Storytelling for Change: The Two Monks and the Women

Craft your own rituals to accelerate the change you dream of

ONCE THERE WERE TWO MONKS WHO were traveling through the countryside during the rainy season. Rounding a bend in the path, they found a muddy stream blocking their way. Beside it stood a lovely woman dressed in flowing robes. ‘Here’, said one of the monks to the women. ‘Let me carry you across the water’. And he picked her up and carried her across. After setting her down on the far bank, he walked in silence with his fellow monk to the abbey on the hill. Later that evening the other monk suddenly, ‘I think you made an error when you picked up that woman on our journey today. You know we are not supposed to have anything to do with women, and you held one close to you! You should not have done that.’ ‘How strange’, remarked the other. ‘I carried her only across the water. You are carrying her still’.*

Change -individual or organizational change- or new chapters in your life, will not start while you still carry with you old habits, ideas, or attitudes. New beginnings are only possible when you intentionally make room for new chapters in your story. The same way that trees let their yellow leaves fall so that new green ones can grow, you have to let go of former views about yourself, your company, or your brand to facilitate the appearance of new beginnings.

A risk of not ending previous chapters intentionally is a false ending. In a false ending, we fast-forward to a new chapter of our individual identity, or that of the company´s, without having digested what we want or need to change and, most importantly, why we need to change. There is also a risk in reverting to old ideas about ourselves or to old ideas about our company´s internal culture once the process of change is advancing, creating room for frustration, boycotting, and even blocking real progress.

A good storytelling strategy to make endings real -ones that you can consciously and unconsciously interiorize, ones which everyone in your team can apprehend and remember, is staging the death of the old ideas or outlooks by creating a ritual.

As I wrote in my book You´d better tell the whole story**: Craft a ritual that is meaningful for you or for your organization and…