PEDAGOGY
Saudi Arabia, his negotiations with Chinese government officials and his adventurous rendezvous with various ethnic groups in India and Nepal. It was because of him that I decided to work as a Unicef volunteer in Nepal when I was a student. Now, being an instructor myself, I try to bring in many of my own stories from various countries to make my classes unique and interesting. Some of these stories have turned into case studies and exercises. For example, I talk about how I studied first-hand the challenges of a German automotive supplier trying to recruit qualified engineers for its offshore test centre in Romania. During my field trip, I talked to local university professors and even the current Romanian president Klaus Iohannis – a man of German ancestry – who was mayor of the city where the German company had set up its subsidiary. Based on this story, I designed a multi-stakeholder exercise in which students are divided into groups representing the company, the government and faculty in order to negotiate a solution for the talent recruitment problem. I then compare the students’ strategies with what actually happened. I have received extremely positive feedback from business school cohorts about this combination of storytelling and case study exercise, so I would wholeheartedly recommend it. Storytelling is an essential skill set Finally, I seek to help my students create their own stories. In several sessions during the semester, I try to apply what we learn about strategy to crafting one’s own career and to making important choices in life. One example is how to secure a job with no prior related experience, something that is a common problem for business graduates. Of course, having done internships, being good at school and knowing multiple languages may help, but another important ingredient is effective storytelling. In career research, this skill has been called ‘stretchwork’ – the ability to draw connections between the things you have done and the skill sets required for future jobs. It’s also about making personal experiences relevant: how to overcome major obstacles, how to deal with difficult people, how to solve a complex problem. Good stories help applicants stand out from the crowd. Of course, storytelling also needs to be ethical. Stories about events, companies and oneself can bend the truth a little for the sake of making a point, but they lose all their power if they are entirely invented. I had one case of an alumnus who I invited to class to talk about his career journey after graduating; I later found out through a student’s fact-checking that his story about owning a company was probably made up. I called the guest speaker out on it, but he never responded. I can only hope that he learned his lesson. To sum up, if done right, storytelling is a great tool to make business education more exciting and memorable. Stories can inspire and help us think about the world around us in new ways. They can also be a vehicle for making corporate and civic leaders more successful and thoughtful in an increasingly challenging business environment.
systems we work in, but we need to become fully aware of this in order to make a real difference. Doing the right thing requires more than sympathising with victims of injustice; it may require taking a stance against the system you are part of, at the risk of becoming vulnerable yourself. Finally, I use the film to get students to think about how marginalised stakeholders can gain power. The film illustrates how a single farmer accumulates power against an overwhelming force – the DuPont conglomerate – by standing his ground and getting allies like Bilott emotionally invested in the subject matter to join his quest for justice. In the same vein, I discuss with my students how Bilott could have used alliances with like-minded people in his profession to lower his personal risks, while still being effective in helping Tennant. The film also begs an intriguing question: could we think of cows as stakeholders in their own right? In many ways, they have been the most affected by the polluted waters. And if they are stakeholders, how do they wield power? My students always react to this question with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. Some see the cows merely as Tennant’s property, but others agree with me that there is more to it than that. Cows are sentient beings – they have their own understanding of the situation. They may not be able to voice their pain and fight for their rights, but they express themselves through a deep emotional connection with Tennant. There is a touching scene showing this bond in the film. It is this connection that propels Tennant to fight for more than just compensation – he fights for justice. And this is how even cows can become powerful stakeholders. The enduring impact of personal stories In my view, only a film such as Dark Waters, with its touching visuals and emotional storytelling, has the capacity to expand students’ minds beyond conventional textbook wisdom on themes like corporate misconduct, multi-stakeholder problems and the ethics of decision making. Likewise, as I explore in my latest video essay, this film has inspired policy makers to propose bills to ban the kind of forever chemicals depicted here; moreover, several companies have followed up by pledging to stop using them. It is my hope, therefore, that by using such films in the classroom I can contribute to growing a new generation of more thoughtful decision-makers in business, politics and beyond. Another important application of storytelling lies in how we as instructors tell our own story – about how we have become who we are, how we have dealt with difficult situations and what we have learned from other people whom we have met. University professors can become important role models for students later in life and storytelling is a key part of that. My favourite professor back at Free University Berlin was Dieter Weiss, an expert in international development. The reason he became my favourite was not so much the content of his classes, but the stories he told about the realities of working in the development field. I still remember several of his anecdotes decades later – his encounters with the lifestyle in
Ambition | JUNE 2024 | 17
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