand which parts to expand on and where to move more quickly.
Key Steps
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.
- Story Sharing (12 minutes)
Before giving the floor to the people sharing, you tell participants that they cannot interrupt while someone is sharing. You can, however, encourage them to write down their questions and what surprised them. - Discussion (15 to 20 minutes)
You invite participants to ask questions and share their comments with the people who have told their stories.
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.
- Debrief
The sequence may end with the following question to the whole group:
“What are the main themes/actions/ideas that emerged from this time of inspiration?”. This question is for both the people who shared and the participants.
Tips and Advice
- If time permits, you can offer participants several rounds of inspiring tables in a row (2 to 3 maximum). In this case, the debrief is done at the end of all inspiring experiences shared.
- This method is rewarding for the person sharing their story. Their story and the questions it triggers are an opportunity to revisit and learn new lessons from their experience.