Sharing Stories

Context

In group work, systems change, and complex collaboration, people often come together across lines of difference—cultural, organizational, ideological, or personal. These spaces require high trust, vulnerability, and a deep sense of shared humanity to function well. But at first, most of what we know about others is external: their title, their tone, their affiliations, their output.

Problem

When we only see each other from the outside, we fall into:

Premature judgments, projecting assumptions onto people’s actions or words.
A tendency to reduce people to roles, labels, or categories.
Lack of empathy, especially across unfamiliar experiences or identities.
Hesitation to take relational risks, share concerns, or reveal uncertainties.
Collaboration that remains functional but shallow, missing emotional depth and trust.

Without insight into each other’s internal context—the values, histories, and experiences that shape who we are—misunderstanding is common, and trust remains fragile.

Forces

People crave connection, but often feel unsafe being vulnerable in professional or cross-boundary spaces.
First impressions are often incorrect, yet quickly become sticky.
We tend to judge others based on behavior, but ourselves based on context.
Deep trust cannot be built through facts and data alone; it requires emotional resonance.

Solution

Invite the sharing of stories—especially personal stories that reveal values, lived experiences, and motivations. Use story as a bridge to internal context, humanizing others and creating the foundation for courageous connection.

This means:

Making space for people to tell who they are, not just what they do.
Listening with openness and curiosity, not to assess or fix, but to understand.
Valuing storytelling as a relational technology, not just an expressive act.
Recognizing that story-sharing is voluntary, intimate, and vulnerable—and must be held with care.
Using storytelling not to drive agreement, but to cultivate empathy and relational trust

Stories reveal what structure alone cannot: our shared humanness beneath our different roles.

Resulting Context

Participants experience deeper connection and are more willing to take interpersonal risks.
Assumptions give way to understanding and compassion.
The group becomes more resilient in moments of tension or disagreement.
Trust is built not through forced cohesion, but through voluntary relational openness.
Collaboration becomes warmer, more grounded, and more capable of handling complexity.