Spirit Line: Conflict and Vulnerability in Storytelling

In ancient Navajo culture, custom held that weavers include an unmatched thread into each of their rugs.  This contrasting color was designed to run from side to side all the way to the outside edge. With a practiced eye, authenticity can be spotted by this intentional flaw called the Spirit Line.   The Navajo intended the Spirit Line to release energy trapped inside the rug, concluding the current effort and opening the door for the next creation.  This is a perfect metaphor for the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences in both life and business.   A good story will always contain a conflict, a flaw and the vulnerability required to journey toward resolution.

Storytelling is the essence of human experience.  For thousands of years, we have contextualized our days and created meaning through this seemingly simple vehicle.  From the earliest cave paintings to contemporary blog posts, human beings come together through the stories we tell one another.  In leadership, the opportunity is even greater.  Consider the power of Nelson Mandela’s story after decades of imprisonment, or the “black dog” of depression that Winston Churchill endured during World War II.   Steve Jobs, undoubtedly one of the most visionary CEOs of our time, faced years of daunting illness and decision points before his death.   In each of these examples, the challenge becomes woven, like a flawed thread, into the story making it richer and more powerful.   It is the flaw that stirs our humanity, our compassion and sense of relationship to both the story and the person.

Most stories begin with ordinary life.  We wake up and enter our day, just as we have always done.  Then something happens, a conflict arises at work, we learn of a health crisis, or become swept up in an external tragedy like 9/11.  For some of us the challenge emerges from within.  Perhaps we have slowly out-grown a job, or even a marriage.  Perhaps we yearn for a greater sense of purpose and meaning in our lives.  Whatever the conflict, it becomes the Spirit Line of our story, a moment of reckoning.   Mary McCarthy once famously remarked, “We are the hero of our own story.”   So as the hero faced with a life altering challenge, we embark on a journey the purpose of which is the “pot of gold” or solution.   During this journey, we are faced with both opportunities and pitfalls, helpful allies and confusing tricksters.  All our skill, internal resources and intuition are called upon to determine the path that leads to resolution and new life.  This journey and how we deal with each situation reveals character.  Finally, toward the end of the story and with solution firmly in hand, the hero returns home, back to where he started, and “knows it for the first time”.   Our hero is a little older, a lot wiser, richer in experience and confidence, and ready to claim his reward.

Why do we feel so deeply when reading of Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment when most of us have lives that could never include such a horrific experience?   Even though so far away from our own experience, we see Mandela’s journey as our own, and relate to the staggering sense of vulnerability he must have felt, the huge price he paid for holding firmly to his beliefs.  The story causes us to ask ourselves, “What would I do if it were me?”   We are further engaged as Mandela emerges, not just a survivor but a hero in full redemption.   As the story listener, we now feel a sense of hope, of justice and ‘right ending’, which is as much about the “unmatched thread” as it is about what happened 25 years later.

Imagine the power of such a story in business today.  What might happen if a CEO spoke of personal hardship and redemption as a metaphor for the effort needed to realize a corporate goal?  What level of connection, empathy and collaboration would that CEO engender by mindfully revealing a conflict overcome?   Vulnerability is one of the keys to a great story because it opens up the heart connection in a way that Power Point slides can never accomplish.    Vulnerability, conflict, the effort required to find the right solution, these are the elements of a teachable story.  The spirit line calls to us with our common humanity.