About the workshop
Show the why behind your leadership, and move people with the power of narratives and storytelling
An immersive workshop to help leaders develop a Public Narrative, a storytelling framework based on the teachings of Marshall Ganz at Harvard University. Taught by 2x Teaching Fellow Aditi Parekh, who has facilitated leadership courses since 2018 for 2000+ leaders worldwide.
What is Public Narrative?
Public Narrative is the leadership craft of storytelling to enable people’s motivation to act with agency. Once you learn it, you’ll begin to see it everywhere – in the most memorable speeches from history, in movie scenes that impart life lessons, in the writing of modern day business leaders.
That journey of leadership is paved with uncertainty and challenges, prompting people to question the WHY behind it all. In those moments, and many others, storytelling is a way to shift the narrative and inspire people to draw on hope over fear; empathy over alienation; and self-worth over self-doubt.
We create a public narrative by linking our own purpose and calling to that of our community’s, and to a call to action that can move people with the urgency to act. It brings together three stories to accomplish this:
Story of Self
Why do I care about this, and why should people follow me?
Story of Us
What binds us all together, and why should we be hopeful about the future?
Story of Now
How can we reach our shared purpose and act with urgency?
By just stating our values – “We need to build a sustainable future!” or “I care about changing the education system!” – we do not move people to act. Nor do statistics alone do the job! By painting a picture of the challenge we need to solve, the difference we can make, and the values we stand for, we can move people to act.
What we’ll practice in the workshop is the craft of ‘Show, not tell.’
What do people get wrong about storytelling?
We often hear “Storytelling is the greatest leadership skill”. Storytelling isn’t just about applying dress-up techniques from the outside; it’s not public speaking, personal branding, or the art of spin. Storytelling as a leader is the craft of creating an identity: making choices about what our purpose is, what we believe about ourselves, and how we might act to get there.
“In Public Narrative, [students] learn how to bring out their ‘glow’ from within, not how to apply a ‘gloss’ from without.” – Jayanti Ravi, MPA/MC ‘07, Harvard Kennedy School
How do you teach Public Narrative?
We teach public narrative by modeling it, and explaining the core elements of storytelling. You will put this into practice in the workshop by telling your public narrative, and engage in coaching one another’s stories with the guidance of facilitators Aditi and Rosi. Together, we’ve taught over 100+ such workshops and multiple semesters in-person at Harvard Kennedy School and promise to create a safe and courageous space for you to learn and grow with each other.
"You can read about authenticity, vulnerability and all of that but it's daunting to actually do it yourself! Hearing everyone's story gave me the courage to share and improve my own.” – Utsav, a participant from the February workshop
“Is this for me?”
If you are intentional about being a leader who can move people towards a purpose based on shared values, you will want them to not just respect you, but also connect with you trust you. Building that trust does not happen naturally, and storytelling both internally and externally can help show people the why behind your leadership.
If you answer “yes” to any of these descriptions, Public Narrative is for you:
⭐ You are an ambitious founder, CEO or leader, who seeks to use storytelling in moving their organisation forward
🎗️ You are passionate about building a community and helping change people’s lives through relationships
🎭 You want to share more of yourself with the world, but are afraid of underselling yourself, bragging, putting on a show, or oversharing
✍️ You find it difficult to go beyond your resumé when asked “Why do you do what you do?”
🏛️ You want create your narrative for a future opportunity – when you take more responsibility for people, personally or professionally
If you answer “yes” to any of these descriptions, Public Narrative is for you.
Here are some reflections from our past students in the Public narrative course at Harvard.
“I had no idea emotions were so key to leadership. After this course, I started being more vulnerable and telling my stories in a very honest way. This improved my connections with people in a way I hadn’t felt before.”
“This course forced me to be honest and open up about challenging situations that I have never discussed with anyone. It helped me see them in a new way and overcome the emotional toll they had taken on me. I also feel more confident moving forward as now I have some tools to tackle future challenges more effectively.”
“I think I learned a lot about hope and the importance of that in leadership, I learned about agency and how it's different from power. I learned about how knowing and telling my own story is a leadership practice and builds authenticity and trust. I learned about how narrative is always being used as a tool in leadership, and that there are many specific ways to use it to build agency.”
“I used to think that leadership was taking charge; now I know that it about enabling agency in others and building community.”
Examples of Public Narrative
If you listen or read any of these below, you’ll see the frameworks of Public Narrative in play. Notice the visuals, images, the emotional power of narrating key moments from these leaders’ lives.
Barack Obama's 2004 DNC Speech
What to expect in this workshop
How does one learn Public narrative?
We use the metaphor of ‘getting on the bike’ when learning storytelling! Because this is an experience in practice (not theory), it will require you to try new things, to risk failure, and to step outside your comfort zone. You will learn through critical reflection on your experience, through feedback, and through coaching. Your facilitator will gently nudge you towards more “showing, not telling” and help you find the moments that can most bring your story to life.
“After 22 years of leading an organization, this new understanding of how I can connect my personal story to the work I do has given me a new way to look at myself.”
– Reflection from a past student
Our approach is to help you learn a process, not write a script. At the end of the workshop, you will have crafted the first iteration of your public narrative. This will likely not be the final version you want to share with your people, and you may want to have many versions. You will be able to use this framework for future iterations and integrate feedback based on how it resonates with people.
We do not want the learning to stop at the end of this workshop. As part of this inaugural workshop, we also want to offer the following resources and a follow-on 30-min coaching call to help you refine your public narrative for a specific audience.
Meet the Facilitator
Aditi is an educator, consultant and facilitator of gatherings. She supports universities, communities and mission-driven businesses to develop leadership capacity in their teams through workshops and custom learning experiences. Her 10-year journey in the field of education – across research, teaching, business and philanthropy – draws on Narrative Storytelling, Community Organizing and Relational Pedagogy . She seamlessly moves between the online and offline world, conducting workshops, coaching educators and crafting narratives for people whose stories need to be heard.
Aditi holds a Master’s in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and spent two semesters as a Teaching Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. After Harvard, Aditi worked with and advised edtech startups such as Coleap and Maven, setting up programs and products in the space of cohort-based courses. She is trained Bharatnatyam dancer and teacher, and has been passionate about infusing educational spaces with self-directed learning since she dropped out of high school and took two gap years at the age of 15. The youngest of a large joint family based in the Nilgiris, Aditi enjoys helping people leverage technology in education, making friends on Twitter, and searching for the best Sambar between Chennai and Bangalore, where she now lives.