4 Story Telling Toolkits

An important leadership competency is the ability to tell stories - not the pumped up fantasies but rather the real examples of things that have happened. It's these stories that motivate others.

Here are four resources you may find useful in helping you craft your stories.

1. A Story Telling Toolkit from The Education Arcade.  A fairly standarrd guide, though useful as it covers all the bits and pieces you need to think about when writing up a story.
2. If you fancy yourself as a reporter, then check out CNN's guidelines on crafting a story. I like the advice they give as it is focused on how it will attract the reader's attention.
3. My most favourite collection of advice for telling stories is from the Knowledge Sharing Database. It includes a variety of activities you can use n meetings and workshops to gather and analyse stories.
4. If what you're looking for a bullet point version of some advice, then try this one from the United Nations

Altering mental content - 3: Changing Minds

I come across clients who are sp captivated by the notion of spreading good ideas by stories that they forget that they also need to provide the theoretical base for the change, as well as the need to identify the key concepts - and - if required, support the development of skills to enable others to change.

I drew the above chart as my way of showign how all these topics need to come together.  Next time I am involved in helping someone draw up a spread plan, I'll spend time working through what we need to do to provide the mental content to help others adopt new practices.

When stories and Powerpoint clash

A mantra I keep hearing is "we need to tell stories to influence change." I agree with this, however, I do have a few provisio's

• if the story has no relevance to your message then why are you telling it?
• if you provide a personal story to illustrate your values then please make sure it connects with the audience at the time (please update and avoid repeating)
• when you use PowerPoint to tell your story there seems to be a dissonance - the method is not matching the intent

As a method of influence, especially for large scale change, stories work well because they contain the emotive meme that a PowerPoint presentation usually lacks.  So let's use stories, but let's use them advisedly and with care.

New Tools Wiki - a stunning set of resources

The newtools workshop wiki is the most amazing set of resources I have come across for months - and those of you who know me well know that I don't use "most amazing" very often. I'm at a loss for words on how to describe it so you need to go and have a look for yourself.

Be prepared to spend some time exploring it...

Adoption of guidelines: trust?

A perennial issue on spread and adoption is how clinical guidelines are adopted - or not. There is an industry researching what happens, what might be useful intervention and what you can then do to increase the speed and amount of adoption.

My own rather accidental piece of "research" raised a new question for me: to what extent is trust both an enabler and disabler of the adoption process?

So I've been cooking. The real thing, with recipes. I spent the better part of a month working through many of the Women's Institute favourite 650 recipes. A trusted cookbook and mostly failsafe. What I found is it is incredibly difficult to follow a recipe down to all the details. The more I used recipes the more I found myself adapting them - to varying degrees of success.

Then I moved on to Nigella's Express cookbook. A week later I noticed I was slavishly adhering to every minute detail. Not like me at all. So what was going on here?

Nigella writes in the first person and the way recipes are written has engaged me in a new way. When a note in brackets suggests options, reassures you that she really did mean 250ml double cream or reinforces why this step is important, then it seems more trust in the process is repaid by more attention to detail in following instructions.

Many clinical guidelines are produced by committees. Yes they may be great sets of instructions, however, are they written as mechanisms that attract trust? I wonder what would happen if a trusted peer rewrite guidelines in a personal language and tone. Would they be adopted more quickly?

I did think maybe this is about personal choice of style of communication. Maybe. And should that detract from finding some novel ways to encourage the adoption of guidelines?

Stories and Examples are different

We know that stories engage hearts and minds more than bullet points on a PowerPoint or a three page proposal. I believe there is a very important difference between stories and examples.

Stories are personal. I know a story when the person telling it comes alive with the emotions attached to the story. I can feel their passion, enthusiasm, sadness, delight - whatever. I am drawn into their personal experience. It is stories like this that engage me.

When someone stands on a stage and tells someone else's story - then for me that is an example. No matter how much we resonate with the other person's story their passion, enthusiasm, sadness, delight - whatever - is unlikely to be captured by the example-teller. Examples are helpful, though I suggest they are no different from the paragraphs in papers. They are second-hand and no longer associated with the context and emotions that go with them.

I am sometimes asked if a story I have used can be used by someone else. I usually recommend they find a way of developing their own reservoir of stories. This is sometimes difficult. Those who develop and advance theories may find their work disconnected from the reality of practice. The best way to both test the theories and develop your own stories is to test them out on a small scale. Not only will this provide self-confidence, it will also demonstrate the practicalities of your theory or suggestion and increase your personal credibility as you have a personal story to tell.

In the event you are unable to experience your own story, then I suggest capturing someone else's using a short video. Then allow their story to be told as they wish.

In the next week, try to focus on gathering, maintaining, treasuring your own stories. If you find yourself giving an example - telling someone else's story - then take a breather and see how you might do something differently to get the outcomes you desire from your listeners.

Photo from www.freephoto.com

Stimulating the desire to share

So I've been taking notes for a few weeks on why it is some people are really attracted to share some things, others are attracted to share very little. What is it that stimulates one person clicko n the "share" button on You-Tube or any other social networking site? What prompts someone to forward a useful article? SO the notes I've been taking are around my own behaviour and desire to share. I am wondering how much of this is generalisable to other people and contexts.

1. Relationship building: sometimes I share something because I am aware it is part of continuing a relationship with someone. This can range form the more formal paper I've read that I hope someone else will also find useful, though to something more random like a video clip on You-tube that I thought someone in the family might find amusing. My sharing isn't something planned - it just sort of happens and when I see something I will trigger a "share". This made me think whether "relationship building" is something we consider or design with in mind when developing change programs.
2. Unknown sharing: this is a bit like the blindspot in the Johari window. I realised that I am on many social and business networking sites. It is possible for me to share a message, say on Twitter, and then this is retweeted (forwarded on to others). I have no idea who the people are, though Twitter is useful as it is possible to track the sharing - not so with email. Sometimes the only way I know something has been shared is when I get an email form someone I have never heard of yet they are commenting on something I said. This is a very powerful dynamic at work and I wonder how much this is taken into account when developing communication strategies? I've learnt how random this process is. Got to be in there and involved to have any sense of how the internet can generate both velocity (speed) as well as scaling up of a message.
3. Problem shared is a problem halved: I have found sharing problems and looking for support and answers from others is an important strategy for me. I use LinkedIn to pose questions and also reach out to colleagues. This means I have to describe my problem - this process of sharing usually means I end up part solving the problem as I do the definition! So I wonder whether in our change efforts we spend too much time requiring solutions to be articulated when one strategy may be to help people both find words to their problem as well as find someone to whom they can reach out.
4. Random sharing: ever found yourself telling your life story to someone sitting next to you on the bus and who you only met 30 seconds ago when you sat down?! Well, not quite as extreme, though I have found myself sharing all sorts of things with people which don't fall into relationship building (except perhaps very short term) or as precisely as problem solving. There is something opportunistic here. So I wonder whether we can help more of these opportunistic meeting happen in the workplace?
5. Good idea promotion: yes, I did do some promotion activities, sharing good practices I have seen elsewhere and which may be useful to the person or team I was working with at the time. However, this was only a very small percentage of my "sharing" time. Standing on a stage and telling stories also counts a bit of good practice sharing, though again this was a small part of my sharing activity. So I wonder whether we are over cooking the need to share good ideas?

So what I discovered by my own behaviour is I have not consciously set out the share good practice and good ideas. It is a lot more random than that. Also, my desire to share is really quite complex. OK, I am only a sample size of one - if you have stories about your own desire to share then please write a comment below.

I will be doing some thinking before designing the next communication and "spread" intervention I am involved in.

Are you a story teller or a story catcher?

The movement to teach people how to tell stories so they increase their armoury of techniques for influencing is a fine one. Part of me feels we all know how to tell stories, we do so at home, at dinner parties, to strangers on the train etc. Maybe we need to feel there is permission to do so in the workplace. Maybe some of us need the theory and structure to help us frame useful work-related stories. What we do know is that enabling the spread of good practice and large scale change is dependent on the concept of the story.

Part of me feels that story "telling" is not only just half of the technique, but also it panders to the predominant hierarchical, patriarchal "I'm in charge" thinking. For example, an executive who writes and delivers their "story" is doing so with an intent in mind. Yes, it moves the instruction and influencing process one step away from head and closer to heart, though is it enough?

I believe the courageous leaders will be those who grasp the importance of story catching. An inspirational book called "Story Catching" by Christina Baldwin is an excellent resource. I see story catching as about holding the conversations, reflecting on what has been said - and what hasn't been said, appreciating the value of social networks and relationships, and knowing that the creation of the story is the point at which meaning is developed. Stories are part of the way we identify ourselves with communities (other groups of similar people), they reflect who we really are and they are our legacy.

A story catcher is someone who participates in the conversation. They are someone who listens out for the story and listens to it. A story catcher is not as much concerned with imposing their story on others but in helping others develop their own stories and in bringing people together to create new stories. They may help capture it as it unfolds (writing learning learning journeys). This is not really the same as documenting and then sharing the documentation in the hope others are interested. It may partially be this, though I feel the intention is more to help others see the meaning in other people's stories.

All this sounds woolly, fluffy and complex. Yes, it is not as clean, cool and organised as disseminating a case study of good practice with the expectation others will enjoy it and then implement it. Mostly, being a story catcher is a messy business attached to the world of relationships and communities.

Teller or catcher? It's a both / and. If I had to vote I would say 30% of the impact is in knowing how to craft and tell a good story and 70% is about the ability to hold the space for conversation, to listen, to co-create stories, to find my meaning in others' stories - to be a catcher.

What do you feel about the difference between story telling and story capturing?