Circle of the 9 Muses

Stepping into the Stream

I have a lot of people to thank. Circle of the 9 Muses is built on the practices and emerging thinking of the most innovative practitioners in organizational storytelling. In the earliest stages of brainstorming for this project, there were moments I was unsure of this approach. After all, I have a few ideas of my own and isn't that the whole reason one writes a book?

Those thoughts vanished the instant I stepped into the global community of story thought leaders.

To call this tribe generous may sound like empty praise. It isn't. It says everything about their orientation to their craft. When compiling this manuscript, I insisted that each collaborator should protect their own intellectual property and withhold their secret sauce if they felt even a hint of hesitation about sharing it with the world. It was a sensitivity they did not share. Several made the observation that story doesn't belong to anyone. Although many fields in management consulting have their own self-appointed gurus and geographic concentrations of ego, storytelling is timeless and boundaryless and its greatest practitioners see themselves as stewards who have simply waded out into a stream of ageless origin.

What a marvelous experience it is to collaborate in this community! Suddenly, Nashville, Tennessee felt like it was right next door to my friends in Israel, Denmark, New Zealand, London, Australia, South Africa, and many other far-flung places where brilliant people have dedicated ...