Stories from the Factory Floor

The name of this blog is taken from the Japanese tradition of story telling known as’ Kamishibai’ which roughly translates to ’little paper theatre.’ Originating in Japanese Buddhist temples in the 12th century, where the monks used picture scrolls to convey stories to a mostly illiterate audience, Kamishibai endured as a storytelling method for centuries, but is perhaps is best known for its revival in the 1920s through to the 1950s.  A storyteller would travel from village to village on a bicycle equipped with a small stage. Several stories would be told using a set of illustrated boards, inserted into the stage and withdrawn one by one as the story unfolded. The stories were often serials and new episodes were told on each visit to the village.

There was no right or wrong way to tell a story, each storyteller would use their own creativity and each individual style was valued. It is these humble beginnings of Kamishibai that are often credited with the roots of the multi-million dollar manga (Japanese comic) tradition. Illustrating how deeply our social and relational patterns of communication and interaction are interwoven into how much we are connected to story as a way of individual and collective meaning making.

I stumbled across the idea of Kamishibai in the most unlikely of places, a Japanese manufacturing company. Where the principals of this ancient art of oral storytelling were being utilised to share information not only to inform but also to educate. Intriguingly and very practically, Kamishibai had been imaginatively re-purposed to support teams to perform daily maintenance tasks on machines. The work place objective to keep the machines in good working order to realise safety, quality and productivity targets whilst also enhancing team knowledge / confidence about general machine maintenance. Here in this very mechanised environment there was still a need and a place for human contact through story and meaning making. As ‘the little paper theatre’ was being used to connect people in a new and innovative way. How interesting is that? I was intrigued and my passion for the inter-connecting ideas of organisational development, workplace participation, change, involvement, notions of hierarchy and power, continuous improvement, and innovation was ignited. 

In experiencing for myself the importance of work place connection and communication to support, and enable I was able to grasp a much deeper realisation of the human need to participate, to contribute and make meaning of the purpose of work. Which in a nutshell contains the intention for this blog, which is to offer a rich and diverse series of living stories that are each a mini paper theatre. The universal themes of work and life will be presented through an open ended inquiry into the ever changing nature of work, our relationships to one another, what we really understand about the purpose of organisations and how we can enable more generative change. That like the Kamishibai board on the factory floor is symbolic of a shared intention to take care of our environment, through active participation and the will to continually experiment with finding a better way.