The Story Cookbook: Practical Recipes for Change
Stories and storytelling represent powerful creative processes for communication and change across personal, organisational and community contexts. With over 80 activities collected from contributors around the world, The Story Cookbook is one of the most comprehensive collections of story-based activities currently available. The book, organised by menu courses, provides the reader with a treasure trove of activities ranging from elegant relationship-building story techniques to more complex story processes such as quantum storytelling, genre bending and provenance. Designed in an easy-to-follow format, the smorgasbord of storytelling ideas that fill this book provide rich pickings to apply and adapt for all sorts of situations. This enticing resource is a must-read for consultants, facilitators, educators, change makers and leaders interested in working with story and narrative techniques for positive change in individuals, organisations and communities.
Andrew Rixon, PhD, DTM, is an internationally experienced consultant, coach and educator with a particular interest and passion for entrepreneurship, leadership and change. Founder of Babel Fish Group, a boutique management consulting company specialising in leadership and change, he has facilitated more than 500 workshops across a diversity of industries and organisations within Australia and internationally. In 2009, he founded The Story Conference (http://www.thestoryconference.com.au), a national story conference providing a space for practitioners interested in the use and application of story and narrative techniques for individuals, communities and organisations. With significant educator experience across Australian business schools including the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and James Cook University, he holds an ongoing appointment at Swinburne Business School.
Cathryn Lloyd is a facilitator, creativity coach and educator and holds a doctoral degree in Creative Industries (DCI). She is the Founder and Director of Maverick Minds, a creative professional development consultancy that designs powerful and flexible learning experiences to shift thinking, gain new perspectives and create positive change. She has extensive experience across the creative industries, arts, business, management, and education. With an arts and design background, Cathryn brings a multi-disciplinary approach to her work. Drawing on experiential interactive arts-based and action learning processes and methodologies, Cathryn creates purposeful learning environments with individuals, groups and organisations.
“Change managers and others helping people through change have a number of ideas and techniques to involve and encourage communication during the change. The Story Cookbook provides an excellent suite of ideas to increase that repertoire. Some cookbooks contain recipes that you may remember and consult once every so often, but they eventually become dusty and unloved. You may use other cookbooks frequently, and they have dog-eared pages and just a few stains from frequent use. The Story Cookbook is likely to be one of your latter reference sources. […] I offer a big thank you to editors Andrew Rixon and Cathryn Lloyd for gathering these ideas into a single reference source. I encourage you to dip in and select your favourites … and then come back for seconds, and thirds.”
Colin Bradley
President, Action Learning, Action Research Association Ltd; ALAR Journal, 2019
“Their contribution to the literature is particularly unique in presenting the storytelling processes and approaches as a meal, starting with a light canapé and entreé to connect and energise people, followed by a more substantial main course, and finishing with a dessert and even an after dinner mint… To be sure, this book offers a banquet to its readers. Here are rich opportunities for productive action and learning, while working together towards achieving sustainable positive change.”
Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt 2019
“But this book shows a generosity of spirit. There is a wonderful array of ‘recipes’ being shared. The simple (‘entrees’) to complex (‘mains’) provide facilitators with fresh ideas to incorporate into a range of change programmes… We need good communication more than ever as issues become more polarised and divisive. Storytelling is a powerful way of uniting people whether in the community or in organisations. I applaud the generosity of the contributors and the readable style in which the activities are presented.”
Mike Bagshaw
Emeritus Lecturer of Worcester University, 2019
"With a diverse range of activities curated and introduced by two talented editors, The Story Cookbook is an invaluable treasury of storytelling resources. Consultants, coaches, teachers and facilitators will find the sure-fire, story-based activities immediately useful for their work with individuals and groups. If we want to change ourselves and the world around us, we have to imagine them differently and change the stories we tell about what really matters. The role of the storyteller is vital to our future and this generous book will bring out the storyteller in all who read and use the tried and tested 'recipes' contributed by so many experienced practitioners."
Geoff Mead, PhD Associate Professor of Narrative Leadership, Hult International Business School
“As a person who has dedicated her career to bringing theater, stories, and their humanizing properties outside the proscenium, I am grateful to The Story Cookbook for helping to build a bridge between business and the performing arts. This book is an accessible stepping stone for anyone looking to improve their organization’s culture, creative collaboration, and leadership through story-based group exercises. I hope more non-theater folks will adopt these tremendously useful methods to inspire outside-the-box thinking, engender empathy in diverse groups, and improve communication, so that someday soon their relevance will go without saying.”
Martha Bull
Organizational Aesthetics (2019), 8(1), 32-33
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