What's your Story?

Tuesday 11th August 2009 | 3 comments

At heart, we are all storytellers, we live our lives through stories. A good story has the power to engage our emotions, to inspire us while we absorb the lessons or concepts behind it. In changing times, crafting and telling your corporate story is vital, inside the company as well as with clients and other stakeholders.

But company stories must be authentic - it's of no use to make up pretty tales for your audience, and it may be quite damaging to your credibility.

Storytelling might have once been regarded as a bit of a 'soft' skill, but not any more. In Leading Minds, Howard Gardner says storytelling is the core skill of leaders because 'only the leader who can both tell and embody a compelling story has the power to influence'.

Good company stories have seven important elements:

  1. They are authentic.
  2. They bring in your real past and the lessons you've learned - this might be the teller's own past, or that of the company itself.
  3. They are powered by your passion, which then inspires and convinces the listeners.
  4. The obstacles you have faced and the struggle it took to overcome them (or are still taking) come alive.
  5. The subject matter and telling are in a form that's relevant to your audience - so the same story might be told differently for staff or key clients. The facts are the same, but the telling is (naturally) shaped by the occasion.
  6. At the heart of any good story is an important lesson - but in Australia at least, we have little appetite for candy-coated fairy tales, so resist the urge to drift towards cliché or overly moralistic endings!
  7. They use examples, metaphor and illustration to bring the facts alive.

It's important to take time to craft your story and to try it out before using it at that all-important presentation or briefing. If you use slides, make sure they are simple and also tell the story (no bullet points, not ever!)

So, what's your story?

Tags: business, career, story

Comments

  1. I am currently writing my story. I am writing down how I got past 'my story' by using coaching.
    Being coached and coaching others!

    When a story you carry around for so many years begins to define you, it can be an anchor. I am happy to say my anchor has gone now and I am sailing away....

    Posted by Yvonne Anderson | Tuesday 11th August 2009 @ 5:53pm

  2. Sounds like an excellent adventure...bravo!

    Posted by Joanna Maxwell | Tuesday 11th August 2009 @ 7:39pm

  3. Yvonne's post
    I like this 'anchor'sailing' metaphore a lot

    Posted by Astrid McCormick | Wednesday 28th July 2010 @ 8:39am

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