The Storytelling Relay: An Active-Listening Exercise
This active listening exercise is a round-the-circle storytelling game where each person must accurately rephrase what the previous speaker said before adding their own line. The rephrase rule forces real attention, because you can't build on a story you didn't actually hear. It's a fast, low-prep way to train listening across a whole team.
Most of us think we're listening when we're really just waiting for our turn. While someone talks, our attention drifts to what we'll say next — and the moment they finish, we say it, often without having absorbed half of what they offered. In a team, that habit quietly erodes everything: handoffs get garbled, decisions rest on misheard details, and people repeat themselves because they don't feel heard. The storytelling relay turns that pattern into a game where not-listening immediately and visibly breaks the chain.
Why "waiting to talk" isn't listening
Listening feels passive, so we assume it happens automatically. It doesn't. Real listening competes with the part of your brain rehearsing a reply, and the rehearsal usually wins. You can't fix that just by deciding to "pay more attention" — the pull is too strong. What works is making the next turn depend on the last one, so attention stops being optional. This active listening exercise does exactly that: if you didn't catch what was just said, you literally can't take your turn.
How do I run the storytelling relay?
You need a small group — four to ten works well — sitting in a circle. Allow about fifteen minutes.
- Sit in a circle and pick a simple opening. One person starts a story with a single sentence: "On Monday, the new hire found a locked door." Keep it concrete and easy to follow.
- Each next person rephrases before adding. Before contributing their own sentence, the next person must accurately restate what the previous person said — in their own words. Only then do they add one new line that moves the story forward.
- Go around the circle, keeping the chain alive. Every turn is rephrase-then-add. If someone can't rephrase accurately, that's the signal they weren't listening — a gentle, obvious cue, not a punishment. The group can help them, then continue.
- Watch accuracy climb, then debrief. As people realize they must repeat before they can build, they start actually listening. After a couple of laps, ask the group what shifted. Most people notice how differently they listen once their turn depends on it.
A worked example
A support team runs the relay at the start of a workshop. Someone opens: "A customer wrote in furious about a double charge." The next person rephrases — "So a customer's upset because they were billed twice" — then adds, "and the agent who picked it up had never seen that error before." The third rephrases both lines, then adds the next beat. By the fourth turn, people are leaning in and repeating carefully, because everyone's seen how obvious it is when someone skims past a detail. In the debrief, an agent laughs that she normally "listens like the relay" only when the stakes are high — and realizes that's exactly the point.
When this exercise is most useful
It's a strong warm-up before any session that depends on listening: a retrospective, a brainstorming, a difficult conversation, or onboarding a new member. It also works as a recurring micro-ritual for teams whose handoffs keep getting muddled. It's less suited to large groups — past ten or so, the chain gets slow and people disengage waiting their turn. In that case, split into smaller circles.
The takeaway
You can't lecture a team into listening, but you can build a game where listening is the only way to keep playing. The storytelling relay makes every turn depend on the one before it, so attention becomes the price of admission. Run it for fifteen minutes and your next real conversation will sound different.
This is one of Funstorming's 100 quests — bite-sized soft skills methods you actually put into practice, not just read about. Try it, then bring your result (or your sticking point) to the Funstorming community of practice (CoP), FunHub | Your Soft Skills Playground.
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