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Storytelling may not be the whole story...
A vital part of L&D, organisational culture and how your Leaders lead, how can you use storytelling to shape your success?
Storytelling in Leadership
A growing trend in business – and Leadership – is the power of storytelling.
Think about what your LinkedIn feed shows you; which content do you scroll right past, and what catches your attention enough to make you pause, and engage?
People love stories.
Whether it’s hearing stories or sharing their own, our love of storytelling is a very human trait; one that we share in our DNA, no matter what culture we call our own, or where we are in our own lives. We look to stories in everything we do; love stories to lift us, thillers to make us feel alive, sob stories to build empathy and remind us how lucky we are.
We bond over our shared experiences, are inspired by people who overcome difficulties and find success, and learn important lessons from the challenges others have faced. In every environment we know that most people love an underdog, and will cheer for anyone who reaches their goal against the odds.
Everyone has seen the success – and the power – that inspirational people share in their own story. Sports stars, business gurus, motivational mentors and those we aspire to be just like. We want to know the secret to their success, and people devour their stories because, if we take it all in, we might be able to follow the same path and emulate their achievements in our own lives.
This is why business – and successful business moguls – use storytelling as a tool. The business leaders we admire use stories to teach the people they lead how to succeed, how to perform, and how to behave in ways that benefit their work.
The advertising industry gets a lot of credit for the growth of storytelling in business, but I’d argue that the trend actually dates back thousands – tens of thousands – of years. Long before the cynical marketing campaigns of the Mad Men!
Our love of stories goes all the way back to the days of campfires and tribal gatherings. Of wandering communities sharing their histories, and teaching vital lessons to their next generation, before we developed written language.
Human beings have always shared stories; the narrative arcs of conflict, tension and resolution that spark emotion, and build connection between people from far distant homes, with vastly different lives. It’s our stories that bond us – all the more so if someone we admire tells their own journey to success, and we learn that it comes with a heart-tugging backstory of grief or difficulty overcome.
If great leadership means inspiring people, you need to build rapport, spark action, guide the choices people will make. What better way than telling a story that brings your people along on your journey with you?
If anecdotal proof of the power of storytelling isn’t already convincing, neuroscientists have given us reams of scientific evidence too. Tell stories, their research shows, and our brains produce cortisol (making us attentive), oxytocin (which makes us empathise with the story’s characters), and dopamine (the human feel-good factor). With that in mind, it’s no wonder that so many successful CEOs adore telling stories: what leader doesn’t want to be listened to, empathised with and loved by the people they lead?!
Of course, these stories have to be told responsibly – and honestly. Before you share your own story, take a moment to consider the idea of stories. Not every story we hear is true – and not every true story is truly inspirational…good storytelling (and using storytelling in the way you lead) means considering what you say, and why you’re saying it.
Storytelling and success
The stories that we see in business are often fables or parables: all of the ambiguous and complicated details are stripped away, so that the lesson – often a moral one, loosely speaking – can be delivered.
When you think about the reasons businesses tell stories – typically, to inspire, persuade or convince – you also see that there’s a tendency towards happy endings. The risk with those is that people don’t always trust a happy ending, and we seem to need conflict for that happiness to satisfy. Stories that only focus on the positives or successes can feel forced, and actually lose your audience if there’s no meat to gnaw at!
The relationship between stories and truth is often quite complex, and many novelists are adamant that – while names, dates, locations and facts have been changed – fiction tells us a clearer version of the truth than any non-fiction account could – because real life is never as linear or obvious as a good story.
Readers, on the other hand, say it depends very much on whose truth you are telling, and why. One reason that well-told stories are powerful is that they are believable; coincidences do happen in our real lives, but not as often as we see them in fiction (in stories and in film!)
Audiences are also usually sharp enough to appreciate that storytelling can be a form of packaging – of the storyteller, as much as the story itself.
Storytelling is a way to escape the dull monotony of our everyday, to step outside of the ordinary and mundane, to build trust and convey values. Storytelling is how we build relationships, whether it’s in our personal lives or in our work. For any story to be effective – and to achieve the outcome we are hoping for – the storyteller needs to pay close attention to their audience, to how they respond, and adapt the story to suit the response when they need to.
Deborah Sole and Daniel Wilson’s Training and Development article, Storytelling in Organisations, compared storytelling with other methods of knowledge sharing. If your aim is sharing tacit knowledge, to facilitate ‘unlearning’ (better known by the rest of us as change), or to generate emotional connections, they argue that these activities are more effective if they’re undertaken through mentoring rather than storytelling. Through demonstrations and apprenticeships, and in simulations (including role-playing and case studies).
There are other aspects to consider, if you plan to use storytelling as a tool in how you lead;
Storytelling is formulaic: as the business world adopts storytelling as a tool, there’s a tendency for people to try and identify some ‘magic formula’ for what makes a great story. The fundamentals of creating a story – establish conflict, explore tension, and depict a resolution, with characters clearly defined as goodies or baddies – but there is more to great storytelling than that. It’s the point of your story – the lesson or moral you’re telling – than people need to discern, not the framework underneath, so be careful to avoid following any prescribed formula too closely. People like stories, but they don’t like feeling manipulated!
Good storytelling is difficult! It’s a complex skill, not something most of us can adopt on a whim! Doing it well comes naturally to a lucky few, but for most of us it’s like any other skill: it takes time, dedication and practice…mastering it is the difference between delivering a powerful story and just…telling a story.
Your story has to bring your audience along; hook them, spark emotional reactions, connect with them. And do so genuinely, with honesty. We all know when we are being spun a yarn – and any student of theatre will be aware of Coleridge’s “Willing suspension of disbelief” which describes the audience engaging with a story, fully aware of the fiction. Tell the right story well, and your audience will be with you.
Storytelling is a relationship: all good relationships balance both sides – in storytelling you guide the conversation, and your audience listen. You broadcast and engage your audience – but you must remember to listen and observe their reactions too, and adapt the story you tell to suit them.
Storytelling is always evolving: Remember that people learn – and process our stories – in different ways, according to their individual preferences. One style of narrative won’t work for everyone, and in business you should be clear about the outcomes you want to achieve. Storytelling as a Leader usually means that you are trying to create better employees, not a circle of devoted listeners. It’s what they do when they’ve heard the story that matters.
What your audience really needs may not be as simple as telling the right story; sometimes what you want to achieve would work better as a clearly demonstrated example, specific skills training, a clearly written handbook or a brief update of facts and figures. Stories aren’t the right substitute for everything in business, or in Leadership!
Every leader, no matter what industry you are in, or what size of team you lead, needs to build good relationships with their people to get the best from them. As with so many things, great leadership isn’t simply defined by a few choice traits or actions – and it comes naturally to some, where others need to learn the skills they need.
No matter what, the best thing any leader can do is understand that their story hasn’t ended – and that there’s always more to learn, and new ways to do it.
In the programmes we develop for our clients we often use Storytelling as one of the tools to convey key skills and messages; we know that it’s an incredibly effective way to share knowledge and build on the relationships that make for a successful team.
If you would like to develop your skills as a Leader, forge stronger connection with the teams you lead, and see their performance grow with you, we can help. How? Just ASK!