Leadership storytelling. Where am I supposed to find these stories?
You might remember in a recent article we explored the idea that our stories are assets – valuable resources to use (not to mention a way of thinking) that lie within your business, your career, your life. These are resources you can use to teach, to change, to grow, to build your business, your career and your leadership.
Today we look at leadership.
Many leaders, brought through the ranks as they were on a diet of command and hierarchical structures, of statistics and economic bottom lines and outcomes, just cannot see what stories they could possibly use. The majority of my clients come to me because they know story is a powerful way of thinking and of strengthening their leadership, (or their businesses, careers or personal lives! but today it’s about leadership) but there is always the search – “Where am I supposed to find these stories, these assets?”
So if that is also your question, or you need to add, perhaps, to your bank of stories then today’s article is for you.
I’ve divided the sources into two – those from inside the organisation and those from outside.
And these are stories you can use for all sorts of reasons and to meet all sorts of challenges from organisational development to branding to building innovation and a company culture.
Stories from outside
There are testimonials from clients or customers. You can request them and keep them available for use on your website and marketing collateral as well.
There are reviews, again from clients and customers, and feedback. You can set up to request these with a form either on-line or offline.
Obviously this is only the first step. The items you choose, how you make them into a story, and what you achieve with them will depend on many factors and needs.
Possibly the most powerful, though, are those occasions that are unexpected, unrequested, unscripted. If you can tell the story of hearing these, you have a powerful tool especially for conveying values and identity. This is where your role as curator of stories is most amazing, and it’s a skill you can develop – not just listening for the stories but recognising their value and application. Imagine hearing someone in the street, at the local coffee shop or brew-house referring to your company as the solution to a problem or as an example of how a certain type of customer service should be offered, or by the attributes you had so carefully chosen for your branding!
Tell THAT story!
In a different context entirely, there are the stories about how other organisations, businesses, individuals behave. All of those are a wealth of material you can use to teach, to stimulate discussion, to encourage a higher level of, say, innovation, or focus.
It started with losing her lizard.
Sandy Coletta’s pet bearded dragon, or pogona, had escaped from its cage. As president of Kent Hospital in Rhode Island, Coletta says she wrote in the newsletter for 2,000 employees about how she felt losing her pet and her efforts to find it. There was, of course, a moral to the story— about adaptability and looking for solutions to a problem.
The emails poured in, employees at the hospital stopped her in the hall to chat and a worker bought her a cage—one that would fit a raccoon.source
“It really struck me that in the C-suite roles, you are distant and people are afraid to talk to you. But in the daily newsletter a few times a week I would talk about issues with my children and sometimes be funny, reflective or provide a personal example,” says Coletta, the author of The Owl Approach to Storytelling: Lead With Your Life. “It was an amazing way to break down the barriers between staff and leadership.”
Stories from Inside your organisation
Take a moment to watch this video from Steve Wynn. It has always examplified, for me, a classic case of storytelling to communicate and reinforce values in action – in this case customer service.
There are stories from the front line like that – customer service.
There are stories from within processes like product launches. What worked, what didn’t and especially what your team, your organisation can learn from that experience.
And it’s not just the processes they learn, it’s also whether they are safe to admit to failure. Those who feel safe with a leader will contribute with more bravery, more innovation and more initiative than those fearing denigration and shame, and the story of that person who admitted to failure and thus allowed a better workflow to result will be one to tell again.
One of the greatest storytelling roles you can take is to get representatives of all the areas within your organisation from the cleaning and admin staff through marketing and sales to the professional consultants and have them share stories around a topic that applies to the whole organisation. They learn from each other, they build appreciation and respect for each other. You have stories that they shared as well as the stories of the collaboration facilitated, that you can use to build organisational development and alignment.
In reality, those story assets are everywhere, and the more you use stories to communicate the meaning of what you need and want from, and for your organisation, the more you will know just what to look for.
