More than twenty years ago I told a story at a conference on work/family policies about a personal experience that happened the year I adopted my daughter after the death of my sister. It was a very painful and poignant story, but also a powerful example of the dilemmas we face as working parents. The story was picked up by the Globe and Mail and occasionally, even after all this time, I run into someone who remembered the story, and for whom it resonated. I was reminded of that while reading this month’s Maytree Foundation’s monthly opinion newsletter which talks about the role stories play and how they can be used in effective organizational communications to promote social change. As Chair Alan Broadbent says:
“Stories do a number of important things. They can set a human context for the work we do, so that it is not simply about 1,000 exploited workers or 500 struggling farmers. A story can tell how the impact of exploitation on a woman can affect her children’s day at school, her relations with her community, her health. It can follow a farmer from sodden fields to a reluctant store buyer who doesn’t want his crop, back to the family home where the bad news permeates dinner hour and lasts until he goes back to the field the next day. Through stories we see the worker and the farmer as our neighbours, and we want to see something change to make their life better.”
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