by Ian Buckingham and Paul Miller
Paul Miller is a partner at Bring Yourself 2 Work, a former England gymnast, coach, performing artist, writer, coach, trainer, consultant and facilitator. As well as writing extensively for business journals he has a number of BBC plays and two West End shows to his name (one of which is now on tour in Vegas).
Ian Buckingham is the founder of the Bring Yourself 2 Work Fellowship(www.by2w.co.uk), a close-knit group of organisations representing the communication agency, arts in business, design and advertising and skills development worlds. He is a much published business writer and author of Brand Engagement - How Employees Make or Break Brands (Palgrave/Macmillan 2007)and was formerly the founding MD of Interbrand Inside and Partner at internal communication specialists Smythe Dorward Lambert.
It’s the 30th October 1938, and the roads are choked up as people across the USA head out of town in a panic. Across the country folk are hiding in cellars, loading their firearms and preparing to defend themselves against Martians and their poison gas. Almost seventy years ago the radio dramatisation of War of the Worlds by Orson Welles caused a stampede as listeners believed that the earth was actually being attacked by aliens. Amazing what a well told story can do ! "But surely people were more gullible back then", you cry?
It was the ‘70’s when a whole generation grew up with a fear (sometimes phobia) of ‘what lies beneath’ the calm surface of the ocean? Steven Speilberg managed to tap an archetypal fear and kept us perpetually on our guard from the dreaded shark. It was just a story, another piece of make-believe from the Hollywood story factory which exaggerated fact and was liberal with the fiction. But even if you are immune to both of these examples, then imagine how different is the feeling of lying in bed late at night listening to the creaks of your pipes and floorboards having watched a horror movie, than having sat through the Sound of Music. At one time or another, we have all been affected by the world of imaginary possibility we call ‘Story’. If this is not so then perhaps you should visit your doctor. The sooner the better.
So how is it that a film, play or book can make us cry, laugh, experience joy and get angry, etc and what's it got to do with business? People don’t really die on stage – sorry to spoil the illusion for you – nor do they really get married, fight against justice, go to work in a bank or anything else. It’s amazing though that our rational mind understands this illusion perfectly, yet still we connect with the story and shed real tears and have genuine palpitations of the heart. Ever paused for a minute and wondered what stories people working within your businesses are telling each other about the change process they're currently going through?
The place for ‘storytelling in business’
Generally, we take stories lightly, hence the dismissive expression, ‘it’s only a story’. If storytelling, in all it’s guises, is ‘mere entertainment’, a respite from reality during our leisure time, then in business it’s a pejorative term. ‘Storytelling’ belongs in the corner with all the other touchy feely stuff that doesn’t get business done, and at best gives you a day out of the office (or if you're on linked into an online network, a day out in the office). But somewhere we are seriously missing the point, seriously misunderstanding our own needs as human beings. The fact that people in business ask ‘what place has storytelling in Business?’ shows that they either don’t understand that stories are the high denomination notes in the currency of communication, or that business has a serious fault-line and is suffocating a facet of our basic humanity. And suffocation surely has a detrimental impact on performance both of the individual and of the organisation .But before we examine the benefits of storytelling to business, let’s examine story per se: what purpose does it serve? and what outcomes can we observe?
Stories are everywhere!
Stories and storytelling are not the least bit alien to us. They aren't the exclusive preserve of the so-called creatives. Stories are virtually ubiquitous in our lives and for a good reason. Robert McKee, the Hollywood story doctor and guru, has this to say about story:
“Imagine, in one global day, the pages of prose turned, plays performed, films screened, the unending stream of television comedy and drama, twenty-four hour print and broadcast news, bedtime tales told to children, bar-room bragging, back-fence internet gossip, humankind’s insatiable appetite for stories. Story is not only our most prolific art form but rivals all activities – work, play, eating exercise – for our waking hours. We tell and take in stories as much as we sleep – and even then we dream. Why? Why is so much of our life spent inside stories? Because as critic Kenneth Burke tells us, stories are equipment for living” (Robert McKee, Story, Structure, Style and the principles of screenwriting)
Now perhaps Robert McKee and critic Kenneth Burke are siding with their own: art lovers taking a grandiose slant on the endeavour they have devoted their lives to? Then let’s look elsewhere. Gregory Bateson in the book Mind and Nature tells the tale of a man who wanted to know if his computer could ever think like a human being, and put the question to it. The machine set about analysing itself. Eventually, the answer appeared – the words read, THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY. Perhaps it’s true as Milton Erickson proposed: 'humans are a ‘story-telling species’.
Why storytelling is powerful
In the book, The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, the opening chapter is entitled ‘It’s All Invented’, meaning that our individual perception of the world owes more to imagination than reality.
“…All of life comes to us in narrative form; it’s a story we tell. The roots of this phenomenon go much deeper than just attitude and personality. Experiments in neuroscience have demonstrated that we reach an understanding of the world in roughly this sequence: first, our senses bring us selective information about what is out there; second, the brain constructs its own simulation of the sensations; and only then, third, do we have our first conscious experience of our milieu. The world comes into our consciousness in the form of a map already drawn, a story already told, a hypothesis, a construction of our own making”
If what we see is a representation of reality, then stories are one of the most effective ways in which we communicate our view of reality to others. And if we are all seeing the world differently, then how much more important is it to share our story and give others an indication of our view of the world, particularly if we happen to be in a leadership role or need to enlist others to help deliver for us (as everyone in an organisation needs to do at some point)? And how essential is this process of communication in the business world when we talk in our teams, groups and organisations about being on the same page?... But let’s not confine ourselves to the world of business just yet.
The science tells us that we are receiving information about the world around us through our senses, we are interpreting the world through sensory information. Where we put our attention (or is that ‘where our attention is drawn’?) determines the imput, i.e. what we perceive. How we respond internally to the patterns inherent in what we perceive makes up our experience. So, stories might be defined as the art of drawing attention to a very specific series of events that require the audience to see, hear, feel, taste, smell and think. Story is the art of taking another person on a tour of a different world or world view with the aim of illucidating a particular point or possibility. Good stories, stories that work, are very specific: a good movie doesn’t have a wasted frame, a great play or novel rarely has a wasted word or line, because artists and writers are building a ‘view’, a flight of the imagination or the re-telling of past experience in which they want the audience to experience what they have experienced, ask the questions they have asked themselves, make a point for others to consider, and the effect is to mostly by-pass the rationale mind and appeal to the senses and emotions.
And if that is all a little abstract, then let’s bring stories back to earth: stories are purveyors of beliefs and values. In the world of the story, in the specific view created, is an implicit set of values and beliefs. And if there is ever an example of how powerful a story is then look to Hitler and the Nazi dream of an a new and glorious empire that honoured and favoured the superior (us), rid the world of it’s imperfections (them), and conjured a world of pure art, fine architecture and all things ‘decent’. To those that looked on from afar,from beyond the inner circle, it was an ugly and misguided fantasy - still it was compelling and pervasive enough to start a calamity that resulted in the deaths of 57 million people. Of course, it’s a bit rich saying that stories started World War II!, but much of Nazi ideology was spread through the story/myth of a super-race. It’s sobering to reflect that much of what governs our lives is the sense we make from the stories we’re told.
Storytelling and Business
To exaggerate the point, but to make it nonetheless, we are not advocating that ceremonial costume, dry ice, native drums and panpipes should be the new format for the Monday morning meeting or performance review (though the image is one to savour). Storytelling is never a replacement for effective procedures: Coming into land at Heathrow airport in a Jumbo 747 you don’t expect to communicate with air traffic control and hear a parable about a lion and a mouse which mirrors your current predicament…
Likewise, you need ropes, protective clothing and climbing gear to get up a mountain not a book of climbing tales… or do you? On television recently was a documentary concerning the ascent of Everest where a gung ho member of the climbing team wanted to race for the summit. The team leader delivered a cautionary tale – with a pointed reference to the dead bodies that line the way. This soon brought about a change of heart and a bout of commonsense in the eager climber. A story, or knowledge sharing as we like to say in business, may have contributed to saving his life, it certainly contributed to keeping the team together.
So, we all understand that stories are never a replacement for vital information or indeed action, but our contention is that today in business the tail is wagging the dog. That is, processes, procedures, facts, efficiency are valued above the experience of work. The world we created to make our lives better has to some degree and for some time asked us to sacrifice some of our personality, if not our humanity. Stories have been castigated as unprofessional in some way. People need purpose and they need to make sense of their lives, stories give them that. Even (or especially) stories about the business give them that. Do you think employees use flowcharts and procedure manuals when they relay the daily events to each other over a pint or a cup of coffee? So why do managers?
Information assists knowledge, but stories and metaphors create emotion and meaning. When working with a large IT firm we asked for analogies for the current state of play of the business, how revealing and how useful is it when someone describes the company as an enormous oil tanker with ten captains on board all arguing in which direction to steer the boat, whilst the crew are down below lobbing spanners into the engine. As this was accompanied by the laughter of recognition and the nodding of heads you can’t help thinking that not only have you’ve touched on something that would be missing if you studied the paperwork but you've effectively burst the emotional bubble, allowing a moment's catharsis and having gently coaxed the story from its cover, the underlying root causes could now be worked on together. Aesops fables have long been used in a similar way - to eneter our childhood cosnciousness like the metaphoric wolf in sheep's clothing and to warn, teach and to entertain.
Stories and metaphors at work are like icons on your desktop or zip files, they don’t take up much room, but double click them and they open up to layers and layers of meaning and significance. They have a lasting effect because they make an emotional imprint on us; the sense is retained because stories create a felt-experience. And they work wonders in understanding situations and demands.
What storytelling has to offer business.
Leadership
If leadership is partly about inspiring a community of individuals to undertake a collective endeavour, then stories are essential to articulate that vision. Noel Tichy in his book The Leadership Engine remarks that
“the best way to get humans to venture into unknown terrain is to make that terrain familiar and desirable by taking them there first in their imagination”
And Antoinne de Saint Expury remarked that
“if you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea”
Stories can inspire, but what does inspire really mean? Well, the root of inspire is L inspirare, from spirare to breathe. So, when a leader inspires, he breathes life and energy into his followers. When we reflect on the extraordinarily motivating speeches Churchill made it’s clear that no amount of powerpoint (had it existed) and no amount of consultancy or accountancy models would ever have had the effect of his well chosen words. And Martin Luther King had a dream, he didn’t have a change imperative and wasn't at a critical point of inflection. Or was he?
The results of a study at the London Business School shows how much of the message we retain depending on the vehicle of communication.
- Statistics = 5-10%
- Statistics and Story = 25-30%
- Story = 65-70%
And the moral of this story is that if you are delivering the ‘Who we are' (Brand Identity), 'this is where we’re going' (Mission/vision), and 'this is how we’re going to get there' (strategy)’ piece, then don’t rely too much on statistics alone to land the message.
Business, emotion and non-sensory language (or why so many business speakers are boring)
Do you remember the strapline to the ‘80’s movie ‘Alien’? ‘In space no one can hear you scream’ Those few words create an image (space), a sound (screaming) and a feeling (not a very nice feeling). Compare it with ‘dedicated management capability’ or ‘randomised user-orientated response’ – These are non-sensory words, and they abound in the corporate world. Now, if you put enough of these non-sensory words together you will trip something in the listener’s brain and a film and a fog will appear before their eyes as they go slowly and inevitable asleep or escape into daydream and empty space (where no one can hear you scream). These non-sensory words are the vocabulary of science, borrowed in business to give a veneer of credibility (‘it must be true, it sounds scientific’) Somehow we are not reassured by too much feeling or emotion in business. After all, the language of love, romance, of the emotional life is the language of metaphor (‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?...). This language excites the imagination, it creates feelings, images, sounds, smells. Remember your first kiss? The first record you bought? The smell of coffee roasting? The visual imagery of being surrounded by your loved ones. Often we believe that these feeling, these emotions, cloud and corrupt the experiment and enterprise we call Business. Yet if you want to tell me about values, like trust and integrity, don’t give me the science or the text-book definition, give me the metaphor, give me comparisons to help me understand, give me the story.
Getting the story straight: The Hero’s Journey
The most effective and versatile storytelling tool must be The Hero’s Journey. There is no space to do justice to it here, but by way of a simple explanation, the Hero’s Journey represents the central narrative that underlies any story of growth or change regardless of cultural origin. It is a framework which allows an organisation, team or individual to examine past and present change, both personal (largely emotional) and corporate (largely rational) and to anticipate and explore future change.
fig. Story Structure
The Hero’s Journey formed the main plank of a leadership program for a large petrochemical company. The requirement was for creative consultancy and support to ensure that the leadership models moved from theory to action. The metaphor of a journey in which their goal was perceived to be heroic and worthwhile was a powerful glue for the hard nosed, analytical top 200 worldwide. What might have been an adequate leadership program, turned into something of a movement once the goals, ambitions, leadership competencies, business targets and the roles of each individual were seen through the lens of the Hero’s Journey.
The work of these leadership programs was practical stuff with real life outcomes, and the commercial objectives of the company were surpassed ahead of time. This success was correlated to the emerging inclusive culture instigated by the leadership program and the tools and practices having been driven so deeply into the individual business units – in particular.
Storytelling has now become a widely accepted form of instilling advice and best practise in refineries. The Global Vice-President described the program as being responsible for ‘… a phenomena that's growing within our organisation’. When did you last hear that about a communication campaign?
Thus far, we've found the following applications of the Hero’s Journey as a storytelling device
- As a project planning tool
- As a diagnostic tool for reviewing past projects
- A means of aligning team goals and vision
- A means of communicating an organisations mission
- A tool for managing change
- A 1:1 coaching tool As a poetic device;
- A frame through which to view past, present or intended change
“I’d been told about putting knives into the dishwasher with the sharp end facing down. Sometimes I’d remember, but sometimes I, or my wife, would do it the other way. Then a guy told a story about a young child falling onto the bottom tray and being badly hurt by the knives sticking out. It was such a strong story, I went home and established the habit of stacking the dishwasher correctly from that moment on”
That’s interesting, because it demonstrates that stories are a powerful tool in changing behaviour, but there’s more:
“… A few weeks later, my daughter, a toddler at the time, toddled into the kitchen whilst the dishwasher was being loaded, tripped and fell straight onto the cutlery basket. All the knives were face down, and she received no more than a large bump on her face. I’m so pleased I did what I did, and I share the story with you so you can do the same”.
Another organisation, an energy company, enlisted our help to harness the power of stories as part of their "Have a Heart" (yes, that's what it was called), wellbeing in the workplace campaign. Thus far they had invested in stress-relieving balls and pedometers to sell the message. Short of an actual Nanny handing the packs out to employees, they had managed, in their enthisiasm, to capture most communication cliches. Sensing an imminent engagment disaster, we encouraged them to undertake a series of face to face storytelling sessions, asking people to share stories exploring the importance of wellbeing at home, but in their own words. A gripping contribution was made by the five year old son of one of the managers who drew a picture of his daddy lying down accompanied by a story about how he was scared that his daddy smoked and would soon go away and leave them on their own.
Wellbeing - done!
Above all, in our experience, the Hero’s journey is a means by which corporate objectives may become personal aims, and thereby create value, purpose and perspective.
The question 'what do you mean by integrity/teamwork/transparency' is best answered with a story. There is a much quoted principle in dramatic writing that ‘character is revealed under pressure’. Until a character is tested by circumstances then we know not of what he or she is made. Someone falls over in the street, or gets into difficulty in a meeting, do you rush over to help? Do you walk on by because you have an urgent appointment? Do you experience a little pleasure at someone else’s misfortune? Stories reveal how people react in particular situations, they reveal what people believe ( ‘It wasn’t really stealing everyone does it!’).
Whilst running an induction event for one of the big four accountancy firms, we used the Hero’s journey model as a way of eliciting powerful stories from participants and from speakers. We were privileged to hear a senior partner talk candidly and from the heart about his experience of being in the eye of the storm during the Enron scandal. It was a story of betrayal, of despair, of camaraderie, of fierce group loyalty, of stupidity, of duplicity, of pain and ruin and ultimately of success. What do you imagine this said to 200 new joiners? Young people sat in the audience with the burning questions, ‘have I done the right thing by joining this company?’ and ‘what sort of company have I joined?’ The storytelling process developed ints own momentum and recently won an industry award. A gong, not quite an Oscar but it's given us another story to share.
Celebrating success stories.
Lessons learned are wrapped up in our past experiences. Often these are lost, but can be reclaimed through the telling of the story. These are more than cautionary tales (though cautionary they often are) they are a way of examining what worked and what didn’t.
It’s common practice in the petrochemical industry to begin meetings and conference events with safety stories, often about the personal lives of the workers as a means of putting their daunting industrial health and safety responsibilities into stark relief.
Below is an example:
These are true stories and the reason we have included it here, is that we challenge you, especially if you have young children, to continue to stack the knifes sharp end up, for example. We’ve never done it at home since hearing that story. Now think about how you can convey the same degree of emotion when communicating about wellbeing in the workplace. Still a dry subject?
Many years ago we were involved in a project for a high street retailer intent on creating a culture of openness and honesty. We agreed on a process called Forum Theatre, a process invented by the South American actor, director and activist, Augusto Boal, oftened now referred to as simulations, or when not fully understood or delivered correctly ‘role play’. Boal developed a series of techniques and interventions that allow the audience to replay the past and road test the future. The difference between Forum Theatre and conventional theatre is the removal of barriers between actor and audience, the audience are encouraged to interact and make suggestions to the actors and may, at appropriated times, replace the actor(s) in the scenes.
Everyone was given the chance to feed back their stories of working in the business. The information was entirely anonymous and involved a diagonal slice of the organisation from cleaner to Regional Head. When all the feedback was collated and represented in Scenarios – short scenes based on reported experience - the reaction from the people at the coal face was, to quote a participant, ‘like seeing my life acted out in front of me – gave me a shiver down my spine’, whilst the reaction from senior management, was roughly, ‘I don’t see the point of this, this just isn’t anything like our day to day business’. Mmm. Interesting. When pressed on the question, ‘does anyone recognise these scenarios, the room was ominously quiet. One shaky hand eventually went up, and a woman with a rather nervous voice said quietly, ‘I do..’ Someone had broken rank and for the first time there was some energy in the room. She continued, ‘I think other people do as well, but are reluctant to say’ Reluctant or scared?... This was an intensely revealing experience, as a snapshot of the culture it was perfectly apparent that honesty and openness were very rare commodities indeed. In fact, the aim of the project was too ambitious, but we had taken the first step – we had a barometer reading for the current state of play. Another way of looking at it, is to say that we got a few actors to tell a few stories and almost caused a riot!
At the other extreme, in functional organisations, of which there are far more than the cynics allow, we find that stories, good and bad, are effortlessly and willingly trotted out. All that is required is to create the right circumstances (e.g. trust, level playing field, non-judgemental approach) and ask astute questions. From a cold start we have learned some of the most surprising, fascinating and intimate details of people we are working with. Which brings us neatly onto the next value of storytelling to business
Collaboration and connection
The myth goes that accountants, engineers and IT workers are tough to engage with. These people we are told over and over again, are logical, rational, procedural individuals and we really will have our work cut out. Yes, it’s true that some people are more adept or at home with left brain activities, but they all have lives, a beating heart, and a story to tell. Some of the so-called dull accountants we have worked with would rival Microsoft for their creativity, and would certainly give them a run for their money in staying up late in the bar! One such ‘accountant’ at Ernst & Young walked to the south pole, solo. So badly frost-biten was his toe that he cut half of it off with a penknife… Now there’s a story! Another example: in any room of 50 people you will nearly always find someone who has represented their county or their country at sport, and you will almost always find someone who has worked along side them for years saying ‘I didn’t know that’. In terms of creating connections between work colleagues the story exercises that we run are like panning for gold and finding it every time. The question in all our work is how much of yourself are you leaving at the door when you enter work? Stories quickly turn accountants, lawyers, oil execs, burger flippers, etc, into mums, dad’s, enthusiasts, record breakers, lifesavers, romantics, extreme sportsman, musicians, explorers, and more. And what is the purpose of this? Well, you break the work persona, you break the pattern of a person’s thinking, you turn them in a direction they don’t normally go and you create easy connections with others. For example, people who have overcome extreme hardship find admiration, respect and affection from others who have heard their story. And if you think we are talking therapy and counselling here, then let us point out that one well thought out question, such as ‘what qualities did you possess in that experience that would be useful in your current work situation?’ It sounds easy. It is.
Allowing people to import skills and competencies from other areas of their lives is a swift way of improving performance, whilst the exercise of revealing something of their life story is often the catalyst for deepening relationships with colleagues and with teams.
Stories are lying around waiting for a simple question to bring them to life. Think for a moment, what is the song that brings a tear to your eye/makes you feel joyful/drives you insane?... there will be a story behind your answer. What is your most precious object? What memory does an aroma induce? Of what are you most proud? What’s the best team you have ever been in? What’s the worse? (great for stories. My favourite being the football side who never won a single game and deliberately took on a team of near pensioners in order to experience at least one victory… and lost). I guess that also proves the adage that some of the old stories are often the best!
Storytelling isn't just a nice break from reality, a flippant distraction, an indulgence. Whether you like it or not, creative storytelling is a core management competence, a change management essential and is at the heart of your corporate culture and as leaders we have the choice of embracing, riding the current and using the energy or wasting time, effort and patience trying to build a dam of indifference. But for storytelling in business to be impactful and useful, it presupposes acceptance, honesty, conscience, involvement and an ethical objective. Why not start by taking a long hard look at the sequence of planned events and significant internal engagement episodes (be they written or verbal) on your horizon and consider what story the Top Team are going to tell about the next steps for the business and how you want your people to think and feel as a result? Now picture what's likely to happen if you don't seize the initiative and fail to put as much effort into the style and delivery as you put into the statistics.
You have to agree that the well told story carries just as much power and relevance today, whether in a corporate, political or social context as it did when we were gathered around campfires planning the next foray beyond the realms of the known. As that noble storyteller Charles Handy has said in his work The Empty Raincoat , quoting Pierre Thuiller, French philosopher and historian:
“a society is not a society unless it is able to invent ideal concepts and myths that mobilize individual energies and bind people’s souls together”
And if the story isn't the primary vehicle for unifying and mobilising people where you're working, then please do let us know what magnificent communication medium has taken its place as it's always possible the alien's may really have landed after all!
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