An Extreme Situation

Gail is a practicing psychologist who works with me as one of several facilitators in an executive education course that is designed to be an experience in authentic communication. The first two hours of the course prepare people to tell three stories that communicate the essence of who they are. Before they tell their stories to one another, the facilitators model authenticity by telling stories of their own. The stories are usually about difficult experiences, personal failures, or life-changing choices—things that most people are hesitant to share but benefit from discussing openly.

Gail's story is about what happened the first time she acted as one of the facilitators in this course. Here is her account as recorded in my book, Building the Bridge As You Walk On It (Quinn, 2004, pp. 29−33):