Storytelling is a safe space for creative thinking, negotiating differences, and establishing commonality. Storytelling empowers the speaker and improves communication through speaking and listening. Stories are the most efficient way of storing, retrieving, and conveying information. Since story hearing requires active participation on the part of the listener, stories are the most profoundly social form of communication.
I just returned from a wonderful conference in Singapore on Business Narrative. During one of the many rich dialogs with peers I stumbled upon a word I hadn't used in a long time. The word is "confer." Simple word but in the context of thinking about the nature of employee engagement and collaboration it brought to mind some new nuances. As an aside it's probably no coincidence that at a "confer-ence" I became more sensitized to the word "confer"
On the long plane ride back to California I captured the essence of the conversation in this stream of consciousness piece. I turned it into one of my short video conversation starters. Here it is:
Are clowns and other corporate amusements in your line up of employee engagement activities? Maybe we opt for more serious stuff like corporate score cards and employee surveys to produce the data our organizations thrive on.
Let’s be honest: what are our real intentions for doing these things?
Are we trying to placate employees or can we find an effective way of inviting our employees to mix together their energies, talents and visions
Are we committed to conferring with our employees? Do we understand when collaboration makes sense and when it’s possible? Can we stay engaged with our employees?
It turns out putting the multifaceted natural capacity of stories to work leads to a whole host of new organizational engagement strategies and tactics you may have overlooked.
I opened my email this morning and had a funny email from Apple. It's a great example of how the right idea executed poorly can do more harm than good. In my case no harm has been done. I am sharing it as an example of the opportunity and responsibility HR professionals have to step up their game.
Two parts to the post:
1. The recruiting email from Apple 2. The email response I sent to their team
THE EMAIL
From: SFStaffing@apple.com To: terrence@makingstories.net Subject: You’re_Invited_-_Apple_Retail_Hiring_Seminar_-_San_Francisco_ Date: 07/30/2010 Time: 3:40 AM EDT
Dear Terrence Gargiulo,
Congratulations! You have been selected to participate in our invitation-only recruiting seminar for our San Francisco Bay Area Stores. We want you to explore starting a career with Apple Retail - we are currently seeking full-time and part-time Specialists, Experts, and Inventory Specialists.. We are also looking for candidates that desire training that will lead them to Genius, Creative and Management roles within Apple Retail. This will not be a typical Seminar but rather an interactive experience. Please join us! Date: Monday, August 9th
Time: 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm
or
Date: Tuesday, August 10th
Time: 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm
(please plan on being with us for about 2 hours)
*Please include in your reply your top 2 preferred dates and times to attend this event.
Place: Galleria Park Hotel 191 Sutter Street
San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 781-3060 What to wear: We are Apple! Business casual attire is perfectly fine, no suits necessary.
What to bring: A copy of your updated resume
How: Please confirm your attendance by sending an email to SFStaffing@apple.com by August 6th, 2010. Please don't forget to give us your 2 preferred days/times.
I look forward to hearing back from you soon!
To learn more about the positions we have to offer, please visit http://jobs.apple.com and click Apple Store.
We look forward to meeting you.
MY RESPONSE
Please take this as constructive feedback...
I feel insulted. This is a recruiting by numbers strategy. I appreciate the need to ramp up your operations and to leverage the names of people who have applied to the company. However, it reveals (whether true or not) that little to no care or attention was put into who to send this opportunity to.
I'm not responding from a place of ego - I am responding from the care and attention HR and recruiting need to have for Apple's incredible brand - and from my passion for your company.
One glance at my resume - even a quick keyword search by meta tag cralwer would quickly indicate I should have never been sent this offer.
I'm disappointed. Its an example of how I feel the HR profession continues to lose opportunities to bring real value to companies.
Thank you for being open to my feedback - please share my note with the appropriate people. I am more than happy to share my perceptions - 415-948-8087.
Good luck with the recruiting event (the event and idea is an excellent one). And thank you for being an awesome company!
I continue to go through the MAKINGSTORIES.net archives and find one gem after another. I don't stop long enough to real give any of these things I create enough time to get out there. I'm too busy being creating the next thing - a gift and a blessing indeed!
In the webinar Bob and I give you a taste for the fable and dive into a discussion of how to manage inter-generational meetings. Here's the marketing blurb about the webinar...
Learn five powerful solutions for boosting meeting productivity in 40 minutes flat!
We’ve all been there – the weekly staff meeting – the Boomers are sharing what they did over the weekend – the Xers are anxious to get it over ASAP – the Millennials are texting their friends, updating Twitter, and shopping on-line. There’s got to be a better way – and there is!
Join Terrence Gargiulo and Robert Wendover, co-authors of On Cloud Nine: Weathering the Challenge of Many Generations in the Workplace, as they reveal the secrets for navigating the meeting needs and expectations of those ages 17 to 70. With the increasing pressures on time and money, you can’t afford this time-wise webinar. We all know the problems, this is about the solutions. Come away with the tricks you need to manage meeting times in a productive and efficient way.
Managing Cross-Generational Meetings Robert W. Wendover The Center for Generational Studies
It happens all the time. We sit in a meeting. The topic needs to be addressed but isn’t all that interesting. The person presenting or facilitating the discussion struggles to keep everyone engaged. We look around the room. A few people are offering ideas and discussing the issue. Others are doing non-related paperwork. Still others are surfing the Web on their handhelds or even texting each other under the table about how boring the meeting is.
With the pressure to do more with less these days, few people have the tolerance to sit through a meeting that they perceive as wasting their time. This is especially true of emerging professionals who are so conscious of their time to begin with. So how can we find a way to manage meetings effectively, particularly across the generations? Here are some ideas:
Commit “Meetingus vanishus.” Many people have concluded that as a society, we meet too much. Ask people about all the different meetings to which they are committed to each week and you’ll get a list of five or more. Ask those same people how many are really necessary and they will roll their eyes. Dare to ask those attending regular meetings if the meeting is really necessary. Press for the truth and you’ll probably get a good feel for which meetings can be eliminated.
But information does have to be disseminated. The obvious answer is technology. Decide what can be distributed electronically and then develop a means for do so. Several years ago, banking giant Capital One purchased 3000 iPods, for instance, and distributed them to managers and other professionals across the organization. “Feel free to use the iPod to your hearts content,” these people were told. All we ask is that when the company sends you podcasts on topics ranging from training issues to financial updates that you listen to the information.” This practice has consequently saved thousands hours of time and added millions of dollars to the bottom line.
Cross generate the meeting. The person in charge tends to be the person running the meeting. Who says that’s the best way to get things done? Try appointing individuals from different generations to the role of meeting leader. This can accomplish several goals: 1) It will re-engage those who have disengaged from the meeting’s purpose. 2) It will foster the creativity of those in the room. 3) It will demonstrate the different approaches to getting the meeting objective accomplished. 4) It will help those in charge to identify the leadership attributes within the team.
Establish upright meetings. Who says meetings have to take place in a reclining position? More than one manager has discovered that simply gathering people together on the factory floor or office break room is an effective way to get a quick decision. Why not take more advantage of this strategy? If some privacy is needed, remove the chairs from the room ahead of time. Sure there may be a few comments, but the result with be a quicker and more effective meeting. Don’t believe me? Just try it a couple of times.
Meet virtually. Even if everyone attending is in the same facility, it can be more efficient to meet via a telephone bridge or conferencing software. Since most people comfortable multi-taking their way through the day, this practice will enable them to improve their efficiency and still participate in a meaningful way.
Lots of content resting in MAKINGSTORIES.net rich archives. Below is a video of the webinar, tool, and TV appearances for an AMACOM book.
I had a grand time collecting stories from around the world for a book on difficult people. In the Land of Difficult People: 24 Timeless Tales Reveal How to tame Beasts at work was loads of fun.
I offered a webinar earlier on the year on topic. Here are the questions we looked at:
Are people’s job performances in your organization plagued by difficult behaviors?
Do projects suffer when people are unable to work effectively with each other?
Are you leveraging people’s differences and the tensions created by these to achieve results?
There are no difficult people, well at least not many, but there are lots of difficult behaviors and each and every one of us is guilty of engaging in them.
Based on the book, In the Land of Difficult People: 24 Timeless Tales Reveal How to Tame Beasts at work, this webinar uses a fun and interactive strategy to tackle destructive behaviors that are getting in the way of your organization achieving its results.
Here's a summary of the key points and a follow-up job aid I sent participants...
SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS
• There are very few truly difficult people. Just lots of difficult behaviors.
• We are all guilty of behaviors that cause difficulty for others and we are usually not aware of it.
• People drive organizational performance.
• Future competitive advantage will be directly correlated with the quality, effectiveness and depth of relationships in organizations.
• Meaningful conversations nurture relationships.
• Stories are a natural and essential part of meaningful conversations.
• “The shortest distance between people is a story.” – Terrence Gargiulo
• Seek to understand others first.
JOB AID – PLANNING COMMUNICATIONS
Situational Constraints
What’s In It for Them
Assumptions
What do I care about? What’s important to me? Do I have any communication allies?
Directions:
Whenever you can, planning for a communication with someone who is exhibiting difficult behavior that is impacting your performance or just causing you consternation can lead to better results.
Try imaging the world from their vantage point. Start by considering any situational constraints. These are any things that might interfere or effect the way you can interact with this person.
We tend to simplify people’s behavior into simplistic causal explanations. These are often wrong or just a fraction of the picture.
Reflect on they why’s of their behavior by asking what’s important to them. Do so with an open mind.
Examine your assumptions. What filters, values, beliefs, information, ideas, opinions, etc… are coloring your view?
Be sure to consider what’s important to you. What do you need and what do you care about? Consider anyone you might enlist as a communication ally. These are people who might support, clarify or advocate.
Five to ten minutes of quality reflecting can lead to a world of difference.
Here are some video clip of TV interviews I did for the book...
I promise to get back to our Stories and Leadership series. I just realized I had a lot of content I haven't had a chance to share. As I am preparing for a special holiday episode of Story Matters Productions (episode 7) I discovered I have only posted one of the episodes (episode 6) on my blog. Shame on me!
For those of you new to the unique format, here's what Story Matters is all about...
StoryMatters is a format for maximizing learning from experience and applying it in the workplace. Stories are used to spark deeper conversations creating multiple layers of meaning that have relevance to team members. The StoryMatters process promotes a culture of continuous learning within an organization by modeling the skills of advocacy and inquiry. In this way, StoryMatters can become an invaluable tool for any learning organization.
StoryMatters: The Process
I. Read or tell three 99 word stories – these stories act as triggers to spark listeners' imaginations II. Listeners recapitulate the stories to find index words that capture the essence of the stories III. Listeners leverage the index words to find personal stories along the same theme IV. Those stories are shared and people hearing them share their reactions V. Conclude with a dialog and conversation of themes and relationships between stories
Without any further ado (drum roll please)...here's Episode #5.
Terrence L. Gargiulo, MMHS is an eight times author, international speaker, organizational development consultant and group process facilitator specializing in the use of stories. He holds a Master of Management in Human Services from the Florence Heller School, at Brandeis University, and is a recipient of Inc. Magazine's Marketing Master Award, the 2008 HR Leadership Award from the Asia Pacific HRM Congress, and is a member of Brandeis University’s athletic Hall of Fame. He has appeared on Fox TV, CN8, and on CNN radio among others.
Books: Making Stories: A Practical Guide for Organizational Leaders and Human Resource Specialists, The Strategic Use of Stories in Organizational Communication and Learning, On Cloud Nine: Weathering Many Generations in the Workplace, Stories at Work: Using Stories to Improve Communications and Build Relationships, Building Business Acumen for Trainers, Once Upon a Time: Using Story-based Activities to Develop Breakthrough Communication Skills, In the Land of Difficult People: 24 Timeless Tales Reveal How to Tame Beasts at Work, The Trainer’s Portable Mentor.
Terrence is a frequent speaker at international and national conferences.
HOW DO YOU ENGAGE YOUR EMPLOYEES?
JOB AID – PLANNING COMMUNICATIONS
