Narratives and the Workplace

Here's a workshop I'd like to do somewhere. It connects narrative to the workplace. Any takers?


Introduction: Regardless of our life’s purpose and activities, health is important. Current research suggests that physicians today address only 15% of the determinants of health. These other determinants lie within areas not typically addressed by physicians and are crucial for wellbeing.
Work is an important part of health. We spend most of our waking hours at work. We have more time with our co-workers than our families. Feelings of social injustice and powerless in the workplace have been linked to the occurrence and speed of progression of heart disease. Stress-related conditions are primarily work-related, including the injuries occurring when people are stressed and less cautious in their safety protocols.
Illness matters to company, even in Canada where the public bears the brunt of costs for sickness care. Absenteeism is costly. Loss of key personnel is difficult to compensate. Costs rise with more workmen’s compensation claims. Lawsuits can occur.
Overview: We will explore how the culture of the workplace creates stories that become a local culture of practice and knowledge. We will explore the role of leadership and workers in implementing, maintaining, and evolving that story and will see how the story is associated with feelings of powerlessness or empowerment. We will link this to our own personal health and disease. We will use lessons from indigenous cultures to see how stories evolve and achieve power. We will apply these methods of inquiry to our own personal health (or disease). We will ask how company and personal stories can be changed to achieve better health in the workplace. We will explore the role of meaning and purpose in health and disease and the need for people to find meaning and purpose through their daily work activities, to feel part of a community, and to feel valued.
Learning Outcomes:
Participants will:
Understand the concepts of story, plot, narrative, meaning, value, and how these inter-relate.
Be able to enunciate their own personal story, describe what its plot is, discuss the strategies through which the plot unfolds, say what gives them meaning and purpose, and relate this to their own personal health.
Be able to state the company’s story, describing its creation, vitalization and re-vitalization, and relate this to the workers’ experience of meaning and purpose in the workplace, of valuation, and of belongingness, exploring how these factors can increase or decrease health, absenteeism, injuries, and workmen’s compensation claims.
We will explore how to collaborative re-author personal and company stories to pursue greater health, wellness, meaning, and functionality in our personal lives and at work.
We will consider how these developing stories compare to traditional stories, classical themes from literature and movies, and popular cultural stories.
We will practice how to develop a plot line or theme that shows us where the story will travel as it is enacted and to explore how to change story to maximize the movement toward health and wellness.
Conclusion: Participants will learn about the power of personal and corporate stories for health and disease.