The Great Epoch of Stories begins. Again.
This summer I am the inaugural Storyteller-in-Residence for the NHS Leadership Academy in the UK. As the National Health Service emerges from pandemic year one, they are looking for new ideas about the way forward. As I step into this residency, I can’t help but feel that a new epoch is about to begin.
As I prepare for this role, I am struck by a thought. What if everyone had a storyteller-in-residence? What if every country, every city, every hospital, every forest had a storyteller in residence? It used to be that way, a long long time ago. It used to be that a kingdom would have a storyteller in the pay of the queen or king. Storytellers were on hand to entertain, but also to recount, to remind, and to recall the important stories of the past at the right moment lest the kingdom forget.
Storyteller is a word frequently used to describe filmmakers, novelists, journalists, theatre-makers and others. Here I mean it in the original definition: a teller of oral stories. All of these other art-forms are the daughters, nephews, grandchildren of storytelling. Storytelling is the original. I’m proud to say that we are the world’s oldest profession.
For the last 15 years I have made my living as a storyteller. I’ve told stories all over the world for all kinds of people in some amazing rooms. I performed for Irish President Mary Robinson, and in the Writers room at the Royal Shakespeare Company, I’ve told stories to 120 quantum physicists, engineers and scientists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When I am not performing, I am teaching in all kinds of sectors from science to sports. It is out there, in the wider world, that I have witnessed the astonishing power of story. Like the moment when someone with Alzheimers was suddenly able to remember and work with a story, or the time when a selective mute spoke after years of silence. While story appears prosaic it has a subversive power to change reality.
Since 2016 I have trained limbless veterans to tell the stories of their life; from pre-injury, through the injury, and on to life post-injury. They go on to share their stories with teenagers. Many of these veterans have PTSD, and they struggle with a variety of issues. The act of telling their story has been transformative. One veteran said “Every time I tell my story I release something from inside of me that has been killing me”. As these veterans tell their story more they grow in confidence, they build networks of community, and go on to support others. Their stories have transformed their lives and the lives of their listeners.
At the NHS I will be running salons; events to generate conversation and cross pollinate ideas. I will bring together great speakers from sport, medicine, mission critical teams, invention, veterans, neuroscience, and the arts to share stories about their work. These salons create a platform for sharing ideas, ideas around how best to support the NHS in their road to recovery and regeneration. I’m a huge fan of cognitive diversity as the optimal tool for creating sustainable solutions for any problem set. The medical world will figure out what to do next a little bit faster if they had an engineer, a storyteller or a wild swimmer at their table.
The role of storytellers at the table is clear: we can connect communities, carry culture, and nurture legacy.
We build bridges that connect communities through tales that generate understanding and compassion for others. For the past year I have been building a bridge between the public world and the world of frontline medical. I amplify the medical stories which increases understanding in the public. I believe if we listened to the stories of their experience more, we would understand more and fight harder for them. They need us right now, and we desperately need them.
We storytellers are carriers of culture. Stories are cultural objects that can help us affirm and celebrate identity and belonging. Cultural objects can work to unite people, they can create common purpose, and generate a feeling of connection and community. Culture can be the place that we hold in common.
Everything is moving so quickly right now. Our psyches are overwhelmed by data creep and information overload. We are living in the time of the Great Forgetting. The work of the storyteller is to remember. We work with stories that have existed for thousands of years. That work teaches us how wisdom is passed on and how legacy is created. As the stories are told, the people remember, the community reconnects to itself, and feelings of purpose are renewed.
In 2003, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory hired Syd Lieberman to be their storyteller in residence for the Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER). MER is the ongoing robotic space mission involving two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars. In 2003 the program sent off two rovers — MER-A Spirit and MER-B Opportunity — to explore the Martian surface. Syd Lieberman spent several months with the MER team. He created a story called Twelve Wheels on Mars. This work created a bridge for people who were not in the room. He captured the human experience of what it meant to be part of the team that launched that rover.
What if everyone had a storyteller in residence? Every city, every country, every large organisation? What if there was one in residence at the WHO or CERN or the UN? Some of these organisations have hired storytellers for short projects lasting a few weeks, but what if a storyteller lived alongside the Hadron Collider at CERN for a year? What if a storyteller told the life of a hospital for a year? What would the impact be?
I believe that this is fundamental work to building a better future. Storytellers alongside climate scientists, storytellers alongside educators and doctors and policy makers. We are the memory keepers, the culture weavers, the legacy makers. We can hold hundreds of years in our minds. How much further could you go if you had one of us at your table?
My residency begins in four weeks. Over the course of this summer 2021 I will bring the brightest speakers I can find to sit at the table with the medical community to share their stories and cross pollinate ideas. I go into the kingdom of the Medics, in service to them as their storyteller. I will let you know what I find.
Let the great epoch of stories begin. Again.
