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Dear Ginny,

Congratulations on your appointment as IBM's CEO. I'm looking forward to seeing how the company changes under your wise guidence.

I'm writing this letter because I've just read the transcript of your interview at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit held last year. I hope you don't think this too bold but I would like to make some suggestions on how you could make even better use of stories in your public presentations.

It was interesting to note that on the news of your appointment the Fortune interview was reported in Harvard Business Blogs and The New York Times and in both cases they led with the story of how you were offered a senior role and how you asked the recruiter if you could think about it. When you told your husband that night he listened and just said, "Do you think a man would have ever answered that question that way?" It got you thinking about the importance of self-confidence.

What was interesting for me was that this story was right at the end of the interview in the Q&A session, yet that was snippet most attractive to the journalists. Imagine the additional impact your talk could have had if you added other anecdotes through-out your talk.

Let me start by saying that you seem to have a natural style for sharing stories. You're relaxed, willing to have a laugh and poke some fun at yourself. This conversational style is appealing. It's easy to listen to. So with that as a great base where are the opportunities for stories?

When Jessi asked you what was different at IBM between when you joined and now there was an opportunity to tell two stories: first to recount a specific incident in the early years that, say, illustrated the idea of inclusion and then tell a contrasting anecdote from the present. People really like stories they can see in their mind's eye. So when you told your husband story we could all see your husband saying what he said. Our visual sense, even if only triggered in our mind, is our strongest sense and this is one of the reasons why stories, especially visual stories, are so memorable.

When you were talking about the simple things you do to engage your people, such as asking everyone's opinion when they don't speak up and then asking people what they think of that idea--which is a fabulous approach for a senior leader--there was an opportunity to tell a story which would start something like "you know, these small actions can have a big impact. I remember being in our board room with Lou and Sam ..." We also love stories about people in power and celebrities. Everyone would have been on the edge of their seat wanting to hear what happened next.

As a general rule whenever you share an opinion like "Go and make a new market" people are waiting to hear a story of how you helped IBM do that. Stories share information as experience unlike opinion that shares information as fact. We learn best from experience.

It's true that throughout the interview you shared many narrative snippets such as the reference to the tough times in the '80s. The difference between these high-level narratives and a cracking story is a matter of detail. Memorable stories are moments that we can relive with the storyteller.

Anyway, that is probably enough from me. All the best with your new job and I'm hoping to discover a year from now a transcript from another one of your presentations laden with great stories.

yours sincerely

Shawn

Recent research quoted in the fantastic Psyblog has shown the benefits of telling ourselves the whole, complete and detailed story, rather than just select bits from it.

Ruby et al. (2011) (*1) found the benefits of this approach in regards to exercise. They asked a group of people to think about an upcoming exercise session. Each person tried to predict how much they would enjoy their workout. Then after the workout they rated their enjoyment again.

On average people's predictions were too pessimistic: they actually enjoyed their workouts more than they had guessed. This was true across men and women and across all age ranges. It was true for both moderate and challenging workouts and whether people exercised on their own, in a group or amongst others in the gym.

The reason the researchers put forward was that people focused heavily on the relatively unpleasant start of the exercise session rather than the more enjoyable middle section. They christened this effect 'forecasting myopia'.

As you can imagine, if people think they will dislike something then they are less likely to want to do it. It can hardly be a motivating factor to think something is far less enjoyable than it actually is.

So how do you overcome it? You tell yourself the whole story.

In a final study Ruby et al. asked people to think about their whole exercise routine, including the warm-up, the main workout and cool-down. It emerged that this method encouraged people to make more positive predictions of how much they would enjoy their exercise. This also had the effect of boosting people's intention to exercise in the future.

So it seems that telling ourselves the whole, complete and detailed story can both increase our view of how much we will enjoy exercise, and also boost our desire to want to do it. But does this view stack up in other fields? Could this approach help us in making good buying decisions?

Let's look at some examples outlined in a recent article on Psyblog. See if you can spot the pattern:

• A camping holiday seems like fun when you abstractly imagine escaping the rat-race and getting back to nature. It doesn't seem so much fun when you're stuck in a cold, wet field, desperate for a proper hot meal.


• A big, expensive DSLR seems like a good idea when you think about the amazing high-res photos you'll be able to take. But it turns out you can't be bothered to carry a big, heavy camera around all the time, so in reality it doesn't get used much.


• You imagine that buying a wreck of a house and doing it up means you can realise your perfect lifestyle vision. When you move in and start work, all you really want is to get rid of the dust and mess and have a normal life: your vision is forgotten.


• Unfortunately when we plan our purchases we tend to make the mistake of thinking in the abstract and forgetting about the day-to-day details. The further off in time and space they are, the more abstractly we think about them.

To make purchases that will give us the most happiness we need to think as concretely as possible. It might not sound as fun, but thinking about how we're going to use the item or service on a daily basis is more likely to guide us towards the choice that will make us the happiest. We can buy smart by telling ourselves the whole, complete and detailed story.

In their book Change Anything, Patterson et. al. carry on this theme by putting forward a change strategy they call 'Tell the whole vivid story'. It is very much along similar lines as the two examples I have given above.

As an example, they tell the story of Michael, an ex-alcoholic;

"When I'm watching TV, and an advertisement will come on showing a group of people enjoying a martini in a piano bar. To this day that commercial can put my thoughts heading in a dangerous direction. My natural inclination is to start thinking "I can do that". Sure I am a recovering alcoholic, but why not enjoy a social drink with friends? What harm can that be? "But it's not my story, nor is it the whole story. My story plays out differently. if I join the group at the piano bar, I'll drink the martini. Then I'll be back tomorrow. Then I'll shift to hard liquor. I'll soon be on a binge, and one day I'll wake up lying in my own vomit or maybe even in jail. And by the way, that's not merely what might happen to me. That's what will happen to me".

So there are many benefits in telling ourselves the whole, complete and detailed story, rather than just select bits from it. Think about how you could use this in your work or personal life. Are you telling yourself the whole story around doing your expenses, or just focusing on the most unpleasant aspects? Are you thinking about a new role in abstract terms, without really thinking of the day-to-day aspects of the job and whether they are what you want to do? Are you thinking about how a project might roll out, and not telling yourself the 'whole vivid story' of the challenges and difficulties you might face?

(*1) Ruby, M; Dunn, E; Perrino, A; Gillis, R; and Viel, S: (2011) The invisible benefits of exercise in Health Psychology, Vol 30(1), Jan 2011, 67-74.

(*2) Kahneman, D; Krueger, A; Schkade, D; Schwarz, N and Stone, A:(2004) A Survey Method for Characterizing Daily Life Experience: The Day Reconstruction Method in Science 3 December 2004: 306 (5702), 1776-1780.

(*3) Kanner, A., Coyne, J., Schaefer, C., and Lazarus, R. (1981): Comparison of two modes of stress measurement: Daily hassles and uplifts versus major life events in Journal of Behavioral Medicine. Volume: 4, Issue: 1

In using story-work to build a brand, engage employees, or for one of its many other purposes, organisations nearly always focus on storytelling. The meme is strong because the act of storytelling is so powerful. But to focus solely on this one aspect of story-work severely limits the benefits. The most valuable application of this technique combines storytelling with story-listening and story-triggering. Together, these processes create the conditions for enduring and healthy change.

Story-listening

Back in 2005, I introduced the readers of the Anecdote blog to the concept of story-listening (it might even have been the first time the term was used). Story-listening is the process of eliciting and collecting stories, helping groups to draw meaning from those stories, and then, most importantly from a business perspective, creating opportunities for the stories to inspire employees to take positive, transformational action.

Story-listening may sound passive, but it does not involve people merely sitting back and listening to their company's stories in the same way that they might enjoy their favourite podcasts. It is all about helping those who can most influence change understand what's really happening in their organisation, and then inspiring them to do something about it. All good business story-work is purposeful.

Let me give you an example. Earlier this year, one of Australia's biggest accounting firms contacted Anecdote for help. They'd just done their employee engagement survey, and while many parts of the business were in good shape, there were several areas that revealed a need for improvement. The problem, however, was that the survey results didn't make it clear what might be creating the lower engagement scores. Broad themes like reward and recognition, communication and leadership behaviour had been flagged, but the organisation remained uncertain as to exactly which behaviours needed changing - or, for that matter, which behaviours were working nicely.

We started the project by collecting stories from a good cross-section of the firm and managing them in our Zahmoo story bank. We then assembled a group of influential employees from across the business and ran a workshop to help them work out for themselves the patterns of behaviour they wanted to reinforce and the conduct they wanted to correct - the stories we'd collected gave the employees many concrete examples of specific behaviours that either helped or hindered employee engagement. Once the important patterns where identified, we helped the group to design targeted interventions that would prompt constructive, lasting change.

All the stories you hear at work reflect your organisation's culture. You cannot change this culture without changing the stories being told and retold in your workplace. Then, once you've initiated new behaviours, new stories will flow. Story-listening helps you become aware of the current corporate narratives - it helps you to clearly hear the dominant stories, the prevalent archetypes, the repeating plot lines. Most importantly, because you are working with stories, your feelings are engaged, and these feelings inspire you to take action. Story-listening gives you the essential ingredients for change: decisions makers who both understand what's going on AND who are emotionally moved to make a difference.

Story-triggering

We all act in accordance with our beliefs, attitudes and values, which together form our view of life - or in terms of organisational culture, our view of work. This view is shaped and reshaped by what happens to us and how we interpret those experiences, and we reinforce those interpretations by telling ourselves stories and acting in accordance with them.

One of the first projects we did at Anecdote was to investigate the issue of trust in a bank's call centre. The call centre manager told us that when she'd first joined the section, she'd held the strong belief that all she had to do to get something done was to simply ask someone to do it and get their verbal agreement. But within her first week on the job, a colleague pulled her aside and advised her that, to get anything done, she should really email the person she was tasking and document her request, cc-ing all the relevant managers to ensure there was an obvious paper trail. At first this seemed crazy to the manager, and it offended her belief in the personal, friendly and trusting management style she had cultivated over many years, so she refused to adopt this approach. However, within another three weeks, after a series of incidents, the manager was emailing all of her tasking requests.

The dominant story at this call centre was that if you just relied on face-to-face requests, your words would be twisted or ignored and the job wouldn't get done, so you needed to maintain a paper trail as evidence. The centre's manager lived this negative story, multiple times, and eventually adopted it in place of her optimistic personal conviction. This was a sign of a very unhealthy workplace. What needed to happen here was that the employees needed to be subjected to new experiences that generated a fresh, positive governing story, and this is exactly the objective of story-triggering.

The simplest way to trigger such stories is for an organisation's leaders - that is, leaders in the broadest sense of the word - to do remarkable things, things that other people will remark on. We saw this happen at another bank we worked with. The bank's new CEO had noticed that most of the meeting rooms in the company's headquarters were occupied all the time, but that a handful were usually empty. On closer inspection, he noticed that the empty rooms each had a sign on the door which read, "This room can only be booked by a General Manager." The CEO asked around to see if this was necessary and quickly decided it wasn't. He then personally went to each GM meeting room and tore down the notices, triggering a story that flew around the organisation.

This might seem like a small act and a trivial story. But, in fact, it fed into a much bigger narrative that the CEO was creating, which went along the lines of: "We are flattening our organisation and resources will be allocated to whoever needs them to deliver business outcomes, regardless of their level in the company."

The first step in successful story-triggering is for leaders to be mindful of their actions. Such purposefulness is easier said than done. Often a leader's intent doesn't match the lived experiences and perceptions of her colleagues. She might want to foster collaboration yet is seen as acting in ways that create competition. She will only be able to tell if she is on the right track by becoming aware of the stories that are being told about her; some story-listening might be required here.

The next step is for leaders to identify or engineer opportunities to do something remarkable, and to do it conspicuously. This might be as simple as a leader telling an authentic story that reveals something about them - in particular, something about how they really feel, rather than what they think. If this sounds wishy-washy, it isn't. In his book The Political Brain, neuroscientist and political pundit Drew Westen puts it this way, using the context of political campaigns:

"Campaigns aren't won with bags full of anything [e.g. policy promises]. They are won by candidates who can convince voters, through their words, intonation, body language, and actions, that they share their values, that they understand people like them, and that they inspire the nation or save it from danger."

One CEO we worked with punctuated each sentence of a sustainability policy he was presenting by smacking the projection screen with the back of his hand. By the end of the presentation, no-one was left in any doubt as to the fact that sustainability was important to him.

The psychologists Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey point out in their book Immunity to Change that we can also apply the idea of story-triggering at the individual level, helping people to create new stories for themselves which fulfil the prerequisites for behaviour change.

The usefulness of this approach became clear to me while I was conducting a workshop with 80 professors at an Australian university on ways to improve collaboration. As I began to make the point that two important behaviours for good collaboration were to make and keep promises and to speak your mind to colleagues with respect and good intent, I noticed a woman sitting at the back of the room. She had her arms firmly crossed and was shaking her head, clearly very unhappy with what I was saying. So I stopped my presentation and asked the woman if she would like to share what she was thinking with the rest of the group. Practically before I had finished my request, she said, "There is no way in the world you can be open and honest with a senior professor around here." Before I could comment, she went on to tell a mini story: "I once did what you are suggesting and I had to move departments."

Now, no amount of clever argument or telling of familiar stories would have changed that person's mind. She had obviously had an incredibly bad experience. The only way to help her gain a new insight would be to create an experience with a different result to what she was expecting, and to do this many times over. She would then have a new story that would in turn guide her future behaviour.

Storytelling

There are many ways to apply storytelling to your work setting. You can help your leaders to become better storytellers, and you can also begin to share stories of customer service or safety, or stories that convey your values, brand, service or product. But there is one particular type of storytelling that I'd like to focus on here, that which will help you bring your strategy to life.

As I've said in my paper, How to make your strategy stick with a strategic story [http://www.anecdote.com.au/whitepapers.php?wpid=23], the sad reality of strategies is that considerable effort is expended to create them, yet it's often the case that few people in an organisation know them. As a consequence, it is practically impossible for people to act strategically. Without the company strategy in mind, people won't know what to focus on, or what to say 'yes' or 'no' to, and they will become reliant on their managers for direction which, depending on the quality of the manager, can really curtail innovation and effectiveness. This is where strategic stories can help.

There are some misconceptions about strategic stories that we should clear up. Firstly, some people think that a strategic story is merely an immutable single story that must be conveyed unchanged in each telling. Of course, this common misunderstanding is far from the truth. One of our associates once helped a large postal service develop their strategic story, but before he'd had time to organise some sessions to explain how to use it, the story had found its way to the head of the parcels section, who promptly said there was no way he was going to parrot 'this script' or read it out to his guys. Our associate assured him that that wasn't the intention. Rather, the story had been designed to convey the meaning of the postal service's strategy via a mixture of context, emotion and facts, and with that meaning in mind, leaders would be encouraged to tell their own stories to illustrate the company's strategic directions.

A good strategic story is a framework of meaning that explains why an organisation's strategic directions have been selected. But it's also like a chord progression used by a jazz musician, in that within that progression, the musician is free improvise and adapt the music to suit their needs and the desires of the moment.

Another misconception about strategic stories is that they are crafted by the CEO and her team and communicated to everyone much like Moses heralded the Ten Commandments. On the contrary, it's important that the development of a strategic story is a participatory process that involves as many people as possible, both in its initial crafting and in the sharing of new stories about how the strategy is subsequently being lived out by employees.

Once you've developed a strategic story, you'll find that it wields tremendous power in clarifying a new strategy. Even if you already have a strategy in place, the strategic story process will often reveal misunderstandings about what the strategic directions actually mean, or disagreement among your leaders on what they should be. When we conducted separate interviews with each of the senior partners of a large consulting firm, we found them mostly in agreement about the company's strategic directions. During the strategic story process, however, we discovered major differences of opinion between them which required resolution before the process could be completed. Through some difficult but important conversations, the leaders reached agreement and now have an even stronger resolve to pursue their strategy. Unfortunately, too many organisations avoid these tough discussions or just lack the trigger and then the process to pursue them effectively. Instead, they mistakenly continue working with a completely misaligned view of their strategy.

A strategic story is memorable, adaptable and imbued with meaning. It helps everyone in an organisation to make sense of what's happening in the business. Done well, a strategic story provides a real competitive advantage.

Bringing it all together

The combination of story-listening, story-triggering and storytelling magnifies the impact of story-work far beyond that achieved through the use of a single story approach. Organisations often start with story-listening, to find out what's really happening in the workplace and to help employees work out what they need to do. Then storytelling is used to increase the ability of leaders to connect with their colleagues and inspire them. While we are all natural storytellers - I'm writing this in a cafe and the guys at the next table are sharing one story after another - we often need to build our confidence to tell stories in a work setting. This is because we've become used to merely voicing our opinions at work, rather than showing our hearts. But employees want to know what their leaders stand for, and those leaders' actions and stories are a useful guide. Once an organisation knows what is happening within it, albeit with an awareness that you can never know it all, then story-triggering is used to prompt the telling of new stories that will pave the way for a new means of acting.

If you're already applying a story technique to your organisation, then you're well placed to broaden your approach and gain the benefits of using all three story-work modes. If you're just starting out, then you have a great opportunity to distinguish yourself from your competitors by using a comprehensive story approach to improve the way you work. You'll be amazed at the business results.

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I found myself watching parliamentary question time today on TV (OK, I was tired. I did yoga for the first time last night). There were lots of questions about when exactly did the leaders of the government and the opposition know about Qantas CEO's, Alan Joyce, decision to ground his airline. It was a heated debate. (BTW, why can't anyone speak normally in parliament? Everthing is said in staccato, like a basketball coach shouting instructions to his team mid-game). Anyway, Anthony Albanese, the transport minister, steps up to the dispatch box and tells a story about how he was at Sydney airport after the planes were grounded and how he met a distressed American couple who were unable to get home. Now, we'll have to check Hansard tomorrow morning for the exact wording but Mr Albanese went on to say, "the woman was 43 weeks pregnant and needed to get home."

Sheenagh and I looked at each other and said, "43 weeks pregnant! What is she doing flying at 43 weeks? How is she 43 weeks pregnant? Maybe she's an elephant (OK, that was too harsh)." Gales of laughter float around our house. I note on the Qantas website this policy about flights over 4 hours, "For routine pregnancies, you can travel up to the end of the 36th week for single pregnancies and the end of the 32nd week for multiple pregnancies (e.g. twins)."

Mr Albanese's story failed the plausibility test.

Whenever we listen to a story we instinctively match the experience we're hearing with our own experience and if there's a significant mismatch the story's, and the storyteller's, credibility crumbles, no matter how true the event.

The plausibility test occurs as the story unfolds but we have another test we unconsciously make before the story hardly gets started: the relevance test.

Especially in business settings where everyone is pressed for time (That's what people say. I'm not convinced), if we know a story is about to be told we want to know there's a good chance it'll be relevant. To help the listener judge the potential relevance of a story we often prepend a short statement suggesting, or simply stating, the point of the story.

"The Qantas grounding was causing incredible distress for people. It was a good thing the government stepped in. I was in Sydney aiport on Sunday ... [the pregnant woman story]"

Sometime it just takes a slight slip up in facts to lose credibility with a story ... [The Anthony Albenese story of the 43-week pregnant woman]

With these two tests in mind business storytellers should be thinking of ways of conveying the relevance of their stories so they're afforded the air-time to recount their experiences.

They also should be thinking how to increase the plausibility of their story. Facts matter. Details matter. Names of people and places help. But most importantly will your audience believe what you're saying. The best advice comes from the master screenwriter and director Quentin Tarantino in this scene from Reservoir Dogs, lovingly called The Commode Story. Be warned: do not click on this link if you are offended by intense cursing or your workmates in the adjoining cubicles might be offended. The Commode Story.

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We have been helping organisations transform their strategies into concrete and memorable narratives for quite a few years now. In every organisation we've worked with - no exceptions - there have been powerful stories already circulating in the organisation that run counter to the new strategy. In most cases, these stories have been strong enough to significantly undermine the extent to which the strategy will be believed and acted on. These anti-stories need to be identified and tackled.

We've noticed a few patterns; about the nature of these 'anti-stories' and what seems to work in tackling them. Kevin and I have attempted to capture what we have learned about tackling anti-stories in a new article that you can access here

We love to hear about any anti-stories in your organisation and if you tackled them, how did you do it and what happened?

I am very pleased to announce that I will be running one of our world renowned 'Storytelling for Business Leaders' workshops in Wellington, New Zealand on the 1st February, 2012

I am very much looking forward to coming 'home' to New Zealand and passing on some of the skills and knowledge I have picked up around the use of story in business over the last decade in the UK and now with Anecdote in Australia.

To read more about the course and to make use of our 'Super Early Bird' rates please go here.

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Came across this wonderful infographic on the differences between business storytelling versus corporate speak. Anyone have anything to add?

Steve Jobs introduced iCloud at Apple’s WorldWide Developers Conference in June 2011 . iCloud is Apple’s ‘next big thing’. After explaining the iCloud concept, Steve says, “Now, you might ask ‘why should I believe them – they’re the ones that brought me MobileMe?’” The audience laughs uproariously. Everyone in the audience knows that MobileMe is pretty much the opposite of Apple’s reputation for user-friendliness. It just doesn’t work. Steve continues. “It wasn’t our finest hour. Let me just say that. But we’ve learned a lot.”

Acknowledging an uncomfortable truth goes a long way to removing its power. If everyone knows the story, ignoring it increases it power. Tackling these anti-stories (the stories in your organisation that work against your strategy) is vital.

But there is a downside of 'running down' MobileMe. There are many people in apple who have invested a lot of their energy and enthusiasm into MobileMe and hearing this public admission is probably uncomfortable or even painful for them. For this reason, most organisational communication overlooks the negatives and avoids risking upsetting anyone. The resultant messages have a 'pollyanna' feel to them that undermine their credibility.

We are working with many organisations to develop their strategic stories and find one of our key roles is helping them find and maintain the courage to say the tough things. Kevin and I are writing a paper on this at the moment reflecting on the lessons of our projects in the past few years. We'll blog about it when we finish.

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Steve Jobs bounces onto the stage and grabs the slide changer from his colleague with a friendly “Thanks Scott”. He’s looking thin and grey, illness having taken its toll, but his energy remains boundless. It’s the 2011 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference and Steve is about to announce a change in strategy for his company. The 1000-plus crowd cheers as he steps into the spotlight and then falls silent, hanging on his next utterance.

“About 10 years ago we had one of our most important insights, and that was the PC was gonna become the digital hub for your digital life.” With these words, Steve begins his strategic story.

A recent global study of 450 enterprises found that 80% of those companies felt their people did not understand their strategies very well.² It’s the dirty little secret shared by so many companies: ask any employee about your strategy, including the executive team, and they’ll lunge for a document that tells them. It’s rarely embedded in their minds and, as a result, the espoused strategy does not influence day-to-day decision-making. Given the effort applied to strategy development, there is a massive disconnect here. The opportunity to reconnect a firm with its strategy lies in how this strategy is communicated and understood.

There are a number of ways of conveying your organisation’s strategy. A popular approach is to craft a beautiful-looking PowerPoint presentation and email it to all your team leaders, with instructions to present it to their teams. The head of strategy for one Australia’s iconic brands once told me he happened to sit in on one of these talks and witnessed a team leader presenting a slide pack. It went something like this: “OK, HQ has asked me to tell you about (clicks to the first slide) … ah yes, our strategy. (clicks to the next slide and reads out the contents, then clicks again, pauses, and says:) Not sure what this means …” (clicks to the next slide). The audience slid into boredom. The talk failed to engage the team and left them none the wiser about the strategy and why the company was taking that approach. In fact, they were probably more cynical about and disengaged from the company than they had been before they’d sat down.

So sure, emailing a slide pack is easy, but in most cases it’s next to useless. It often achieves the opposite of what you want.

Another popular method is the CEO roadshow. The CEO visits each company site and presents the slide pack herself. This act is symbolic. It shows that the CEO really cares about the strategy and wants everyone to know about it, so it must be important. The audience watches intently to see how she presents the strategy, to see if she really believes it, if she really cares about it. Of course, the CEO is also there to answer questions, but no-one dares ask one in such an open forum.

Sadly, the result is often similar to what was observed by the head of strategy mentioned earlier. In kicking off a strategy session, a department head at a well-known bank asked a roomful of people, “So, who can tell me about our strategy?” Nothing. “OK, just one of the 12 items then.&rldquo; Still nothing. “So, no-one can remember any of the 12 things I have just travelled around all our sites talking about?” Silence.

Slide pack-driven presentations typically contain lots of bullet points and graphs and facts, but because these are not presented within an overarching narrative, it’s hard for the audience to join the dots. The audience forgets the information almost as soon as it files out of the auditorium because the presentation lacks a memorable story.

A key question people often ask when they hear about a new strategy is “Why?” “Why are we focusing on acquisition?” “Why are we outsourcing?” “Why are we demoting the Mac to the level of an iPhone or iPad?” A story best answers these “Why?” questions because it tells us what caused the change and what’s going to happen next – the strategy. A story provides the context for a strategy, making it meaningful and allowing it to connect with other company stories employees may have in their minds.

Here’s an example of a strategic story that was told to me at an executive story training session for a telecommunications company in Malaysia. The organisation’s leader was listening to my explanation of a strategic story when he suddenly jumped up and said: “I get it. Here’s our story. Over the last 10 years we’ve been focused on building mobile coverage. Our revenues have steadily increased but our infrastructure costs are rising faster. In 2 years time our infrastructure costs will exceed revenue. That’s why we’re now moving to collaborate and share infrastructure with our competitors and putting our efforts into competing on what runs on our mobile network.”

Why was this company collaborating with their competitors on infrastructure? Because its infrastructure costs were going through the roof. A simple yet effective story helped us understand why.

Strategic stories are powerful because people can picture them, remember them and retell them. Well-developed stories not only answer the “Why?” questions but also convey emotion in a way that inspires people to take action in accordance with the new strategy.

Developing an effective strategic story requires some work, primarily by the members of the executive team, who will often have a variety of views about what the company strategy actually is. It’s crucial that the responsibility for the story is not outsourced to the strategy department or, even worse, given to a creative agency. The leaders of the company must firstly clarify their own understandings of the strategy. They must then own both the strategy and the story that communicates it. Finally, they must not merely be comfortable telling that story – they must relish doing so.

One of the challenges faced by executives is to overcome the desire to get the words of the story absolutely perfect, as if the next Pulitzer Prize winner is being written. The story should instead be written to suit oral retellings, where the spine of the story will remain unchanged but the exact wording will be chosen by the speaker. These choices will be guided by the context and purpose of the story telling. Sometimes the telling will be long, sometimes it will be short, or it will focus on one part of the business, or on an internal story, or an external one … Stories have a tremendous capacity for adaptation.

Another challenge faced by executives is the desire to only talk about what’s working well. The problem with that, however, is that a pollyanna story – where everything is good and nothing ever goes wrong – is never believed for long, if at all. Eventually, everyone will see it as merely corporate spin. Steve Jobs does not make this mistake at the developers conference. Part-way through his telling of the strategic story that introduces iCloud, he admits the failings of the now superseded software MobileMe, saying, “It wasn’t our finest hour.”³ The crowd roars with laughter. There is a sense of relief that he hasn’t tried to sweep the failure under the carpet. His strategic story gains credibility.

One of the simplest ways of working out what failings to include in your strategic story is to explore the possible anti-tales that might be told to discredit your story. A key lesson in story work is that you can’t beat a good story with fact; you can only beat a good story with a better story. A strong example of this was provided by a large government department that we helped to develop a strategic story. This department had just merged with another department and their strategic story highlighted the advantages of the integration. When we asked the executives to tell us some anti-stories, they described how the department had attempted another merger a decade ago but it had only lasted a couple of years. They called it the big divorce, and there were still fears that it might happen again. It was clear we needed to face up to that fact in the department’s strategic story.

Once an executive team can tell their strategic story, replete with personal anecdotes that really bring the story to life, they then need to get the rest of their organisation involved in telling it. It’s important to achieve this through both bottom-up and top-down approaches, and to allow for variations of the story to emerge that suit different parts of the business while maintaining the story’s core.

Large company gatherings are a perfect time to introduce a strategic story. Immersing many people in a story at the same time results in an aspect of group psychology called ‘social proof’ – the social pressure that tells us that if other people are doing something, it is safe for us to do the same thing. A large event provides the perfect forum for executives to present their story and for the participants to share their own anecdotes, which can reinforce and illustrate the strategy. This also allows concerns and anecdotes which contradict or undermine the strategic story to surface and be dealt with.

Companies can develop and embed strategic stories at any level of the organisation. There can be a company-wide strategic story or one for a particular business division. CIOs are beginning to invest in developing strategic stories to bring their IT strategies to life so it makes sense for CEOs, other executives and board members.

An organisation’s culture is defined by the stories employees, customers, partners and all the many stakeholders tell. So if you want to change your company’s culture, you must therefore change the stories people tell. Your strategic story will become entwined in your culture, providing an overarching narrative that triggers new stories while also being modified by what happens in the organisation. The strategic story is alive because it is not merely the words that the executive team assemble and speak. Rather, the strategic story is fed by the multitudinous actions people take in the organisation.

Edgar Schein noted nearly a decade ago that there are relatively few things leaders do that inordinately affect organisational culture:⁴

• what leaders pay attention to, measure and control on a regular basis
• how leaders react to critical incidents and organisational crises
• how leaders allocate resources
• deliberate role modelling, teaching and coaching
• how leaders allocate rewards and status
• how leaders recruit, select, promote and excommunicate.

Each of these actions will trigger stories. Leaders must be mindful that their actions are more important in sustaining a strategic story than anything they say, because when people have a choice between believing a stated strategic story or the actions of their leaders, they will always take more notice of what the leaders do. The message for leaders, then, is that they should align their decisions and behaviours with their company strategy and the strategic story that describes it, or they will see their strategic efforts fail. Strategy implementation is change management.

It’s clear that creating an effective strategic story, one with real impact, involves much more than simply crafting and then telling a compelling story. It involves an executive team developing the strategic story themselves so that they can own it. It involves that team being comfortable with telling the story and weaving their own experiences through it. And most importantly, it involves everyone in the organisation learning and telling their own versions of the strategic story so that they all own it and act to support and build on it.

Steve Jobs paces back and forth across the stage, painting word pictures of where Apple has come from, why a change in strategy is needed, and where the company will now be heading. He talks as if it has already come to pass. Eventually he brings up his last slide, takes a deep breath, and finishes his story: “So that is iCloud.”

References

1. Horowitz, B. 2010, How Andreessen Horowitz Evaluates CEOs, http://www.businessinsider.com/how-andreessen-horowitz-evaluates-ceos-2010-5-2.
2. Vanson Bourne (2011). The link between strategic alignment and staff productivity: A survey of decision-makers in enterprise organisations. http://www.successfactors.co.uk/resources/resource-item/the-link-between-strategic-alignment-and-staff-productivity/
3. Apple WWDC 2011 Keynote Address. http://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/apple-wwdc-2011-keynote-address/id275834665?i=94705755
4. Schein, E.H. (2004). Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd edn, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco.

An effective business storytelling tactic is to tell a story from a movie as an analogy. Just pick a film scene that conveys your message and tell it. My walking buddy, Darren Woolley, shared this nice example with me.

Darren's company, TrinityP3, helps marketing departments of large companies around the world solve the trickiest problems. This is how Darren describes what they do.

"Do you know the film Pulp Fiction? Remember the scene when Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) are driving and they accidentally shoot their back seat passenger. They drive the blood-splattered car to their friend's Jimmie's house to clean up the mess and get help.  Before they know it the door bell rings and Winston "The Wolf" Wolfe is there to save them. Well, at TrinityP3 we are your Winston Wolfe."

Here is Darren's description of the Mr Wolf analogy with the film clip. Tip for the squeamish, don't click through.

One of the reasons why this film analogy works for Darren is that the film is well known. I noticed that Peter Guber advocates the same approach in his book Tell to Win but then uses films such as High Noon. Unless you are a film buff these old classics are just not going to cut it. So how do decide which films to use?

Here is a simple approach.

Visit the IMDB top 250 and select the top 100 records. Copy them into a spreadsheet. Sort by number of votes, because this gives you a list of the most popular movies as well as the top 100 best movies. Popularity is more important.

Here is the top 15 by votes:

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2. The Dark Knight (2008)
3. Pulp Fiction (1994)
4. The Godfather (1972)
5. Fight Club (1999)
6. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
7. The Matrix (1999)
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
10. Inception (2010)
11. Forrest Gump (1994)
12. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
13. American Beauty (1999)
14. Se7en (1995)
15. Gladiator (2000)

Notice Pulp Fiction is number 3.

I'd love to hear what analogies you come up with.

Sunday mornings is a favourite time of the week for me. I get up early and go walking with my friend Darren Woolley. The conversation is always lively and last Sunday I mentioned to Darren that I thought it was interesting that ambiguous stories seem to linger in my mind much longer than stories with a clear point.

"There is a reason for that," Darren says. "We're always trying to make sense of people's stories and if one is a little ambiguous we'll work a bit harder to work out its meaning. As a result we remember the story."

As soon as Darren said this I was reminded of the Heider & Simmel experiment where the subjects are shown a video of shapes moving about a screen. When they're asked to explain what's happening they mostly tell a story (the angry father finds his daughter with a boy and gets mad. The boy saves the girl and the father goes on a rampage). Every now and then someone quips, "they're geometric shapes moving on a two dimensional plane." I suspect these folk are the engineers.

With this idea in mind, that ambiguous or subtle stories linger almost beckoning a meaning to be found, I'm reminded of other examples. The first that jumps to mind is Limor Shiponi's story of the French businessman and the songbird (it's the first story on this podcast with Brother Wolf). I heard this story back in June last year and ever since then it nibbles away at my consciousness.

Another lovely example comes from Academy Award winning animator Shaun Tan and his book The Lost Thing. Ostensibly this is a children's picture book but there is much to learn here for business storytellers. Shaun tells a low key story about an exotic creature who seems lost. Like Limor's story we need to pay attention and mull over the meaning. It draws us in and holds us there.

Shaun also does something that I've seen Steve Jobs do, that is, understate the importance of his story. I'm paraphrasing here but Shaun starts The Lost Thing by saying, "There's no meaning in this story, no moral to learn. In fact I'm not really sure why I'm even telling this story." These types of statements seem like a challenge to me: "Come on, find meaning in this story. I dare you!"

Here's a classic example of understatement from Steve Jobs at his Stanford University commencement address: "Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal, just three stories." You can feel the audience leaning in to hear these three simple stories. "What can we learn? What do they mean?"

Now I'm not saying that business people should only tell ambiguous and subtle stories so their audience will remember and mull over them. To the contrary, most of the stories you should tell in the workplace should have a clear point (but please avoid telling your audience your point-it's much stronger if they work it out themselves). But every now and then a subtler story should be told and take a leaf out of Steve and Shaun's book and downplay your stories. Instead of saying, I've got this great (funny) story, perhaps introduce you stories in a way that invites the listener to seek out its meaning. And hopefully that will spark a conversation that benefits everyone.

Heider, F. & Simmel, M. 1944, 'An Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior', The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 243-59.

John Hagel has written an interesting post on the importance of narratives in providing persistent context for our lives, organisations and society. The post is important because John is an esteemed thinker that business and institutions notice and heed. And it is also this reason that I'm prompted to write this reply because I feel there are some points requiring clarification.

If you're like me you hear the term 'narrative' all over the place these days: "What's the political narrative?" "We need a compelling narrative." "Their narrative is unclear or even non-existent." I'm certain most people have little idea what is really meant by the term. John begins to describe what he means by 'narrative' but, for me, it doesn't go far enough, especially since most of his post is filled with the term.

A narrative must have a narrative structure. That is, it is told as a story. I realize this mixes up John's experiences, story, narrative trajectory a little but please bear with me. For example, John comes close to giving us narrative structure when describing the Christian narrative when he says, "people are born in sin but have an opportunity for redemption through a Savior." This is a statement rather than the narrative but anyone familiar with Christian ways will immediately fill in this statement with the stories that help us make sense of it. The narrative version of this statement is simply  "people are born in sin but THEN have an opportunity for redemption through a Savior." Two events connected. Without the 'then' it's not a narrative. Narratives, like stories, are made from events. Their connections infer causality.

People confuse their description of the narrative with the narratuve itself. And John does this when hs described the Christian narrative as a statement rather than a story. It is a natural tendency to give our narratives and stories shorthand descriptions. They make perfect sense for those people immersed in the narrative. But if you are not living the narrative or unaware of the big story then the descriptions make little sense.

John's American narrative is close to being a one but just falls short when he says, "The growth of the United States critically hinged on a compelling narrative that we have a Manifest Destiny as fugitives from oppression to deliver freedom to the rest of the world ...  As long as oppression exists in the world, this narrative mobilizes us to act and the future awaits to be defined."

The actual narrative requires a narrative structure something like: when America was established, the founding fathers welcomed the oppressed from around the world, they then fought to free themselves from oppression and over time they forged a culture that sort to deliver freedom to the rest of the world.

Now, my American narrative is quite an anaemic example and I'm sure just about anyone could suggest a better rendition. My point is simple, however, narratives require a narrative structure. Story structure provides a narrative with its power.

I understand John wanted to elevate narrative above stories and experience. But in doing so I think he inadvertently misrepresents stories. Firstly stories are not merely about plots and action. Stories are about people, events and something unanticipated (Jerome Bruner). Jay Callahan, the celebrated professional storyteller, puts it another way: stories are about people, events and trouble. You just can't have a story without characters.

For me narratives are broad-brush stories. Narratives are stories without the moments. Of course academics will disagree. I opened The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative to see that "I took the car to work" is a narrative. But I find this definition unhelpful.

John's defintion seems like a definition of life to me:

"Narratives, at least in the way I will be using them, are stories that do not end – they persist indefinitely. They invite, even demand, action by participants and they reach out to embrace as many participants as possible. They are continuously unfolding, being shaped and filled in by the participants."

I agree that narratives invite action and reach out to embrace people. They are unfolding and are being shaped by people. But I disagree that they do not end. The US Cold War narrative is no longer with us and it has been replaced by the War on Terror narrative. As one ends another takes over.

John's list of the benefits of narratives is a good one:

• stability and continuity in our lives. Narratives help to orient us
• narratives motivate action by helping to make sense of the world around us
• narratives also help participants construct meaning, purpose and identity for themselves, and
• narratives help to ignite and nurture passion within us

But they hold equally true for stories. Narratives are a type of story. A big story. An explanatory story.

I totally agree that we need narratives and it's important we understand the narratives that are currently in play and how they shape our understanding and response of what's happening in our organisations and society. I just hope we can move away from talking about narratives as if they are more important than our experience and our stories. The experiences, stories, narrative trajectory bothers me because it feels like the old data, information, knowledge hierarchy which is equally unhelpful.

Narratives emerge from a combination of events and people deciding what aspects of those events they want to retell; what gets amplified. It's much like history really, an emergent process. Regardless of what we do narrative patterns will emerge and only when we are mindful of these narrative patterns will we be able  to choose those patterns to nurture and the ones to disrupt.  Nurturing comes from retelling stories. Disruption happens when new stories are triggered that counter the narrative. If the disruption is big enough (think Egypt) then a new narrative is born.

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I’m reading an advance copy of Andrew O’Keeffe’s new book ‘Hardwired Humans: Successful Leadership Using Human Instincts’. I am looking forward meeting Dr Jane Goodall when she launches the book on June 6.

One of the human instincts, ‘emotion before reason’ tells us that emotions play a huge role in our decision making. We jump to conclusions and the conclusions we jump to are normally negative. This has lots of implications in the workplace for communication and leadership. Andrew provides an example of this.

So, what do you think is going to happen?

Almost invariably people assume the worst when they are reading or hearing this story. The business is about to fold, or the couple are separating are common reactions. We don’t remain in a neutral state waiting for the story to unfold and we normally assume the worst. Humans are hardwired to screen for pain and danger first.

So, be leaders need to be aware that people are primarily emotional, not the rational beings we assume them to be in a work context. They will always jump to conclusions and that these conclusions will often be negative. Effective leaders are acutely aware of the primacy of emotions as they seek to relate to and influence others.

I have written this blog post to demonstrate one of the key story patterns we advocate in helping get your message across clearly and helping it stick. We use the acronym PERP: Point, Example, Reason, Point. In this post, para 2 is the Point, paras 3,4 and 5 are the example that illustrate the point, para 6 provides the Reason (the logic, rationale, evidence) and para 7 reiterates and expands upon the Point.

Give this method a try when you are next faced with getting your message across. We’d love to hear back from you on how it goes.

A nice storytelling cliff hanger to get us to click. From NeuroCooking

Save Rock Creek Hills Park!

Posted: 08 May 2011 02:26 PM PDT

We have been writing here less often, NeuroCooking friends, because another topic has been occupying us lately, a great deal really, since the night of April 28th, when, out of the blue, something shocking and terrible happened.

In fact, ...

* * * * *

On second thought, we would prefer not to go into the matter here. However, we would like to take the opportunity to direct your attention to it.

And so, please, might we direct your attention to:

http://SaveRockCreekHillsPark.org

And to the facebook page "Save Rock Creek Hills Park".

Thank you for your understanding, and your interest.

 

Thanks to Kevin Bishop for the link.

Last few days....

Leaders can dramatically improve their ability to inspire, influence and engage both staff and customers by tapping into the natural power of stories.

We haven't run our Storytelling for Leaders workshop publicly for several years and have focussed on delivering it internally for clients. This month represents your only opportunity in 2011 to learn this vital leadership skill from Australia's original business storytellers.

Here are the locations and dates - click on the appropriate link for more information and to register:

• Melbourne, Tuesday, 17 May
• Sydney, Thursday, 19 May
• Brisbane, Tuesday 24th May
• Canberra, Thursday, 26th May
• Perth - Monday, May 31

For this week only we are offering a two-for-one deal for registrations finalised before 5pm this Friday (13 May 2011). Contact people@anecdote.com to take advantage of this offer. This offer only applies to two people attending from the same organisation and cannot be used in conjunction with other offers. Everyone already registered is also able to access this offer.

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Why would one of the world's foremost business storytelling experts say he was going to use storytelling to convey his message and then not tell a story?

Reading my email this morning I was excited to receive Steve Denning's latest newsletter. In it he tells us about how TED has thrown open its doors and now anyone can submit a 60 second video to audition for a much lauded TED speakers spot.

Steve tells us the story of his thought process for entering and then concludes with,

My third reaction, why not use storytelling and give it a shot? If storytelling is really worth its salt, surely it should be able to communicate anything very rapidly and powerfully. Why not radical management? So I crafted my story, did my video, had fun doing it and submitted it on Monday.

Excellent, I thought. Can't wait to see this story.

I opened the video and this is what I saw.

It's not a story. My heart sunk. It's a series of opinions about what makes firms delight or disappoint their customers.

A story would describe something that happened or might happen. It would have had characters and we would have had a sense of when it happened. A good story would have an element of surprise. There was no dramatic tension in this presentation. We know it's not a story because we can't see it happening.

Steve, why did you decide not to tell a story when storytelling is such a powerful approach? Why did you tell us you had told a story when it is patently not one?

When someone who knows so much about storytelling, and Steve obviously does, says he's told a story and then doesn't, it only serves to further confuse people who are trying to apply storytelling techniques. Knowing what a story looks like is the foundation skill. As one small gesture we've developed the storytest.com to help people in building this capability. But more importantly our actions must coincide with our words.

We are now on the lookout for anyone who purports to tell a story and doesn't because by highlighting these mismatches we might have an impact on building everyone's narrative intelligence so we can all benefit from storytelling.

"I only have a few minutes to get my message across, I just haven't got time to tell a story."

This is a comment we often hear this when we are running one of our Storytelling for Business Leaders courses. I don't believe having limited time, or a short amount of copy space, however is an excuse not to tell a story.

I was reminded, yet again, of how engaging, insightful and powerful a short story can be when I read an article from actress Rebecca Gibney where she was discussing her 'six secret rules for a happy life'.

Her first rule was 'Kindness Costs Nothing' and she told the following story, when she was living in Sydney, to bring this to life:

“Back when they used to collect tolls by hand, I always used to pay for two or three cars behind me, because it gave me a kick,” she says. “I used to look in the rearview mirror and see the smile on their face, and I’d just think, ‘Well, maybe that’s going to make the next five minutes of their day really good’. It’s great for your soul to do that.”

Three sentences, that's it. She has taken the abstract concept of kindness and, in a beautiful short story, made it concrete. She has shown you what she did around this value, not just told you her opinion of why kindness is important. And in a very short space she has painted a very clear picture which 'pulled' you into the story. Like me, could you see the people smiling in her rear view mirror?

Having limited time is no excuse not to tell a story, in fact if you have a limited amount of time, surely a story is the best way to make use of that time?

For the past two years Shawn and I have deliberately ignored Dave Snowden's regular pot-shots at our work and maintained the civility that we think is both appropriate and necessary when operating in such a complementary and emerging space. It hasn't been easy to swallow at times.

In his most recent instalment Dave takes thestorytest to task. In some ways it's flattering that he watches what we do so closely - he was one of the first half-dozen people in the world to take thestorytest. Being so fast out of the blocks, he encountered an initial glitch in the programming that reversed the scores. We apologise for this error which was corrected within hours of the site being launched. Thanks to Dave we identified it early.

But Dave's main point isn't with this glitch. In fact, his main point is a complete surprise. Before reading his blog post, I would have laughed at the suggestion that such a thought-leader in the field of story would describe helping people acquire the skill to identify a story as "a red herring."

We strongly believe that it's an essential skill to be able to distinguish between a story, an opinion and a factual report, and all the other things which are not stories. We work with business people facing real-life challenges and our job is to help them. You can't tap into the natural power of stories if you don't know what one is. We've tried to keep it practical and useful - coming up with the four key characteristics (time or place markers, characters and events) that differentiate a story from an opinion or factual account. Our emphasis is on useful and practical rather than theoretically precise.

In contrast, Dave's description of story as being an "aesthetic experience, a means of recollection or persuasion as much or more than entertainment, a form of resonance with out past and future" falls into the category of 'interesting but useless.'

We remain convinced that being able to identify a story is an important skill. Thestorytest is intended to help people develop that skill. Try it for yourself. Please let us know what you think.

This story was told the other day by General David Petraeus (The head of all international forces in Afghanistan) just before a press conference illustrating the meaning of true importance.

HT to Victoria Ward. Source: The Guardian

We developed TheStoryTest.com to help you build your skill to identify stories. Quite frankly it's hard to be a good storyteller if you can't tell the difference between a story and say, an opinion, or an analogy or even a case study. A good storyteller's ears prick up as soon as one starts and they also notice when no stories are being told. TheStoryTest.com has 10 examples of stories and non-stories and your job is to decide which is which. At the end you'll get a score and get a link to the answers. We want as many people as possible in every organisation in the world to build their story intelligence. It will help bring more humanity to organisations.

TheStoryTest.com was born from the observation that many good folk who came to our Storytelling for Business Leaders training couldn't say for certain when a story was told. Probably about 70% were either unsure or totally off base. By the way, if you were wondering if I 've told any stories so far in this post, the answer is no.

Just this week I was reminded of just how poor we are at seeing stories. Like everyone else in the story business I'm excited about Peter Guber's new book on storytelling, Tell to Win. So when I discovered he was interviewed by Harvard Business I clicked on over and watched the 6 min video. I joked to my colleague Kevin before watching it saying "wouldn't it be funny if he didn't tell any stories." Well you could bowl me over with a fluffy croissant; there wasn't a single story in sight. A number of friends also sent me this video and I replied back saying how remarkable it was that Peter didn't tell any stories and on more than one occasion my correspondent replied to the effect, "bloody hell, I didn't even notice."

By the way, the problem is rarely an inability to see enough stories, rather we often see stories in everything, even when there are none to be found. It's because we humans are all story creating creatures who make up stories to explain anything that doesn't quite make sense. We feel safer if we have the story.

Now, you are probably wondering, so what makes a story (and I don't mean what makes a good story--that's another thing altogether)? Before we answer that question go and try your skill on TheStoryTest and then we will point you to the basics of how to spot stories. Once you can do it consistently your storytelling will take off.

One of the basic requirements for any form of successful communication is the listener understands what's being said. However we often face the challenge when trying to get our message understood of the "curse of knowledge".

Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has "cursed" us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can't readily re-create our listeners' state of mind.

The term was first coined in 1990 by a Stanford University graduate named Elizabeth Newton. She created a simple game in which she assigned people to one of two roles: 'tapper' or 'listener'. Each tapper was asked to pick a well-known song, such as “Happy Birthday,” and tap out the rhythm on a table. The listener’s job was to simply guess the song.

120 songs were tapped out. Listeners guessed only three of the songs correctly: a success ratio of 2.5%. But before they guessed, Newton asked the tappers to predict the probability that listeners would guess correctly. They predicted 50%. The tappers got their message across one time in 40, but they thought they would get it across one time in two. Why?

When a tapper taps, they are hearing the song in their head. Go ahead and try it for yourself - tap out 'Happy Birthday'. It's impossible to avoid hearing the tune in your head. Meanwhile, the listeners can't hear that tune - all they can hear is a bunch of disconnected taps, like a kind of strange Morse code.

It's hard to be a tapper. The problem is that tappers have been given knowledge (the song title) that makes it impossible for them to imagine what it's like to lack that knowledge. When they're tapping, they can't imagine what it's like for the listeners to hear isolated taps rather than a song.

So, what can you do to overcome the curse of knowledge, especially if you work in very specialised areas full of jargon, technical speak and acronyms? Use specific, concrete examples.

Specific, concrete examples (aka stories) work particularly well in overcoming the curse of knowledge, because they allow us to give examples that people create and can 'see' in their own minds. It takes the abstractions and the jargon and makes them real by allowing the listener to understand what you actually mean.

For example, the other day I was working with a large financial services organisation and they were showing me a clip of their CEO talking about their four focus areas for 2011. In it the CEO said; "We are not easy to do business with" and then moved on to talk about the initiatives underway to rectify this.

As I watched all I could think was; "What do you mean, please give me an example so I can understand". Don't you think a short story showing how difficult they are to do business with would have really helped viewers understand what they meant as well as making the video much more compelling? Imagine how much more compelling it could have been if that story was also about the human impact on customers?

The CEO knew exactly what they meant by the term "We are not easy to do business with" but I suspect across the organisation there were many people who didn't.

In Made to Stick Dan and Chip Heath tell a story about how FedEx used a specific example to bring to life the company’s strategic aim of being "most reliable shipping company in the world." "In New York, a FedEx delivery truck broke down and the replacement van was running late. The driver initially delivered a few packages on foot; but then, despairing of finishing her route on time, she managed to persuade a competitor’s driver to take her to her last few stops." Stories like this are tangible demonstrations of the company’s strategy and help take abstract notions and make them real for people to understand.

So if you want to make sure you are avoiding the curse of knowledge and reducing the gap between you as the 'tappers' and your audience as the 'listeners' use concrete and specific examples. When I say "concrete and specific", I mean focus down on a specific moment and tell a story about that. This would mean instead of saying "delays in our mortgage process" is an example of "difficult to business with", tell a story. Maybe:

Barbara Jones, a customer since she was at school, had shifted out of her house that day. She had packed all of her furniture into a removal truck, and was now parked outside the house she thought she had just brought being told by us there was a delay in processing her mortgage approval. She was now facing the prospect of a two day delay, with no where to stay, a furniture truck full of her everything she owned and her cat in a cage on the back seat. All because of the failings of our mortgage process.

Annette Simmons says that there are some story types you just should know and be able to tell, namely: Who am I? and Why am I here? I'd like to add another story type which will help you to connect, which I'll call the "I'm Like You" story.

Robert Cialdini describes a fascinating experiment in his book Influence, which I'll recall from memory. The experimenters write a letter first in English and slip it into a wallet, include some cash and then leave the wallet in a public place. When they left the wallet in a predominantly English speaking neighbourhood the chances of it being returned were much higher than leaving it in a non-English speaking neighbourhood. Then they wrote the letter in Italian and as you might expect the letter was returned more often than not when it was left in the Italian neighbourhood and so on. People like people who are more like them.

Last year Mark and I were giving a talk to the commercial division of an insurance company on how to be better business storytellers. We were told before hand that the newly appointed CEO would arrive somewhere in the middle of the workshop to give the group of 200 or so people a short talk. This was the CEO's first encounter with the commercial division. The CEO's minder gave me the signal that the Chief was ready to talk and he strode in confidently and said, "One of my first jobs in the UK was underwriting water boilers in the north of England; they wouldn't trust me with anything more complicated. I remember one very cold morning ..."

The CEO set about telling three short stories of how he'd done insurance work in the past and how he'd had some understanding of the work the division did. At the same time he didn't make himself out as an expert, rather he was clearly sympathetic to some of the challenges the job presented. The stories, like all good personal anecdotes, gave everyone a sense of the type of person he was: no nonsense, hard working, fair, with a sense of humour. Of course it's impossible to tell what people were thinking but the audience body language suggested he had their attention.

We can relax a little when we know the people we're with are like us. We speak the same language (including the jargon), hold similar values, have similar interests and share similar stories of success and failure. There's a much better chance that when we are with people like us they will care what we think and say.

But you can't merely assert you're like others. You need to provide the evidence, and in social settings evidence is supplied as stories. You need to tell I'm Like You stories.

Now here's the catch: we judge stories on their relevance and plausibility. In this case relevance is rarely a problem because any story that shows you have some similar experience as your audience will help make the connection.

However, if you haven't worked a salary job for a single day in your life, are a multi-millionaire inherited from your aristocratic family and then attempt to tell a story of how you toughed it out as a young fella as a way to connect to, say, your factory worker constituents (which UK politician might I be thinking about?), then there's a good chance their bullshit detectors will sound loudly.

So start with your audience. Understand what they do. What do they value? Then search your own personal experience for something similar. Eek out an anecdote no matter how small that shows you have lived some of their life. If you come up empty think about you parents' experiences. Never pass their stories off as your own (moral sin of storytelling) rather just tell people what they've told you. For example, my father was a US Marine and I've shared some of his experiences which helped me connect to military folk I've worked with over the years. And if you still have nothing don't even try to pretend. That's when you rely on the other story types to help you connect.

We are always on the lookout for good stories. I found this one today on the PassionHR list on YahooGroups:

As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children an untruth. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. However, that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard. Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he did not play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. In addition, Teddy could be unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers.

At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy's off until last. However, when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise. Teddy's first grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners... he is a joy to be around.."

His second grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is an excellent student, well liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home must be a struggle."

His third grade teacher wrote, "His mother's death has been hard on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much interest and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren't taken."

Teddy's fourth grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is withdrawn and doesn't show much interest in school. He doesn't have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class."

By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy's. His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper that he got from a grocery bag. Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents. Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one-quarter full of perfume.. But she stifled the children's laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist.

Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, "Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to." After the children left, she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she quit teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, she began to teach children.

Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one of her "teacher's pets.."

A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life. Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy. He then wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in life.

Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he'd stayed in school, had stuck with it, and would soon graduate from college with the highest of honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he had ever had in his whole life. Then four more years passed and yet another letter came. This time he explained that after he got his bachelor's degree, he decided to go a little further. The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had. But now his name was a little longer....The letter was signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, MD.

The story does not end there. You see, there was yet another letter that spring. Teddy said he had met this girl and was going to be married. He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was wondering if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit at the wedding in the place that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom. Of course, Mrs. Thompson did. And guess what? She wore that bracelet, the one with several rhinestones missing. Moreover, she made sure she was wearing the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last Christmas together. They hugged each other, and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson's ear, "Thank you Mrs. Thompson for believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference."

Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back. She said, "Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn't know how to teach until I met you."

(For you that don't know, Teddy Stoddard is the Dr. at Iowa Methodist in Des Moines that has the Stoddard Cancer Wing.)

I'd be very interested in your thoughts on what this story means and where it might be useful.

I am constantly surprised of the most unlikely places and situations where you hear great stories.

Last weekend the family and I were over in South Melbourne doing some shopping. I was standing in the queue to pay for an item (see, I know my place in the shopping process!) and was reading a handwritten sign behind the counter which read; "Every 3rd Hawker will be shot. FYI, we've already had 2 today". The lady standing in front of me saw me reading the sign, we made eye contact and smiled at each other, and then just started telling me this story:

My son got offered one of those door to door sales job but he turned it down to do a telesales job instead.

Me: "Sounds like a rock and a hard place! How did he get on?"

He's just left school and was very excited to have a job. It was all about trying to get people to swap electricity suppliers and he was impressed he got a whole week of training.

On his first day of actual selling he was taken into the Supervisors office just before lunch and told that he wasn't selling enough and they told him a few 'pointers' that he was very unhappy with, didn't think were legit. and just didn't seem above board. He didn't go back after his lunch break.

When he came home and told his Dad and me what happened, we couldn't have been prouder. Maybe we did bring him up right!

What a fantastic 'values in action' story. When you talk about integrity as a value, this for me is a story that brings it to life - it takes the abstract concept of integrity and makes it concrete and 'real' through a story.

This very brief encounter was yet another reminder to me that stories are all around us, all we need to do is be open and conscious to hear them.

My friend Donal O Duibhir keeps an eye out for story-related tidbits for me (thanks Donal). Today he sent me this 5 min video of Scott Berkun describing how to deliver an Ignite talk (sounds just like a Pecha Kucha). He starts with "I think storytelling is everything ..." Nice. You have my attention Scott. He then builds on the idea making the good point that we are all natural storytellers. It's just part of the human make up.

A little bit of context here. I'm half way through Scott's book The Myths of Innovation, which is a terrific read. He tells some good stories in it so I'm waiting for some stories in this video. I'm waiting, and waiting ...

Scott's advice for would-be Ignite presenters is to tell stories (right on!) and Scott says there are three places to look to find these stories.

1) Things you love and are passionate about

2) Things you hate and despise

3) And if you can't find a story, tell the story of not finding it. He calls it a meta-story

Still no stories ...

I reckon Scott's advice has about a 50/50 chance of getting stories told at Ignite because you could just as easily share your view on what you love or hate as an opinion as comfortably as tell a story. And because we're such natural storytellers and they are so ubiquitous many of us don't really know what a story looks like. Add to that our habit to privilege rhetoric when we get a little formal. Stories suddenly evaporate.

So building on Scott's advice I would add this idea:

Think about an event, something that happened, to you or someone you know, that illustrates your love or passion for the topic, or the hatred, and tell that. You'll know you're telling a story if you start it at some point in time like "just the other day," "a while back," "in December 2001..." Here's a little example (that a grabbed from our story finder) of a story:

Since we started Anecdote in 2004 our local Kwik Kopy in Coburg has printed most of our posters and workshop materials. Kelvin does a great job. Always high quality, delivered when we need it despite the outrageous time frames we sometimes impose.

That was the case up until this Wednesday. We'd created a high-quality handbook to support our Influence Change workshop and I picked them up from Kelvin at 4.30pm ready for the next day. At about 6pm I open the box and my heart sunk. The workbooks looked shoddy. Some of the pages were in the wrong order and all of them had edges that weren't trimmed and aligned properly. Very unusual for Kelvin. And I needed them for 7.15am the next morning.

I called Kelvin. I could hear the concern in his voice and he came over to my house right away. He apologised, kept extremely calm and said he would set it right. He went back to his store and personally re-did our handbooks and arrived back at my place at 10pm with a perfect set.

And with that little nudge I think you'll get stories. No need to talk about plot structures, character development and all the wonderful things you can learn from the likes of Robert McKee.

It's been a few years since we publicly ran our workshops in Australia. We've been focussed on delivering them internally to our clients. But in May this year we are running Storytelling for Business Leaders workshops in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. Click here to find out more and to buy your tickets. Lots of different early bird prices to take advantage of.

Why do some business storytelling efforts fail spectacularly? I hear sponsors of some of these failed attempts (they're brave enough to call us in after their bad experience) saying, "storytelling just didn't suit our culture" or "we just didn't click with the person we brought in to help us." I suspect these are merely superficial explanations.

The storytelling spectrum is a simple but useful idea I learnt from my friend and storytelling expert Mary Alice Arthur. Imagine a spectrum of storytelling. At one end is Big 'S' Storytelling which includes those beautifully crafted stories we see in movies, novels, plays and even the latest Playstation games. Big 'S' Storytellers understand plot structures, character development, scene design and a myriad of other storytelling principles and practices. At the other end of the spectrum is Small 's' Storytelling where we find the stories we tell on a daily basis in conversations, anecdotes, recounts and examples.

We've focussed our attention on the Small 's' end of the spectrum (the anecdotes, the real life experiences) and have inched our way toward the Big 'S' end, but not too far for reasons I'll explain in a moment. There's lots to learn from the Big 'S' end but business people don't need to be screenwriters or playwrights. Putting too much storytelling craft in how you communicate can lead you to fall into an even bigger trap. And this trap is similar to one discovered in robotics in the 70s.

In 1970 a Japanese robotics researcher, Mashahiro Mori, noticed that as he made his robots more humanlike their attractiveness increased, but only to a point. After that they became creepy. It was only when it was impossible to tell the robot from the human did they become attractive again. Mori called this dip in comfort levels (Shinwakan) the Uncanny Valley.

Source: Crossing the uncanny valley, The Economist, Nov 18th 2010.

We witnessed the impact of the Uncanny Valley at the movie theatres in 2004. Pixar released The Incredibles at the same time Warner Bros. released The Polar Express. The Polar Express used live action performance capture techniques to make almost humanlike animated characters with an eerie result; not what you want for a Christmas tale. The Incredibles were clearly animations and it became a box office hit.

There is something like an Uncanny Valley of Business Storytelling. We can improve our storytelling with techniques applied from the wealth of storytelling techniques used by the best screenwriters, playwrights and novelists, but only to a point. After that business storytelling drop into an Uncanny Valley. At the bottom of the valley the storyteller's efforts seem artificial, forced and clumsy. Sometimes this happens when people in the organisation believe they need to understand sophisticated plot structures, vocalisation techniques and beats and scenes to apply storytelling. Frankly, I think you can love storytelling too much and try too hard. Sometimes a storytelling professional believes that to be a real storyteller you need to be a performance storyteller. This often results in the storytelling voice. You know that one that sounds like the person has just started a children's story with Once Upon a Time. Again the result is the Uncanny Valley.

Yes, you can learn a lot from Big 'S' Storytelling but it's folly to try apply too much. In the end so much can be achieved just helping people to be mindful of their experiences and the experiences of the people around them and work out what these experiences mean. With this understanding recounting an experience can be a powerful illustration of what you believe is important. And told as a story on the gentle hills above the valley will mean people with remember it and maybe even be inspired to take action.

To register for this workshop visit http://anecdote-sbl-london-2011.eventbrite.com/

Wednesday 16th February 2011, 9am-5pm

Seats are limited. Last year we sold out quickly. Please register to confirm your seat.

"Last year when I ran this workshop in London two participants, Kevin and Greg, moved their families to Australia and Kevin is now working for Anecdote. So is the power of storytelling." Shawn Callahan

About this business storytelling workshop

We all need better ways to persuade, share what we know and help those around us make sense of the complex world we live in. Developing our innate storytelling skills helps build confidence, convey ideas clearly and effectively, and probably most importantly, present to our colleagues our humanity.

We all want to convey our ideas with impact, yet eyes instantly glaze the moment you beam your PowerPoint presentation laden with slide after slide of dot points. We know informally that stories are engaging; we tell them at dinner parties and people listen and they 'get it'. Yet few leaders systematically harness storytelling to communicate ideas, convey the organisation`s values or inspire and motivate people.

What the one day workshop is all about

Telling business stories is not about concocting events and delivering your tale to an enraptured audience. Rather, it relies on people retelling their own experiences in an authentic and empathetic way. Anecdote has developed a three-step process to guide you.

Prospecting

Everyone has stories to tell, but in many cases we are unaware of them. Prospecting involves creating a conducive environment for people to remember their stories. You need to become a story collector and we show you how.

Patterns

We can improve the way we tell our stories by understanding the many story structures and patterns available to us. During the workshop, we will explore a few key story patterns and help participants re-craft their stories based on these structures.

Performance

Effective storytelling comes from the knowledge that your story is authentic. People judge authenticity on how the storyteller delivers their story: how does it sound. Participants will learn ways to develop a comfortable delivery style and feel at ease at telling stories regardless of the setting.

This workshop is for anyone wanting to improve their ability to find and tell their own stories within a business context.

Who should attend

This workshop is for anyone wanting to improve their ability to find and tell their own stories within a business context. It is also for people wishing to improve their leaders' ability to communicate ideas and engage staff in developing new behaviours.

You should attend this course if you are interested in:

• communicating your organisation`s mission, vision and values
• helping leaders motivate and inspire
• conveying desirable behaviours
• sharing knowledge
• becoming a more effective leader
• sparking action
• having people really listening to your ideas.

What you will learn and leave with

• a better understanding of what makes an effective story in a business context
• a newly discovered story- re-crafted story from your own experience
• understanding of how to best craft questions to discover stories
• ways to interview people for stories and facilitate anecdote circles
• when to use what story pattern - build confidence in telling your story.

What attendees have said

'Shawn has a most honest, open and engaging approach which is what is shown to work best with this technique and creates an enjoyable workshop.'

'The workshop covered a lot of territory in a way that combined analytical rigour with a clear and informal delivery. I recommend it without reservation.'

'There's loads of value in the Storytelling for Business Leaders workshop, and it's been a useful part of my leadership development activities.

In my role as Chief Sustainability Officer I'm often using stories about how our clients thinking has shifted around sustainability... they're often very powerful. The workshop has given me ideas and tools on how to actively include stories into presentations to give a better sense to people of who I am and what I stand for, as well as to illustrate key messages. I know they're having effect because of the feedback I receive - that they reflect an authenticity that is engaging - and because I hear people sharing these same stories.'

I recently read a fascinating account of how story collection made a real difference in America winning the Second World War (or at least their part in it). Rob Yeung tells the story about the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and the psychologist John C. Flanagan in his recent book The Extra One Per Cent.

This story for me underpins a lot about what initially attracted me to Anecdote. Having an approach built around really understanding and making sense of what is going on through collecting real life, specific examples before rushing straight to solutions is one that just seems to make sense for me. It also reminds me of the power of making things concrete, and how abstractions, opinions and beliefs can 'get in the way' of understanding and clarity.

This USAAF/Flanagan story is certainly one I will be telling in the future to help make the point about the power story collection can have.

(1) Flanagan, J. C. (Ed.). (1947). The aviation psychology program in the Army Air Force (Research Report 1). Washington, DC: US Army Air Forces Aviation Psychology Program

My daughter and I recently watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show and our DVD has the option to play the audience participation sound track while you watch the movie. It brought back fond memories from the early eighties going to screenings where we would take our rice, water pistols, confetti and newspapers and for every line in the movie we would call out an irreverent line or two. Great fun.

On re-watching the movie you can't help noticing just how flimsy it is: weak plot, poor acting, clumsy directing. When it was first released it was roundly panned by the audiences and critics alike. But then something happened. People started having fun with it and audience participation emerged and next thing you know you have a cult classic.

I'm willing to bet that one of the reasons why audience participation emerged is that the Rocky Horror Picture Show is an imperfect story and therefore leaves space for the audience to add in their own content. Compare this with a beautifully crafted movie such as Million Dollar Baby. Can you imagine audience participation happening? OK, that's not a fair comparison so think about some musicals: Chicago, Westside Story, Hairspray. Again the only participation here is singing along to the songs.

Crafting perfect stories is unlikely to get the participation you were hoping for in your business. I'm finding comms departments particular obsessed with the perfect story approach. Comms folk have been in the business of crafting and disseminating company messages and in most cases they are in broadcast mode. So when they encounter storytelling they are often preoccupied with learning how to tell the best story. What are the features of a great story? How do we help our leader tell a compelling story? How will we hook our audience and engage them emotionally? All good questions but it's only applying one approach to story work and I can guarantee if you spend too much effort crafting the perfect story your audience wont participate in the conversation you are hoping they might have. You will have created a Million Dollar Baby that no one wants to mess with.

Contrast the perfect story approach with what happened in one of our leadership programs. We collect 100 stories from staff of good and bad leadership. Verbatim stories: just the way they spoke them. The workshop participants have to decide which story is most significant in terms of staff engagement. Two stories bubble to the surface. Both stories are anaemic in story terms. The one they chose is about a woman who whenever she goes to her manager's office he's working on his computer, very focussed on his computer screen. But when he sees her he stops what he is doing, comes over to the table in the middle of the room, sits down and engages her like that's the only thing on his mind. She finishes the story by saying that she reeeally appreciates it and no other managers do it in the company. That story generates heaps of discussion but more importantly we see the conversation triggering new behaviours in the organisation. The story is not pretty. It's not perfect. But it has a lasting impact.

So in business story work let's not get so obsessed with the perfect story. Let's leave that to the Aaron Sorkins and Clint Eastwoods of this world. In business story work we need to trigger conversations that reveal new stories and really engage our people in storytelling.

I spend an enjoyable day yesterday at the AFR leadership conference in Sydney. The first speaker was Alex Malley, CEO of CPA Australia. Alex noted that all of us have childhood experiences that shape our views on leadership. He told a story about his first leadership experience. My recollection of his story is as follows:

When I was 12 years old, my mum was in hospital, very sick. The first time I went in to visit her I was on my own, and a bit overwhelmed. Walking down the corridors, looking for the right room and finally finding it. When I entered the room I wasn't sure what to do. The cleaner looked up and saw this 12-year-old boy obviously looking quite apprehensive. He came over to me and said “you must be Alex. Your mom has told me everything about you, she's very proud of you. Your mum is very sick right now but it's important that you know that she loves you very much."

Many people I spoke to during the day commented on this story and how powerful it was. It just goes to show that a simple example such as this can convey powerful messages that stick in people's minds. It's also a good example of how leadership can be displayed by anyone in an organisation.

How do you remember so many stories? I get this question a lot and for some time I didn't really know the answer. I certainly believe stories are important, that they are memorable, help you connect with your audience and all the other many benefits we talk about on this blog. But how does one remember the right story when you need it? In the last few of months I worked out a critical element.

We've been working with the Victorian Bushfire Recontruction and Recovery Authority (VBRRA) for a number of months now and back in July I facilitated an event of 200+ Community Recovery Committee (CSC) leaders to help them better connect across their 33 CSCs. We helped them share their stories to make new connections.

In preparation for the event I met with Christine Nixon (then VBRRA Chairman) and Ben Hubbard (CEO) and described our story-based approach and ask whether they would like to share a story or two with me. Christine told me this.

After hearing this story I was out in the corridor talking to Deb, who worked with Christine, and asked what the story meant for her. Deb said that it was an example of how good things can come out of terrible situations. She also said it showed that corporate involvement can make a difference. For me I thought it was an example of how small things can make a big difference. And then it struck me, this is an important practice for remembering stories: you need to ask yourself what an experience or story means, what's the point of this story?

But knowing the point of a story doesn't guarantee you'll remember it. It does, however, provide a trigger for the story to be retold and the retelling reinforces those synaptic pathways that help you remember the story.

This experience made me realise that I often ring Mark (my business partner) and tell him a story I've just heard and we talk about the point of the story and when we might retell it. Inadvertently we had created a story remembering practice.

Yes, we also record our stories, albeit briefly. And The Story Finder helps. But there is nothing better to be able to illustrate a point with an example on the fly and having these stories in your head makes all the difference

Bob Dickman, who wrote Elements of Persausion, just sent me this note that has this thought provoking story in it which I though you would like. If you are in California you might like to attend his storytelling workshop.

I've just returned from visiting some friends of mine in Maui. They told me an amazing story.

800 miles off the Hawaiian coast, an oil tanker caught on fire, and the blaze moved so quickly that the captain didn’t have time to radio for help. Fortunately an American cruise ship was nearby, and the entire crew was rescued. But as the cruise ship began sailing away, someone heard barking coming from the tanker. The tanker's captain realized that his dog, a small brown and white terrier named Hokget, had been left on board. When the cruise reached port, passengers immediately alerted the Humane Society about the missing dog. Soon the news media was winging the story all around the world, and checks began pouring in. One check was for $5,000. Public pressure was so great that the US Navy and Coast Guard sent ships and planes to find Hokget. Eventually he was rescued alive and returned safely to Hawaii. It has been estimated that millions of dollars were spent in recovering that one little terrier.

What happened? Why did this dog capture the imagination and resources of all these people? After all, we live in a world where millions of children (as well as countless dogs and cats) go hungry every day. This little terrier had a name and his plight was told as a story rather than a statistic. People responded because they felt something immediate and visceral. They were moved to take action. Statistics and abstractions don’t make people act, stories do.

When facts and emotion combine to produce a story, people will act. Facts alone are too distant and cold. They produce indifference.

Are you differentiating yourself from your competition using facts alone? What stories are you telling about your business? Are they abstract and distant, or do they engage people and get them excited about your new business ideas, products and services?

Come to the August 21st workshop with author and master storyteller Bob Dickman. Work on your story in a positive, engaging and creative environment. Practice and improve your story making abilities. Turn indifference into action.

There are four spaces left for the August Workshop.

Thanks,
Bob

Last week I was driving to basketball with my daughter listening to Hamish and Andy on the radio. Richard Branson was up next to talk about the launch of Virgin Money and this is what he said (perhaps not word perfect but how I remember it):

Andy: so tell us about this new venture Sir Richard

I can see this little story having an impact for three reasons:

• it's told as a story where the little guy is up against the four big, bad guys (we like a challenge story)
• it reminds us of how Branson introduced Virgin Blue and how flight costs tumbled
• it's a story so can be easily remembered and retold

Have you heard other CEOs launch products or a company with a story/

Last year Terrence Gargiulo and I delivered a webinar in the triple threat of storytelling. It was really popular and we had a great time doing it.

Well we're back for another webinar, this time we're exploring how to become a better storyteller by applying some specific and deliberate practices.

Here is our little marketing blurb. Sign up details are at the bottom of this post.

Have you wondered why you are not making better progress at becoming a storyteller at work? Are you finding it difficult to find good stories to tell? Are your stories relevant to your colleagues or do they look at you blankly wondering what planet you're on?

Spend 45 minutes with master business story practitioners Shawn Callahan of Anecdote and Terrence Gargiulo of MAKINGSTORIES.net as they share deliberate practices you can employ today to be a better storyteller.

We will conduct the session as a conversation involving everyone. Yippee!

We expect you'll walk away with three things from this session:

• Three practices to deepen your storytelling skills
• Ideas from other attendees of how they improve their skills or what works for them...what works in their organisation
• Some specific resources for finding good stories

We're doing this webinar twice, one timed for Asia Pacific and the other for the Americas. Just click on the link of the webinar you want to attend and fill in your details.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Aust. EST  

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM USA PDT

Looking forward to chatting with you on the call.

In a fast paced workplace dominated by tasked focussed folk hell bent on ticking boxes and creating outputs, it can be difficult to get your story heard. The conversation can go something like this:

"OK, what's the next item on the agenda?"

The preceding conversation reminded Jean-Pierre of something they should really avoid that happened last year. "You know getting this job done really reminds me of what happened last year. Do you remember how Gary pulled together everyone from budget and wholesale and we had that crazy time creating the budget report?"

"We probably don't have time to reminisce. Trish, would you like to report your planned next actions."

There's a misconception that stories must be long-winded and don't add much value to a "business" conversation. Of course the very opposite is true. We've listed a few reasons on why stories are important to business but in this case stories provide concrete examples of what to do or what to avoid. Examples that people could put into practice. But before they will listen to your story they need to answer a couple of questions in the positive: is it relevant? is it plausible?

With these requirements in mind, here are 4 tips to get your story heard at work.

1. Preface your story with a relevance statement (a sentence or two) that highlights why the group should listen. "We don't want to make the disastrous mistake Gary and the team made last year," should get people in the previous example interested in the story.
2. Keep your story short. You can say a lot in 90 seconds so you should aim for a story that's about that length.
3. Avoid the 's' word. Steer clear of the terms 'stories' and 'storytelling' because they trigger the wrong mindsets in your listeners, ie. probably made up, for entertainment, unbusinesslike. Instead talk about real life experiences, things that happened, case studies or just launch into the telling (after your relevance statement) with a time marker (which clearly implies you are telling a story anyway) such as last year, in 2007, last week, on Tuesday etc.
4. Or course your story hasn't really been heard until people reflect on what was said so finish your story with a question to get your listeners talking about the story. You might ask, "I wonder what we can learn from that experience?" or "What do you think are some of the significant lessons?"

When you go hunting for a story, for say a presentation you're about to give, you're taking something that normally lives and breathes in an informal environment and transporting it to a more formal organisational setting. It's OK to do this of course as long as you understand what this beast is like in its natural setting. Don't take a tiger and put it in a concrete cage. It's inhumane. Instead add the right foliage, give it plenty of water to play in and lots of room to move. It wont be exactly the same as seeing that tiger in the wild but you will be able to appreciate its beauty.

What do stories in the wild look like?

Imagine you've caught up with some work friends and a manager has been giving you a hard time. Today he waltzed over to your cubicle and announced to you and everyone else who could hear it that your missed your targets. You tell this story and your friends listen and respond by showing sympathy and then they start to analyse his motives and what he might do next. You start talking about what you should do and you tell another story of what you did in the past and how that turned out. Your friends help you interpret that experience and recount their own stories.

It's improv, messy, it flows, you move back and forth between story and interpretation and no one notices. No one (except story geeks like me) is thinking, wow look at the stories that are being told and how it's such a social process. It's invisible to us.

Now contrast that with how we use stories in a business setting. You might start by thinking, "I have a presentation I need to give next week to my staff and while they're doing pretty well I'd love to inspire them to even higher performance. I know stories are powerful. I wonder if I can find a story that's inspirational and relevant? Let's have a look at all my business books. They're packed with stories. Beauty, got one. OK, I can tell this. I'm all set for next week.

Did you see what's missing? When we take our stories out of the informal setting we can lose the back and forth interpretation that comes from our colleagues. This chit chat is how we make sense of our experiences (as told as stories). So when we use stories formally we need to put back the chit chat.

Mark and I do this all the time. For instance, just today Mark called and launched straight into a story. I knew immediately he was giving a story a test run (I hope he retells it in full here). It was about a CEO who was trying to explain why his company had changed strategy and this CEO was having problems convincing his audience. At the end of the story Mark says, "so, what do you think that story was about?" I told him and my interpretation was different to Mark's. Mark felt the story was about the difficulty the CEO was having convincing his audience. I said if that's the case, and we both agreed there were lots of possible points to this story, Mark needed to expand that part of the story.

Our conversation brought back some informality, and interpretation, to the storytelling process but with the view of telling this story in more formal circumstances.

Are you tired of reading blog posts? For a change how about just listening about storytelling? Makes sense really.

I recorded this podcast for a group of executives in New York and thought you might also enjoy it. It describes why I think storytelling is an important leadership skills, why stories have impact, provides a couple of tips on becoming a better storyteller, describes what we mean by strategic stories and shows how story work can be much more than merely telling tales.

Here's the link to the audio file.

I'm sitting in a cafe thinking about what makes a great listener. I can see a few. They're leaning forward, nodding, smiling, asking questions. You can tell they want to be there and that they care about the person they are listening to. They're not glancing at their watch, their phones and there're no computer screens to distract them. They take turns telling their stories and sharing their thoughts but when they're listening they're engrossed in what the other person is saying and they're not interrupting. It's impossible for me to say for sure but I'm imagining that when they're listening they're not working out the next thing they're going to say to impress their friend, to knock down their argument, to win the point. It's a natural flow, improvisation style.

Most of know how to listen but why does it seem to evaporate in the workplace?

I suspect we've created workplace cultures that emphasise problem solving and getting the job done quickly and getting through the work. When someone asks a question people are clamouring to answer it and show that they are the fixer, the can-do person. Or they enter into interrogation mode to get the information so they can fix the problem.

And there are distractions galore. Phone beeping, computers beeping, colleagues bleating, all competing for our attention.

Yet there are many important times when deep listening is essential. One particular type of conversation which is top of mind for me at the moment is mentoring.

When someone you're mentoring pops into your office and says, "I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this thing I'm grappling with," then it's time to go into deep listening mode. Can you be like the people in the cafe?

A couple of ideas.

First, remove distractions. Put your mobile out of site, put your phone on silent and if your computer screen is on a swivel arm move it so it's also out of sight. Better still come around the to the other side of your desk and sit next to them with your distractions out of eye shot. I have one client who has to put his back to the glass wall of his office so he can't see the stream of people who wander past and want to speak with him.

Second, ask good questions. You want them to open up and explore the issue. Hopefully they will get a new perspective and some possible options. So you need to listen carefully to ask good questions. As a general rule, 'why' questions will get to the bigger purpose. 'How' and 'what' questions will get the detail of how things work and what might be done. And my favourites, 'when' and 'where' questions often get you stories.

Third, tell stories. You would think that listening is about just shutting up but it would be pretty weird to sit quietly and not say a peep. So to avoid just solving their problem, a strong urge for Type A's, recount some of your experiences to get them thinking of what's possible without telling them what to do.

Fourth, show that you are listening. How you look, how you respond, what you say, all indicate whether you really care and are listening. I'm not a big fan of summarising everything someone says in the form "so what I'm hearing you say is ..." I reckon that's distracting and merely a rote response. A better way is to try and predict a consequence of what they are saying and test it. "Wow, that must have been hard to take?" This way you are adding to the conversation. Body language is the other way to show you're listening. You know what to do. I find it fascinating to watch body language in our workshops. When we are sharing opinions people lean back and have that "prove it to me" look on their faces, but when are sharing stories everyone leans forward.

I'd love to know more about how to help people be better listeners. Any thoughts would be welcomed. One great source on the web is my friend Jill Chivers who has a business called I'm Listening. She has a video-based program you can take and learn to be a better listener. Note to self: must go on it.

Troy White has just posted a blog which I think is both very good because it encourages people who don't think they are storytellers to have a go and practice, yet I feel doesn't go far enough because there is a chance readers will not get to a story based on his list of triggers. Mind you I think Troy's story prompters are a great place to start. I would like, however, to make some additions to each one to make doubly sure people tell a story rather than just express their opinion. My additions are in red.

• Pet Peeves and when was the last time you felt peeved by them
• Physical Characteristics (Uniqueness) and the times they helped or hindered
• Core Beliefs and how they unfold in practice
• Politics - when have you felt angry, let down or felt like giving them a standing ovation?
• Birthplace - how did you end up being born there?
• What Are You Pathological About? And where do they emerge? What happened last time?
• Religion - has there ever been a time or moment where you were truly thankful for your beliefs?
• Significant Childhood Events
• Beliefs - have they ever got you in trouble?
• Hobbies - when have you felt proudest of your hobbies?
• Education - has your education made a big difference? What happened?
• Skills - Have you ever had a moment when you were surprised by the skills you have or dismally lack?
• Interests - What's your most boring interest and when have you really bored someone with it?
• Family - What are you most fond of about your family? What's an example?
• Talents - Has a talent ever really made a real difference? What happened?
• Life Events You Remember Most
• Adventures You Will Never Forget
• Incompetence At? Share a time when you were a real klutz.
• Anything You Are A Legend Of? When did your legendom shine?
• Successes - What are the three most memorable successes you remember? Take us through what happened.
• Likes - Tell us the last time one of your real likes jumped out and grabbed you?
• Curiosities - What is the weirdest thing you have ever heard happening?
• Failures - What's your biggest stuff up?
• Dislikes - Have you ever felt repulsed by a dislike? Tell us about it.
• Are People Amazed By Anything You Do Or About You? If yes, what happened?
• What Are You Ambitious About? What Fires You Up? When have you been really fired up? What got you going?
• Self Disciplined About? When have you displayed a monk-like discipline.
• People Are Envious Of You Because _______? When has someone been envious of you?
• Do People Desire What You Have? When have people desired what you have?

To get to a story you need to get to a time and a place. When and where questions are good. Asking what happened works. Just asking for an example can work if you can get people to provide a detailed example. Troy's prompters point us in the right direction for finding our own stories. My additions hopefully will increase the chances that a story will be told.

Why do you remember some people and completely forget others?

It really reinforced in me a quote by Terrence Gargiulo:

A story is the shortest distance between two people

So, if you want people to remember you, tell them a story.

The conversation didn't need to be held that way. We could have just talked and I would have learned that there is a process I needed to follow. I had no idea, but I should have guessed. It just reinforced in me that I can't stand bullying behaviour and, quite frankly, managers who are arseholes.

As such at Anecdote we have long held the "no arsehole rule" made famous by the Stanford professor, Bob Sutton. Adopting this rule has resulting in us firing a client and vowing to never work with someone who was a partner.

What amazes me however is just how these workplace arseholes continue to thrive in organisations. One view is that they have to work somewhere but surely we can create working environments that reflect a humane and reasonable work ethic.

I feel this mentoring program we designed and are delivering for a client is helping to increase humanity to the workplace. We've taken an informal approach to mentoring and have avoided the arranged marriage approach where someone in HR matches mentors and mentees (we've called the mentee the kouhai, a Japanese word with a similar meaning but doesn't sound like the tasty peppermint Mintie). In fact the informality goes further because we are advocating not even asking someone to be your mentor, which can create a rather awkward moment, rather we want people to just ask colleagues they respect and want a mentoring relationship for their view or guidance on a issue. We are focussing on the verb 'mentoring' above the noun, 'mentor.'

This approach fails however unless the potential mentor is mindful that these approaches will happen and when they do they can switch themselves into mentoring mode. We call this 5-minute mentoring and the mentor knows (because they have experienced a range of stories from their workplace illustrating good mentoring behaviour) that they need to focus on the interests of the kouhai above, say, the interests of the company.

If enough people experience narrative-based mentoring program we believe the behaviour of managers changes and humanity increases. We have seen this happen in our narrative leadership programs with simple behaviour changes such as giving someone your full attention when they enter your office.

Let's rid our workplace of arsehole behaviour. And the quicker we do it the better we will all be for it.

The Origins Asia Pacific Business Narrative Conference is a part of the Singapore International Storytelling Festival and is organised by The National Book Development Council of Singapore, with Shawn Callahan of Anecdote and Patrick Lambe of Straits Knowledge.

The aim of Origins is to foster the practice of business storytelling and narrative techniques in the Asia Pacific region and to build awareness among government agencies and corporations of the power of storytelling and narrative for business.

The conference has three objectives

• To build a network of practitioners to deepen the practice of storytelling and story use in organizations.
• To create awareness of the broad utility of narrative techniques for dealing with business issues, their capacity to humanise the workplace, and to help organisations deal with complexity and uncertainty.
• To inspire leaders to take the first steps in applying narrative techniques in their businesses.

Why participate?

Narrative methods are beginning to have a substantial impact on businesses, particularly in the following areas:

• leadership
• communication
• staff engagement
• strategy alignment and execution
• issues characterised by complexity
• change management
• understanding cultural and attitudinal differences
• learning lessons
• building a collaborative work environment
• communicating tacit knowledge

Who should participate?

• Leaders of organisations, teams and projects
• Corporate planning and strategic planning roles
• Change managers and change activists
• Managers in knowledge management, organisational development and organisation learning roles
• People in training, instructional design, coaching and mentoring roles
• Corporate communications and internal communications roles
• Branding, marketing and sales roles

Here is a nice little story from CEO of Nike, Mark Parker.

We start most of our projects by collecting stories. We collect stories in groups (using anecdote circles) and one-on-one. We've learned a lot about getting people comfortable, building trust and asking questions that elicit stories. There's still a lot to learn. A couple of weeks ago something happened while filming stories for a mentoring program we're creating for a client. And since we had a camera at the time we filmed my recollection of what happened.

Time is important and so is your intent.

Paul Cooper over at SMS Consulting Group shared with me this simple way of thinkng about trust.

TRUST = (credibility + reliability + intimacy) / intent

I like it. For one thing, I can remember it and after all the trust-related literature I've read over the years I think it describes the important elements (btw when I first saw the formula depiction I initially recoiled. "Trust can't be a simple formula." I got over it.)

When collecting stories you need to start with a warm up. Back in 2004 I described what the warm up looks like when collecting stories. All those ideas still hold true but I would like to emphasise INTENT. Your storyteller must know you have a good intent and that you will safeguard the stories and the storytellers. . When we collect stories we make it clear how we intend to retell the stories and whether we have their permission.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a teleconference with Doug Lipman on story elicitation (he's running some courses on this topic too). He's also noticed that business books that talk about the importance of questions often neglect story-eliciting questions. There are a few good places to find story-eliciting questions. You can check out our Questions category on this blog. And just yesterday I was reminded by @AmandaFenton about StoryCorps' story collection guide.

Doug's talk cover the 7 things not to do when collecting stories.

1. Don't compromise safety.

Ensure the storyteller understands your goals and how the stories will be used. I've had times when a storyteller has revealed something that could be career-limiting an we have removed the story at their request.

2. Don't show delight

You must be interested in the stories they are telling. If they think you are not interested you end up getting high-level, shortened versions just so they can get it all done and get out of their.

3. Don't enter the imagined world they are creating for you in the story

Your interest and delight will be a function of how much you let the story transport you to the experience they are recounting.

4. Don't be a slave to your questions

Often someone will tell you a story which will prompt new questions and avenues of investigation. You need to listen carefully too because there is nothing worse that asking a question that has already been answered in a previous story.

5. Fail to pursue scenes

The best stories have details. Details create imagery that creates context, adds authenticity and makes the story memorable. So as the interviewer it's important to pursue these specific scenes: one day, in one place, one person, did one thing (OK, that's an exaggeration but you get my drift).

6. To not hypothesise the storyline

I think what Doug meant here is to ask follow up questions in the pursuit of details such as "so that was adversely effecting your relationship?" If that is not the case then your hypothesis was wrong and the storyteller can correct you.

7. Hijacking the story

Taking over the story and telling it your way. I think some trained journalists do this. I was speaking at a conference this year and the facilitator quickly interviewed me so she could introduce me. What I said and then the story she told didn't match in my mind. When this happens the storyteller loses control and is no longer a collaborator in the process.

We've just refreshed our materials for our popular Storytelling for Business Leaders workshop. We offer this workshop to organisations who are looking to build their internal communication and influence skills. We run it regularly for a variety of companies such as NAB, Jemena, BAE, and IBM and it forms part of our overall programme of Making Strategies Stick.

Dave Bruebeck, the jazz virtuoso, once said "there is no mistake if you can resolve it."

I was reminded of this quote when Steve Hopkins told me this story about what happened at World Vision around the time of the Haiti earthquakes.

Every company wants to tell a compelling story that conveys the essence of what they're about. If it's a success their customers and employees will know where they have come from and where they are going and what makes them unique and worthwhile. And with this knowledge they become attracted to what they are offering. Stories are great for answering the question, 'why?' Why are we investing in this equipment? Why are we hiring these type of people? Why are we spending so much time with our new employees? Why? Why? Why?

I've a treat for you (thanks @vivmcw for the link). A superb example of an company telling a series of stories to explain what makes them tick. But before you feast your eyes on some terrific storytelling keep the following in mind: while it can be important to share your company story to a mass audience with the artistry only a Madison Avenue ad firm can deliver, it's more important your leaders can tell your organisation's story, without notes, to everyone they work with. And from my experience helping executive teams craft and tell their strategic story, the process of working it out is as important as telling the strategic story.

Did you enjoy that? What I really enjoyed was how the narrator (company founder Kihachiro Onitsuka--or perhaps an actor playing him) recounted a series of anecdotes describing key events in the history of ASICS so that we inferred a bunch of things that are not actually said explicitly in the video. For example I felt that ASICS was continually innovating, that they had a long a proud history, they invested in state of the art technology, and they were willing to destroy the past to create the future.

Can your leaders tell your strategic story?

I've just found Garr Reynold's recent post on stories and experience. He makes the good point that people remember stories because they convey emotions, which is very true. We remember what we feel. In this post I would like to briefly explore another reason why we remember stories and touch on the types of stories which are most memorable. Let's take the last point first.

Garr tells us that he visited Haleakala National Park in Japan The park has beautiful but dangerous water falls and sign-posts warn visitors to be careful. Garr noticed that one of the sign-posts seemed more effective that the others because it included actual news clippings of people who had lost their lives. These tragic incidents were told as stories.

Apart from the obvious emotion these stories generated what else might be drawing our attention to these stories? One possibility comes from taking a human evolution and natural selection perspective. Over the 10,000s of years our species has been evolving we've been preoccupied by our own survival (avoiding death), the survival of our children (continuing the species) and sex (creating the next generation). Consequently we care deeply about death, sex and the safety of our children. Any story that feature these topics gains our attention. It helps explain the proliferation of hospital and police dramas on our TVs. So stories of death are hard for us to resist and warning signs that contain these types of stories are attention magnets.

It's true that we remember what we feel but we also remember what we conjure for ourselves. To illustrate this point would you please read this story. I have some questions at the end.

OK, as you were reading this story what could you see in your mind's eye? Could you see the mother and son having dinner? Did you see them walking arm in arm? Did you see him ring his mother? Did you see the envelop and the receipt it contained?

People see stories. We literally re-experience the story with the person telling it and this act of re-creation make the story our own. We remember what we can see and experience.

OK, what about this.

• Stories are memorable because they evoke emotion.
• We remember stories because we visualise what's happening and create our own personal version of the story
• Three of the most memorable types of stories feature death, sex and the safety of children.

What did you see? If you are like me you didn't see a thing. Dots points and opinions don't create imagery and therefore don't conjure emotions and are mostly forgettable.

The story was posted to PassionHR list 16/3/10 by Mannish Aggarwal

Hat tip to David Zinger's post 23 Employee Engagement Eclectic Resource Zingers (No. 13) for the link to Garr's post.

part of The Singapore International Storytelling Festival

6-8 September, Singapore

Call for Case Studies

In early 2009 we (Patrick Lambe and I) wanted to see if we could put together a conference on storytelling for business. Our concept was for a very practical, workshop-focused conference, designed to help Asia Pacific business people apply story approaches to boost business performance. But we weren’t sure if anyone would come!

So we organised a two-day masterclass on business narrative as part of The Singapore International Storytelling Festival, and the festival did a terrific job in telling people about the event. We waited anxiously to see if anyone would register. Did Asia Pacific organisations really value storytelling as a legitimate and effective business technique? Patrick called me in Melbourne a couple of weeks after we announced the event: registrations were coming in fast. We were booked out months in advance.

This year we want to build on that success and focus on the many story practitioners in our region to create an event where we can learn from each other while also expanding the awareness of narrative approaches among the region's organisations. We’re looking for proposals for case study presentations from within the Asia Pacific region to share what you have done and what you have learned.

The conference has three objectives

• To build a network of practitioners to deepen the practice of storytelling and story use in organizations.
• To create awareness of the broad utility of narrative techniques for dealing with business issues, their capacity to humanise the workplace, and to help organisations deal with complexity and uncertainty.
• To inspire leaders to take the first steps in applying narrative techniques in their businesses.

Conference design

The event will have three parts:

Day 1 will be a closed practitioner's forum for the conference speakers and case study presenters only. We will spend the day sharing what we have learned from a practitioner's perspective. The day will be designed for dialogue rather than presentations.

Day 2 will be a public conference where practitioners will present case studies that illustrate the effectiveness of story-work; and

Day 3 will consist of a set of 1/2 day workshops to enable attendees to build their business story skills in specific areas such as coaching, organisational change, leadership development and communication.

Do you have a case study to share?

We are seeking expressions of interest to share a case study at the conference. We are particularly interested in stories of working with narrative in organizations, across private, public and non-profit sectors. They should clearly illustrate the value of how stories and storytelling can be used to meet the organisation's business needs.

Case presenters will:

• Participate in the closed practitioners’ forum on 6 September
• Share their case study in round table discussions in the morning of 7 September
• Offer to share a technique they have successfully used in a “techniques marketplace” session in the afternoon of 7 September

How we will select the case studies

We will select case studies based on:

• richness of the case for learning
• transferability of the lessons
• demonstrated impact
• innovative approaches
• geographic representation
• representation of different kinds of organization

Please send a short description (a couple of paragraphs) to both Patrick Lambe (plambe@straitsknowledge.com) and Shawn Callahan (shawn@anecdote.com.au) before 22nd March. We’re also happy to trade ideas by email or Skype if you want to develop an idea before you decide to put a more formal description together.

Shawn Callahan

Patrick Lambe

Here are my two suggestions. Love to hear yours in the comments.

Personal motivation initiative: we are creating a one-page handout describing why the team manager is an important role and listing four things every manager must do to be great at the job. The first on the list is to collect registration fees on time. I did think we should include a short story of how a manager did one of these tasks (more on this idea below).

Social motivation initiative: For the next four months we will share with all the team managers the overall percentage of teams that are all paid up and either congratulating them of getting all their fees in or encouraging to be as good as the rest. The overall percentage at the outset will be large which will send the message that most people are paying (social proof).

To add to this thinking I discovered this morning some important influence research which shows how stories can be added to this mix with tremendous effect. Over at the Inside Influence Report Noah Goldstein reports on Adam Grant's research showing that reminding people of the meaning and significance of their work can double their productivity. And he did this by simply sharing stories from those people who benefited from the call centre worker's hard work: in this case benefactors of a fundraising organisation.

Here is how Grant ran his experiment.

So my question is who's story does the team managers need to hear? I can't imagine hearing a story from the committee of how getting the money in on time will motivate anyone. Perhaps it needs to be a story from one of the players that received a scholarship or from a parent in the under eights who gets reduced fees to get them started. Or maybe it is a story from one of the coaches who all just received new coaches tops.

Grant, A. M. (2008). The significance of task significance: Job performance effects, relational mechanisms, and boundary conditions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 108-124.

Congratulations on doing TheStoryTest—and if you haven't done it, reading this blog post now is tantamount to cheating—shame on you :-)

Here are the quick answers. Below we will explain why each example is or is not a story.

1. Pizza innovation - no
2. Basement flood at Tree Hill - yes
3. Hewlett Packard's European operations - no
4. The role of a leader - no
5. Gloves on the boardroom table - yes
6. Pin board of movie directors - yes
7. Tappers and listeners - yes
8. Mark Burnett's bathtub 'story' - no
9. Peter Lowry Technical and Quality Coach - no
10. Suggesting a Caesar salad at Southwest - yes

Spotting a story—a practical definition of a story

Many story aficionados will be unhappy with our practical definition of a story because in their mind it doesn't illustrate the shear beauty and intricacy of stories. And they would be right. This definition is a practical one for spotting stories. It says nothing about what makes a good story, a subject as deep an Borges' fabled library.

At its most basic level a story is when someone does something, somewhere, at some time and usually for some reason. In other words a story describes an event (or sequence of events) at a place and time featuring one or more characters who take some action for some purpose. A story is about something that happened or might happen. What's happening now is life.

There are four features to look out for to spot a story:

1. Time marker: stories often start with a time marker such as "In 1991 ..." "Just the other day" "Last Tuesday ..." "When we last spoke to the CEO ..." The archetypal time marker is, of course, "Once upon a time" but I find this opening less common in a business context.
2. Place marker: sometimes a story will start with a place marker such as "We were outside Jim's office ..." "At basketball ..." "On our way to the client ..."
3. Characters: stories feature people (or other people-like entities such as Thomas the Tank Engine) doing things. They have names, speak and take action.
4. Events: stories have one or more events. These events might be moments in time or scale up to eons.

This should be enough to spot a story. So here are the ones in TheStoryTest.com

Examples that were stories

Story two - Basement flood at Tree Hill

This is a story we collected in an Anecdote Circle. It's exactly how someone told it. It starts with a place marker "the basement at Tree Hill." Then the the teller talks about his manager, Smithie, and how he deals with mistakes.

Story five - Gloves on the boardroom table

The first paragraph is context setting so we haven't got to the happening yet. Then the story starts with "I asked one of our summer students ..." A character doing something for some purpose.

Story six - Pin board of movie directors

"Arriving in Hollywood in the late '60s" is the time marker but the real action starts in the third paragraph when Peter is organising his pin board of directors.

Story seven - Tappers and listeners

This story clearly starts with a time marker, "In 1990 ..." and then tells us about an experiment conducted by Elizabeth Newton. The story really only extends for the first two paragraphs and the following three paragraphs are the implications drawn from the story.

Story ten - Suggesting a Caesar salad at Southwest

In this case we start with the character "Herb Kelleher" and the time marker "once told someone". This is a good example of a specific moment because we are hearing what Herb actually said. It is also an example of a story inside a story. When Herb gives his example he tells the story of Tracy from marketing, which we can assume is a fictional story based on things that could happen. A very good teaching story as well.

Examples that were NOT stories

Story one - Pizza innovation

This example is close to a story but is not quite there because it is mainly a set of opinions: "innovation is key", "the team identified a very simple but enormously powerful insight", "you really do need to worry about Mum losing out all the time." There are some near story components but told at a high level and therefore loses its impact: "The team go out of the office ..." "Initially launched as the Quad ..."

Story three - Hewlett Packard's European operations

Now you could be fooled into thinking this was a story because is starts our with a character (HP's European operation) and a time marker (in the late 1990s) but by the second sentence we move to a viewpoint about the idea rather than what happened. The rest of the paragraph is then opinions about how the French would react to the Belgians. We selected this one because it has the feeling of a story without really being one.

Story four - The role of a leader

Hopefully you got this one easily. It is straight forward rhetoric with no story elements.

Story eight - Mark Burnett's bathtub 'story'

The first two paragraphs are context. Then the third paragraph says we are going to hear a story. But what we are told is an analogy about a bath tub and not a story at all.

Story nine - Peter Lowry Technical and Quality Coach

This is a good example of what some PR and corporate communications people think is a story but is merely a description of someone with some of their opinions. Nothing happens.

Anecdote helps you harness the natural power of stories to bring your strategy to life. We help you tell your strategic story and then engage your employees in the strategic process so everyone has a hand in creating it. The result is a strategy everyone understands in concrete, specific terms where the level of commitment to its achievement is vastly increased.

We help our clients be more effective and resilient through developing their capabilities to work collaboratively, in teams, in communities of people with shared interest and expertise, and across diverse networks.

Contact Us

NB: For our regular readers you might be wondering why we are explaining what we do in a blog post. We just wanted to make sure people could find our services around making strategies stick and our four speciality areas.

Anecdote helps you harness the natural power of stories to bring your strategy to life. We help you tell your strategic story and then engage your employees in the strategic process so everyone has a hand in creating it. The result is a strategy everyone understands in concrete, specific terms where the level of commitment to its achievement is vastly increased.

We help our clients be more effective and resilient through developing their capabilities to work collaboratively, in teams, in communities of people with shared interest and expertise, and across diverse networks.

Contact Us

NB: For our regular readers you might be wondering why we are explaining what we do in a blog post. We just wanted to make sure people could find our services around making strategies stick and our four speciality areas.

It was going to be difficult to surpass their last book, Made to Stick, where they showed us that people wont pay attention unless our message is simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional and a story. And it was going to be even harder practising what they preached to make Switch stick. But I'm delighted to report that they've pulled it off and have created an engaging and useful work on how to change things when change is hard.

Switch is arranged around an analogy (immediately visual and sticky). When we are making a decision we're often torn between our rational, logical reasons and our emotional, intuitive feelings. Chip and Dan ask us to imagine an Elephant and its Rider (the mahout). The Rider represents the rational and logical. Tell the Rider what to do, provide a good argument and the Rider will do it. The Elephant, on the other hand, represents our emotions, our gut response. The Rider might like to avoid that hamburger and chips but there is very little the Rider can do if the Elephant really wants it (OK, so I'm telling you what happened last night). To complete their analogy they include the Path they are travelling along. If the Rider can direct the Elephant down a well prepared Path then there is a good chance for change. The Path might represent, for example, access to user friendly technology or effective office space design. Switch is arranged in three parts: Direct the Rider, Motivate the Elephant and Shape the Path.

On Saturday in 2000 ... In 1990 ... A doctor was asked ... Crystal Jones joined Teach for America in 2003 ... These are the first few words of the first four chapters and apart from the last chapter each starts with a story. And within each chapter are more stories. These stories are well chosen and illustrate the behaviours we need to adopt to effect change. The whole book is focussed on behaviours and rightly makes the point that change comes from changing people's behaviour. That's the level you need to take. A leader cannot afford to stay aloof. For change to occur they need to get into the detail as well as stay strategic.

As a business storyteller Switch is a treasure trove of stories to be retold in organisations. Last week I was running a strategy workshop and I wanted the group to identify a set of guiding principles for their organisation. So I told them the story of the Brazilian railway that was going broke and how Alexandre Behring and his CFO created four rules to guide everyone's spending behaviour to get them out of debt. I shared the rules with the participants and they knew exactly what I meant and were able to easily create their own guiding principles. Strategy execution is a change initiative and Chip and Dan advise us to script the critical moves.

Here is the structure of the book. Notice how each section is a pointer to behaviour.

Direct the Rider: Find the bright spots; Script the critical moves; Point to the destination

Motivate the Elephant: Find the feeling; Shrink the Change; Grow your people

Shape the Path: Tweak the environment; Build habits; Rally the herd

On page 58 we encounter our first clinic and I must admit I groaned slightly when I bumped into it. Getting me to do exercises while I'm reading is normally a pain. I was going to just skip the clinic but decided to have a read and the thing I noticed was that the repetition of the ideas in another context was really helping me to remember. I knew repetition is important but I guess the story approach sucked me in and reinforced it.

One the first things I check when I get a book like Switch is to see whether it is comprehensively referenced and what type of studies are being referred to (if any). Switch passed with flying colours. The endnotes are expansive and they share a swag of evidence for each point they make and often used the psychological experiments as stories rather than just presenting the facts.

Switch is a book that will be read by senior leaders. It's engaging, well written, funny in parts and insightful. If you're an change practitioner in an organisation I recommend you buy a handful of copies and give them to your leaders. In my experience they wont read it right away but then they'll jump on a flight and start and wont stop. At this point you'll not only have a supporter but someone who will compel your involvement. Malcolm Gladwell has served me well in the past and Switch is in the same league.

A few nights ago I watch Changeling starring Angelina Jolie. It's directed by Clint Eastwood (has he ever directed a dud movie?) and I was fascinated by a short documentary we found in the DVD extras where Clint explained why he never calls out 'Action' when directing a scene. As an actor Clint found a director's call to 'Action' off putting. He was immediately reminded that he was an actor, acting and his performance suffered. Instead Clint calmly and quietly says things like, "OK, in your own time ..." or "when you are ready ..."

I'll add that advice to my repertoire of tips for getting people to tell their stories on video. I like to use my Flip Video to make rough and ready clips. Here are the seven things I keep in mind when filming:

1. Sit the person in front of plain background--you don't want to be distracted by what's behind the storyteller
2. Have light come in from the side (sit them next to a window) to give their face more depth. But not in direct sunlight.
3. Hold the camera as still as I can.
4. Start filming well before you ask the person to recount their experience and engage them in some idle chit chat. This gets them used to being filmed.
5. Keep the camera as close to my face as possible and tell the storyteller to tell me, not the camera, the story. Ask them to look me in the eye. With the camera close by it will look like they are looking at the camera.
6. Keep filming after they finish their story. You never know what they will say after they relax and then there is plenty of space to edit the ending.
7. Try to avoid making noise and nodding while they are telling their story (hard to do). Otherwise your sounds and movement also get captured.

On a recent trip to Canberra I was lining up to board the plane. Behind me was a young family. Their young son, probably four or five, was quizzing his dad.

The boy said: "Why are we in the line?"

"Because we are getting on the plane," his dad replied.

"Why are we getting on the plane?"

"Because we are visiting Grandma in Canberra.," says dad.

"Why are we visiting Grandma?"

"Because we love Grandma and she likes us to visit."

Our urge to know 'why' is deeply embedded in our psyche. From an early age we want to know the reason things happen. It helps us predict what might happen in the future and makes us feel safe.

The desire to know why doesn't diminish with age. If a CEO announces that the company is shifting direction to concentrate on customer service, everyone in the company will want to know why.

And if they haven't been told the story of how the shift came about, they will create their own story.

Imagine two colleagues chatting after the CEO announcement to focus on customer service.

"After all these years banging on about innovation, now it's customer service. What's that about?" says Paul

"Well, I heard the new chairman is a zealot for customer service and at his last position there was a dramatic improvement when they focussed on their customers. He must have twisted the CEO's arm," says David

"Good to know the CEO can think for himself," Paul chuckles rolling his eyes.

If leaders don't tell the story that explains important decisions then employees will use the best information they have to create their own story. At best this only confuses everyone and stalls action. At worse the new direction is actively undermined by the competing stories.

You might be thinking, "so do the senior leaders simply spin a story that's serves their purpose?" You could try but employees are too smart to believe a porky pie. It's in everyone's interest for the leaders to tell what really happen to prompt the change. There are two things someone hearing the story will ask themselves before they will really listen to what's being said: is it relevant? and, is it plausible? Fail these two tests and you may as well be telling the stationery cupboard. With something as important as a new strategic direction it's vital that all the leaders want and can tell this story.

We call this type of story a strategic story and we've been having fun helping some interesting companies find and tell their strategic story.

We often get asked whether we are running any public courses on our techniques but for the last couple of years we have reserved these courses for our clients.

But this February and March we are running one workshop on influencing change with stories in collaboration with Kevin Bishop, most recently the Royal Bank of Scotland's change manager in the UK.

If you would like to attend here are all the details.

We only have limited places so please let us know as soon as you can to secure a spot.

Seth Godin has a new ebook out called What Matters Now. It consists of 80 or so thought leaders each with a page to talk about an idea that matters to them. Each idea is summed up in a single word such as Dignity, Autonomy, Attention, Difference. You can download the ebook here.

Dan and Chip Heath have a page with the title, Change. They incorporate three ideas in their one-pager that is dear to our work: stories, positive deviance and changing behaviour. Here is what they wrote.

We’re wired to focus on what’s not working. But Murphy asked, “What IS working, today, and how can we do more of it?”

You’re probably trying to change things at home or at work. Stop agonizing about what’s not working. Instead, ask yourself, “What’s working well, right now, and how can I do more of it?”

Chip and Dan Heath are the authors of Made to Stick and the soon-to-be-released book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.

It's not a coincidence that the Heath brothers decided to tell a story to illustrate their idea and try and persuade the reader to adopt a different approach to change. They dedicate a chapter to the power of stories in their book, Made to Stick and conclude the book saying that most of the other effects described in the other chapters are encapsulated in stories. So let's look at some of the features of this story and why it might be effective.

The simple story structure creates an image for us of both Bobby and Murphy (and let's not forget Ms. Smith). I can see Bobby sitting on a swivel chair restless and bored. If the story creates vivid images for us there is a good chance it will grab our attention and we will remember it. We've all seen Bobbys in our life, so it's easy to picture him in this story.

Names are important. Humans care about other humans. We want to know the names. Case studies often lack names and suffer for it. Again it creates attention through authenticity and empathy for people.

Also notice how they start with the story and then provide the advice. They didn't want the reader to slip into a confirmation bias where we automatically discount suggestions as our first instinct. The story first allows us to pull the idea to us, own the idea ourselves before a suggestion is made by the experts.

In my hands is a corporate strategy. It’s a glossy six-page document designed for every employee to memorise and enact. There are seven themes each with three sub-themes. There are also seven values. All the information is presented as dot points well set out with lots of white space for easy reading. Sadly this strategy is unlikely to stick. Perversely, it could even cause the exact opposite behaviour the leaders desire. Here are three reasons for my statement.

1. It’s hard to remember a set of ideas without an organising schema. Neuroscientist John Medina reminds us that we need to get the overall gist of something before we can attend to the details. Watch this video for an example of what he means.

One way to provide the overall context for a strategy is to create a strategic story that places the company’s directions within a schema. That way people get the gist of the strategy and can then attach more and more meaning.

2. Too many things on our mind diminishes our willpower. Implementing a strategy requires willpower and as a recent Wall Street Journal article describes it only takes a moderate cognitive load before we succumb to temptation. In my opening example here are at least 28 things to remember about the corporate strategy which will definitely overload our ability to remember it but more importantly it could be sapping our will to stay the new strategic course.

In applying this idea we would be better off introducing parts of the strategy over time so people can concentrate on one or two changes at a time, perhaps over a 90 day period, before introducing the next part.

3. We remember what we see. In a corollary to the aphorism, 'we remember was we feel,' it is also true that we much more likely to recognise and recall something when we can see it. As John Medina puts it, “The phenomenon is so pervasive, it has been given its own name: the pictorial superiority effect.”

This idea immediately gets us thinking of the splendid pictures we can include with our strategies, those striking images that conjure the essence of what our company is all about. This is the standard approach but there are two other types of images you should consider back-of-the-napkin drawings and the images created by stories.

Dan Roam has created a business from helping people sketch out their thinking, back-of-a-napkin style. In his book with the unsurprising title, The Back of the Napkin, Roam illustrates the power of a simple diagram to share an idea. If you can’t sketch it on a napkin, forget it, it’s too complicated. So ensure everyone can tell your company’s strategic story with the aid of some simple sketches.

Effective stories paint pictures for us as well. When someone recounts a compelling story we visualise what’s happening. And because we are playing out the action in our mind’s eye the story becomes memorable for us. If we tell the story a number of times it becomes embedding in what we know. As the story researcher Roger Schank said, “To tell a story is to remember.”

Everyday we tell those closest to us (our family, friends, colleagues) about what happened to us: today, yesterday, last week. Occasionally we'll reminisce about the old days but for those we know well what's worth recounting, what's remarkable, is happening on a daily basis. We don't even need to tell the whole story because the people we know well have much of the background. We tell the smaller details that wouldn't make sense or be interesting to someone we didn't know that well. The storytelling is gradual.

Imagine you grew up without knowing anything about restaurants. You've never heard of them, never seen them and have never had an experience, apart from eating a meal at home, that is anything like going to a restaurant. Then one day a friend takes you to one and you can't believe that you can just order your meal, that waiters bring your meal and clear away all the dirty dishes. For you this is truly remarkable and if someone ask you to share your experience you could do it without hesitation.

For those people who go to restaurants regularly much of the experience is invisible. We're not surprised by waiters, menus, asking for the bill, etc.. We have developed a script for what a restaurant experience will be like and we will only notice things if something unexpected happens. These scripts are important. Without them we would have to think through everything. It would be exhausting.

Important knowledge, however, resides in the scripts. It's difficult to recount stories for someone who is not close about what you do day-in, day-out. You're not sure they care about the small stories you tell to those people who see you every day. There is an art to collecting stories, especially the small ones.

I mention this conumdrum because just knowing that stories can get converted to scripts will help anyone who is trying to elicit stories to go beyond what's remarkable to a stranger. For a long time I was flummoxed at times during an anecdote circle when the participants could only give you broad illustrations of what they did at work rather than specific anecdotes. It didn't happen often but when it did I couldn't explain it. With this explanation I do three things to find the small stories.

1. be truly interested in every detail. Curiosity must exude from your pores
2. use memory triggers: timelines, artefacts, pictures
3. get peers together in the anecdote circle

The next frontier for me will be cognitive task analysis. I have Crandall, Klein and Hoffman's book, Working Minds and I'm looking forward to learning more about the techniques.

Most organisations I know have a set of stated values. You know what I mean, things like integrity, professionalism, respect for the individual. And in most cases they've been developed for the wrong reasons. And when developed for the right reasons, most employees don't understand what the values mean anyway. Let me explain.

Often the starting question for establishing a set of organisational values is, "Which values should we hold each and everyone accountable for so our organisation thrives?" This gets translated to "What values do our stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers) expect us to hold?" The list is then drawn up and the result is a moribund list of words.

I was reading a paper by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras and they suggest an alternative set of questions (in my words): "What values do we deeply hold that reflect the essence of our company?" and "Would we still hold these values if they created a disadvantage for us if things changed?" If you can answer these two questions in the positive then you've identified your core values. What I found really interesting was looking at some examples Collins and Porras gave and noticed how each company held a different set in that the usual suspects weren't repeated: they didn't all have to value innovation, or customer service, or integrity. The lists I'm seeing are starting to look the same.

Sony

• Elevation of the Japanese culture and national status
• Being a pioneer - not following others; doing the impossible
• Encouraging individual ability and creativity

Merck

• Corporate social responsibility
• Unequivocal excellence in all aspects of the company
• Science-based innovation
• Honesty and integrity
• Profit, but profit from work that benefits humanity

Walt Disney

• No cynicism
• Nurturing and promulgation of "wholesome American values"
• Creativity, dreams, and imagination
• Fanatical attention to consistency and detail
• Preservation and control of the Disney magic

Collins and Porras' research shows that companies who have enduring values and a clear purpose out perform their competitors. But here's the thing, their core values are not chosen because they think they will be competitive advantages, rather they are chosen because they are held deeply by the core group. Art Kleiner, who wrote a terrific book on core group theory, makes the good point that "The organisation goes wherever its people perceive that the Core Group needs and wants to go. The organisation becomes whatever its people perceive and want to become." And this is double true for organisational values.

Values and meaning

When I worked at SMS (Australian consulting company) in the 90s we had three values: add value, maintain unity, enhance reputation. I knew what the 2nd and 3rd values meant but 'add value' was a bit fuzzy for me. Value fuzziness is a common problem. And you've probably guessed what I'm going to suggest as a way to provide meaning: that's right, STORIES.

Imagine if for every value everyone can tell one or more stories to illustrate what that values means. I often ask people to give me an example to illustrate a value and in many cases all I get is a very intense look of someone desperately trying to remember a story to tell. I've said it before but if a company values [insert value] then it should be teeming with [insert value] stories.

Tyco has worked this one out. Tyco is a global business involved in fire safety, security and manufacturing. A few years back they released a booklet called Doing the Right Thing: The Tyco Guide to Ethical Conduct . For each ethical guideline they included one or more stories that either illustrated what the ethical value means when it's working or what it looks liked when it is broken. For example, Tyco values safety and a healthy work environment and here are their stories of that value when it's broken.

At Anecdote we do a lot of work helping organisations find and tell the stories that illustrate their values and also help design systematic ways to embed those values throughout the consciousness of everyone in the organisation. It is only by working at this level of values and purpose can people make the best decision possible in a complex and dynamic environment. Rules don't cut it. And if we think about what really makes an organisation it's those thousands and thousands of decisions are made each and every day, each one guides by the values in action.

Collins, J.C. & Porras, J.I. 1996, 'Building Your Company's Vision', Harvard Business Review, vol. September-October, pp. 65-77.

Kleiner, A. 2003, Who Really Matters: The Core Group Theory of Power, Privilege, and Success, Currency Doubleday, New York.

I'm sitting here watching the sun peak up over the trees and bushes that define the boundary of our backyard thinking about the enjoyable conference I attended last week. It was called Celebrating Story and it was held at the Abbotsford Convent. Andrew and Sasha Rixon did a tremendous job organising the event. They created a lovely atmosphere that encouraged everyone to open up and share what they knew.

There were a few aha moments for me at the conference. The first came chatting to David Drake. Actually it all started listening to his presentation where he mentioned that some story practitioners dealt with stories as commodities. This made me bristle a little so I asked David after the session what he meant. What I learned from this conversation was something I knew from my knowledge management interests but never thought to apply it to stories. If you view a story as a thing then you will focus on the story structure, its impact, the lessons that can be drawn from it etc. and you will have a tremendous urge to capture it and store it in a database. If you view storytelling as a process you'll focus on the people involved in the moment, the narrator, the listener, the context and the environment and will probably look for ways to create these types of experiences. One view is neither better nor worse than the other, you need both. But it is worthwhile pulling yourself up now and then and being mindful of your perspective.

Have you seen playback theatre? It is when a troupe of improv actors act out, at a drop of a hat, a story contributed by the audience. Melbourne's Playback Theatre were a feature of the conference and I learned some valuable lessons from them.

Here is little technique the playback folk used which I think is great. I can see myself using it to help people enrich their visual palette when telling a story. Pair people up: a storyteller and a listener. The storyteller has to start their story by describing the place where the story begins: It all started in a tiny red brick house on the upside of the street. The poplar trees were blowing in the wind and my Dad was sitting on the front steps ... That sort of thing. The listener then has the job of interrupting the story at anytime to get more description. "Popular tree?" they might ask, at which point the teller needs to say more about the popular trees until the listener says "continue." The storyteller then just keeps telling their story from that point on. One of the variations they had us do is then walk side by side and reflect on our stories. There is something about strolling which improves the conversation. I'm sure Jane Austen would have had something to say about this phenomenon.

The other thing that was a little bit confronting for me, but highly valuable, was when the playback performers facilitated a large group to break down and respond to a story I told. They essentially played back the story and then yelled out the feelings they had when listening to the story. It was surprising what people felt really passionate about and helped me understand some of the really important things that were in that story.

My last discovery was fairytales. Andrew Rixon has been trying to convince me of the importance of fairytales in a business context and I must admit I dismissed them as too 'out there' for my business clients. But Andrew ran a session where the group explored a single issue (getting unstuck) and then in small groups we had to create a fairytale that illustrated elements of that issue. Ours was 'awareness and options' and we had no problem coming up with a dragon-killing knight and his inability to see what was really happening around him. The fairytale structure is a ready made collection of metaphors that any group can use to explore organisational issues.

My presentation was on our leadership development program where we use stories from the organisation to illustrate good and bad management behaviours. I also used the opportunity with a room full of story practitioners to explore some of the challenges we face in our work. The two I shared were the general inability for many people to identify a story because we interpret many things as stories and so find it difficult to differentiate a story from opinions; and how using the term 'storytelling' on a corporate setting can make people uncomfortable and how other language can be used.

Well done to Andrew and all the other people involved in organising the event. It was great fun.

Some great advice from Scott Simon.

Stories are our natural way to plan. We imagine how things are going to work out, who are the players, what incidents might befall us and what we’re going to do to avoid these traps. We remember what happened last time and what we must steer clear of. We think about those good bits we want happening everywhere in our company. We envisage the opportunities and understand the sequence of events we believe are necessary to make it happen. And then, if we are like most executives, we encapsulate our strategy in a set of dot points that immediately strips it of most of its meaning. It becomes a shell of its former self, a strategic skeleton.

What often happens next involves dangling these strategic bones at one or more major gatherings of the company. We launch our strategies and leaders say things like, “This new strategy will guide our actions and decisions for the next period of growth”. But the context is missing. Employees find it hard to understand, and remember. What’s the significance? What does it look like in practice? And as a result they find it difficult to see their place in the strategy. They also find it hard to see the strategy in their own workplace. “What do we actually do?” they say. There’s little to connect their own story to the company’s mission.

It doesn’t need to be like this.

Anecdote’s program keeps the stories in your strategy so that employees understand its meaning and significance while encouraging everyone to actively participate in the strategic process. Our aim is to harness the natural power of stories to bring your strategy to life. The primary objective is to help everyone in the company identify the vital behaviours that must be in place for the strategy to succeed. And then we help create the opportunities to design and implement small changes to bring those behaviours about. And in doing so really making your strategy stick.

Dan Pink TED talk has an important message: what scientists know about the detrimental effects of incentives remains largely unknown and unpractised by managers. He argues, which I totally agree, that we need to create workplaces which provide autonomy, possibility for mastery and purpose. These factors truly motivate us.

The video, see below, is also interesting for how Dan users stories. Take a look first then I will make some comments below.

Dan is very aware of the power of stories. In his book, A Whole New Mind, he dedicates a chapter to how important storytelling is as a skill. But he also knows that business people are scared by the term and when they hear the word 'story' they assume what is being said is made up, fluffy, unbusiness-like. So Dan frames his presentation as a legal case, focussed on the evidence, with the full persuasive power of the best legal minds (mind you he does some lovely self-deprecation at the start of the talk to connect with the audience).

Dan even goes as far as saying, "this is not a story, it is a fact ..."

But here's the thing. Dan's talk is full of stories. In fact he employs one of my favourite story patterns: the scientific experiment. Scientific experiments are great because to explain them you have to tell what the scientist did and when and the best ones of some unanticipated result--terrific elements for a story.

I counted 7 stories in Dan's presentation (one every 2. minutes or so). Quite a few for someone is telling the audience that he is not telling a story.

These moments, beautifully depicted in this video, are the stuff of anecdotes, all those little stories we tell everyday that form the chatter that keeps us connected.

via The Obvious

There's a perception in business that stories are long and time consuming. "I don't have time to tell a story. I'm just going to give them the facts," I hear business folk say.

The reality is quite different. Every month or so I run a storytelling for leaders workshop. One of the first activities I often run is a jumpstart storytelling session. Each person has 90 seconds to tell their story and from my observation most people finish within a minute or even less. It doesn't take very long to tell a story. See for yourself. Check out the stories we've published here over the years, read them aloud and see how long they take.

Sure, there are the epic stories told by professional storytellers than can last for hours but business stories are mostly short.

This Johnnie Walker ad is a good example of a longer story you might hear in an organisation when someone is recounting the story of a project, a team or in this case, a company. Note how Robert Carlyle gives us the names of the people involved. We are interested in this type of detail and it's often omitted in business stories.

BTW, what did you think of the props? Did they distract you from the story or help build the picture?

Thanks to Terrence Garguilo and Kathy Hansen for finding the video

Just spent a fabulous day at NAB's new Academy running our storytelling program. Wow, what a venue. We were in the Scribbler room: wall-to-wall whiteboards, pin boards and butchers paper. A facilitator's dream.

After arriving home, and relaxing with a glass of wine in hand, I was chatting to Sheen about her day. She's learned heaps of new ways to teach her 4-7 year olds at her new primary school. In particular the school's emphasis on whole language has enabled Sheen to put these ideas into practice. I asked how she learned these new techniques. "By watching and listening to my colleagues and then giving it go myself," she said.

Makes sense. It's an approach we can all use to develop our business storytelling skills. The pre-requisite is to be able to identify stories when they are being told, but with that skill under your belt it's ti