Recently something happened to me that I found just amazing. It was one of those Aha moments that my friend Kevin Cottam wrote about in his book. This was a “story-telling” experience, the power of which is well described in this excellent article published in the Harvard Business Review.
It was holiday time and the little one went to what is called a “stage” in Belgium (basically instructors are taking care of the kids and keep them busy during working hours).
Around 5pm (the stage closes at 6pm) I went to pick up my son and found me surrounded by a group of little ones. I sat down one moment to prepare my son and saw all those eyes looking at me. And then the magic began.
I took a pen, a sheet of paper and told them I was going to draw something and they had to guess what it was. Suddenly I felt them totally engaged, like I never felt with anyone else. I saw them thinking, got amazed by the quality of their interactions with me and with each others.
Once the castle was drawn I began telling a story and asked them to imagine what was going on in this castle. Here again it was magical. You could see on their faces the pleasure of imagining, of interacting, of checking whether their assumptions were right.
Before jumping to the conclusion, take the time to view this video of Kevin at TEDxGhent.
What did I learn from this?
Well first of all I learn what deep engagement is. In a world where people are constantly “playing” (“juggling” I should say) with multiple devices, multitasking all day (and especially in meetings) it’s rather difficult, not to say impossible, to get someone’s attention for more than a few seconds. It was the first time in my life that I felt total engagement from a group of people.
The second thing I learned was the power of story-telling. It has been repeated a million of times and there is nothing new here. Yet it makes a big difference to read something and to actually experience it at the highest possible level.
Third thing that I learn was the pleasure to make a crowd of little ones interact. I couldn’t have thought before that it would be such a memorable and pleasurable experience. It was so much of a shock that I wanted to recount it.
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