Stories From the Danger Zone: Conversational Storytelling and the Meaning of Work After a Close Brush With Death

Abstract

We conducted a study of aviators who experienced a close brush with death at work, in an effort to better understand how such events influence thoughts about work. Importantly, our initial interviews suggested that participants used conversational storytelling about their close brush with death as a means of enhancing the meaningfulness of their work. That initial finding presented us with a puzzle, as the literatures connecting storytelling to the meaning of work view stories as useful for meaning as understanding—not meaning as fulfillment (i.e., meaningfulness). Additional interviews culminated in a theoretical model where the raw materials of the close brush with death (loss of life, errors by the crew) created stories with more versus less dramatic tension. Differences in dramatic tension then shaped how story work (humor, poetic license) was used to craft the tale, how the tellingswere experienced (teller emotions, audience reactions), and how gains in meaning as fulfillment (significance, belonging, esteem) were realized. In the end, participants with more and less dramatic tension in their stories were both able to use tellings to cultivate meaning as fulfillment, albeit in distinct and varying ways. Our findings therefore illustrate that the literatures connecting storytelling to the meaning of work have given short shrift to the power of stories.We discuss the implications of our theorizing for the meaning of work and storytelling at work literatures.