The power of your stories

10 Feb 2023 · 0 min

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0:26

In this short segment of his talk, Richard Milligan illustrates how abstract concepts such as integrity, service, and expertise become meaningful only when anchored in personal stories. He demonstrates that asking a diverse audience to define these values yields a wide array of answers, highlighting their subjectivity. Milligan argues that storytelling is the mechanism that turns these vague ideas into concrete, relatable experiences. He also critiques the common practice of merely listing values without accompanying narratives, describing it as superficial and ineffective.

ask a room of people, what does it mean to have integrity? Ask 100 people that, you'll get 100 different answers. What does service mean to you? What does expertise mean to you? Those are all abstract thoughts. And so what makes them concrete are your stories. That's what makes sense of that. And so a lot of people do go through a process where they've got some values and they'll share those with people. And ultimately it's like, meh, you know, it's like, like whatever.