Far from Fables, Folklore and Fairytales!

Good afternoon,

It's time for yet another edition of Anecdotally, your monthly newsletter from the team at Anecdote.

In this edition, you'll find:

• Book Review — The Secret Language of Leadership
• Technique — Cow—Chicken—Grass
• What's happening — What we're up to!
• Blog posts you might have missed — Using story to communicate who we are
• Breaking News — And the winner is ...

We hope that you enjoy reading. Feel free to pass this email on to your colleagues and friends if you think that they would enjoy it too.

Please contact us with your comments, suggestion and ideas.

The Secret Language of Leadership

— by Stephen Denning

I was originally suspicious of business storytelling. I worried leaders would use storytelling for spin. Then three years ago I met Steve Denning at his storytelling workshop held in the historical Duxton Hotel on Flinders Street, Melbourne. Steve started the day with his World Bank story and it dawned on me, this is the World Bank guy who set up their communities of practice. I had been telling his story about the road surface problem in Pakistan for years. We probably didn't hit it off at first because I was full of my Cynefin experiences and views and probably asked too many nit-picking questions. But I came away from the experience with a new appreciation for business storytelling. Since then I have been an avid reader of Steve's books and his latest work, The Secret Language of Leadership, is a natural extension to his narrative thinking.

In The Springboard Steve described how a particular story type helps to spark action. A simple story. A positive story. One that's aspirational and contains the change idea you are hoping to instil in the organisation. Steve stumbled on this story pattern and I imagine he asked, 'what other story patterns are out there business folk should know about?' His answer was The Leader's Guide to Storytelling where we learned about eight narrative patterns including how to motivate others to action, build trust in you, build trust in your company, transmit your values, get others working together, and share knowledge. Based on this work I think Steve discovered an overriding and simple pattern, which is the basis for The Secret Language.

It's deceptively simple. If you want to motivate engagement, change, or simply build a resolve for action, hold off on the facts and figures in the first instance and start with stories. Steve suggests four steps:

1. get attention telling a negative story;
2. stimulate desire with a positive, springboard story;
3. reinforce the ideas with reason; and
4. continue the conversation.

The hallmarks of Steve's work are solid research (he's an expert proponent of the endnote), a no-nonsense and readable writing style that is imbued with the sense that Steve wants to discover the truth about business narrative, and practicality so you can put down the book and immediately put the ideas into practice.

I only have once criticism of Steve's work: it can seem formulaic yet I know he doesn't mean it to be. If you haven't had an opportunity to talk with Steve you'd be forgiven for thinking Steve likes to wrap his ideas into neat parcels. Perhaps this tendency is a reflection of his early training as a lawyer. Concluding Steve doesn't appreciate the complexity of narrative however is a mistake because he thinks deeply about business narrative and is the first to acknowledge the messiness inherent in the practice of storytelling. Get all three books if you are serious about the craft of business narrative.

Reviewed by: Shawn

Cow—Chicken—Grass

We often use this simple technique when it is important to illustrate to a group our tendency to categorise things and when we wish to avoid falling into familiar patterns which constrains thinking - for instance in a sensemaking workshop.

This is how we do it:

1. On a whiteboard or butcher's paper write the following words randomly spaced: "cow", "chicken" and "grass".
2. Ask the participants: "what belongs better together, the chicken, grass or cow?" i.e. how would you group these items together? What relationship does each item have with the other?
3. Allow time for discussion. Note: There is no right or wrong answer here. The Cow, chicken and grass concepts can be grouped in a variety of ways.
4. Illustrate the point above by drawing circles around the categories or relationships suggested by your participants.
5. If you are clustering - make the point that you want to encourage both categorical and relationship clustering.

This is based on Richard Nisbett's work on how westerners and Asians perceive the world differently. Apparently westerners tend to put the cow and the chicken together (they are both animals) and Asians put the cow with the grass or the chicken with the grass (cows and chickens eat grass).

Consulting Engagements and Projects:

• Establishing and fostering communities of practice for a number of clients in industry and government
• Delivering an ongoing leadership program for a multinational pharmaceuticals company
• Customising a leadership and management development program for a global technology and services enterprise
• Working with a large financial services company on a continous improvement program

Upcoming Events that we're running or attending:

• Storytelling for Leaders. Melbourne: 21 May 2008. More ...
• Mark is giving a presentation to the NSW KM Roundtable on storytelling on May 21 in Sydney
• One-day masterclass at the Ark 'Knowledge Sharing for Indigenous Communities' conference on 20 June in Melbourne
• Shawn and Robyn are presenting at the LearnX conference on 12-13 June in Melbourne. They are presenting on our work using narrative-based approaches to improve induction and retention for indigenous staff
• Narrative Techniques for Business. Sydney: 16 July 2008. More ...
• Building a Collaborative Workplace. Brisbane: 27-Aug-2008 More ...

Using story to communicate who we are

Before a leader attempts to convince, share knowledge and even spark action, they should introduce themselves using a story.1 It creates context and builds trust. George Orwell understood this idea well. The first 4 paragraphs of Why I Write consist of a set of biographical anecdotes which helps the reader understand Orwell's nature. He begins the essay:

From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books.

Orwell could certainly write clear and simple stories—two important characteristics of organisational storytelling. It's important to avoid rambling. He also had a clear understanding why the biographical introduction was necessary:

I give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development.

A business audience also needs to understand the presenter's motives. You could simply reveal your motives in a series of dot points but people are unlikely to 'hear' what you're saying or believe a word of it. A simple and clear story enables the audience to build their own picture of what's driving the presenter's actions.

Orwell's introductory story is probably too long for a business setting. There are at least three story-based introductions Orwell could have delivered if he was standing in front of 30 people announcing a new change initiative: the story of his early literary efforts; the one about the continuous story created and recreated in his mind as an adolescent; and the one about his discovery of the aesthetic of words in Paradise Lost. OK, so it's unlikely these exact stories would work but these types of stories are perfect.

1. Denning, S. 2005. The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The original article can be found on our blog.

And the winner is ...

We were recently advised that LearnX Asia Pacific has announced that the winner in the category of 'Best Website for Learning' for 2008 is (drumroll ...) Anecdote!

We are really pleased that our efforts to make the website an interesting and valuable place have been recognised in this way.