Episode #317: Build Your Successor's Storytelling Skills

We enjoy movies, dramas, novels, plays because they all excel at telling stories. They are not executed as simple chronologies – this happened, then this happened after that and then after, this happened. They have what is a called an arc in writing. It takes us on a journey that engages our emotions. The majority of business presentation journeys are as engaging as road kill. That is to say, mainly on the depressing side or at best, just plain boring. “But business is boring”, you say. “Greg, we are all about the numbers over here baby. We don’t have time for fluffy stuff like bedtime stories. We live in the real world dude, get it”. Well that is not true.

Leaders have two jobs. One is to manage processes. We make sure the system is working on time, on budget, on point for quality and on plan. This is the execution piece and without it, things turn ugly real fast. Try missing a salary payment sometime in your company and see Pandora’s Box spring open and trouble emerge. We have to make sure the team are doing their jobs well and that things don’t fall between the cracks. Changes which we don’t know about are the most fearful. One of your staff goes “freelance” on the system and makes some changes. You have a minor heart attack when you find out. So we must be on top of things, vigilant, checking and double checking constantly. All good stuff.

That is not the totality of the leader’s role though. The other bit, more often than not, the missing bit, is the leader part where we build the people. We absolutely won’t move up in our careers if there are no suitable candidates to take hold of the sacred flame from us and carry on the good work. We need to develop people’s technical skills but we also need to work on the soft skills. We need to demonstrate to them how to motivate the team or more accurately create the environment where they can motivate themselves. This is where our persuasion power comes into play and storytelling is a powerful communication tool for that task. The weapon of choice for talented leaders is always close at hand, fully primed, yearning to be taken up and wielded with gusto.

Millions of company walls are currently being graced by beautifully framed, glass protected Vision, Mission and Value statements. They are all lifeless, dead, dust gatherers. The leader has to free the parchment from it’s captivity and bring it alive for their teams. It might be recounting the hero’s journey of the founder. The years of struggle, failures, setbacks, betrayal. Or it might be your own personal journey. What we are doing is inviting the team to see the written words behind glass, from a specific context rather than in the abstract. When we tell everyone the background, the conclusion reached and express it in a story it makes more sense – we get it.

Better than just getting it, we remember it. That is the beauty of storytelling. We can package up huge amounts of information and relay it in a format that people can remember. That is why there is a 99% non-retrieval rate applying to our memory of business presentations we have heard. The speaker, topic and their recommendations are quickly and unceremoniously forgotten.

Vision is important because it provides a much needed glue to engage everyone and keep them on the same path. The story behind the vision is the key. We have to tell that story. Why do we have this vision? Why does it say what it says? This is where telling the story brings clarity of purpose and direction to a all, in a format, that is the most easily absorbed.

The chances of your people being able to recall and repeat the words written in the vision statement are probably so close to zero it is frightening. But give them the story behind the thinking, the production of the statement, the way it was crafted, the individuals involved and they will remember that story forever.

This is the skill we need to be teaching to our successors. Being a whiz on the macros in a spread sheet or having supreme technical knowledge are all admirable qualities, but leaders need to able to blast their team off into the stratosphere. We have to show them how telling stories is the powerful rocket to get sufficient elevation to reach the highest heights. We do this by the way we engage our team with stories and examples. We make this the modus operandi of our workplace to gain the full effect of our persuasion powers. Great. Are you doing it?

Action Steps

1. Dust off the Vision Statement and bring it alive through storytelling
2. Role model the power of storytelling to your subordinates
3. The best way to learn anything well is to teach it, so teach it to your nominated successor