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.
Flexing Your Business Storytelling Muscles with Deliberate Practices
Collaborating with other story practitioners is a special treat. When Shawn Callahan and I of Anecdote regroup to share our latest ideas it's always stimulating. Wish it was easier to reveal all the behind the scenes conversations and work that go into pulling together a session.
Business storytelling is really more than a trend. People are hungry for connections whether it be in the workplace or even in their personal relationship. "The shortest distance between two people is a story" (you can quote me on that one :). While we're all natural storytellers there still needs to be purposeful attention and effort made to tap into "the natural power of story" (you can quote Shawn on that one :).
There's some good news. Since we're involved in various degrees of storytelling/storylistening/story triggering all the time we don't need to start from scratch and put in the 10,000+ hours of practice Malcom Gladwell suggests we need for mastery.
If you haven't had a chance to checkout Anecdote's website with its new face lift be sure to pour through the rich coffers of their blog and wonderful collection of ready to go stories for business in their Story Finder Tool.
I digress let me share with you what we did during our August complimentary webinar...
Have you wondered why you are not making better progress at becoming a storyteller at work? Are you finding it difficult to find good stories to tell? Are your stories relevant to your colleagues or do they look at you blankly wondering what planet you're on?
Spend an hour with master business story practitioners Shawn Callahan of Anecdote and Terrence Gargiulo of MAKINGSTORIES.net as they share deliberate practices you can employ today to be a better storyteller.
This session was conducted as conversation with participants. So there are lots of wonderful ideas and experiences shared by all. Be sure to add your voice by chiming in with your ideas, experiences, and of course stories below.
I got a lot of great emails and questions from folks about a group process I use with companies. In my last video, I shared a story about an intervention I sometimes using involving leaders standing in as a symbol of the company and allow the group to roast the company. Unbelievable things happen.
The roast is a challenging but powerful vehicle. Of course its a bit risky. One caveat. Be honest with yourself. If you are a confident and skilled facilitator and you are willing to stir the pot and navigate the dynamics than you will find this process rewarding. If not you might not want to try this - or let someone shadow it with you the first time to lend a helping hand in case the dynamics go awry.
Here are a few things I've learned...
1. Finding the right executive is key
2. Develop strong relationship and trust with the group
3. Lead the group in a process of deciding what it feels are ground rules for the process (I'll sometimes have folks even talk about what they think is funny, other roasts they have been in or seen) - let the group self elect one or more people to act as "keepers of the rules" - empower them to remind others when anyone strays off course
4. Have folks speak of the business as "it" never let it become directed at the individuals (the executive) he or she is only an anthropomorphic sit in/representation of the business
5. Before you conclude have a symbolic object to place in the chair and ask the executive get up and join the group (if at all possible I like using circles or U shape configurations when possible - then let the executive take a shot or two at roasting the company
6. You lead a debrief with the whole group including the executive sitting with the participants
7. I know it may sound touchy/feely but do give first the executive and the participants a chance to talk about the emotions, feelings, observations etc... that came up during the process
8. Depending on the context - I move the group to look at tangible action items that can be taken
9. Keep self-effacing humor and fun at the heart of the process - don;t let people get bogged down in pure venting
Hope that helps -. If you do the roast please let me know how it goes. Also please feel free to grab me on my cell if you want to discuss further - 415-948-8087
How Can We Engender Respect & Attention With Our Stories?
I’ve always been fascinated with how stories connect with one another. For most of us who are not natural performers or orators telling a single big story in a compelling way seems daunting. I’ve noticed that most stories are more like snippets; small bits and pieces. Even when they’re not the flow of conversation between people or the impromptu opportunities that present themselves for sharing stories requires us to condense our stories.
Here are some questions I’ve been thinking about:
How do stories change when we need to collapse them? How much can we condense or abbreviated a story before it loses its impact? When we link several stories together (two or more in a rapid string)? How does that impact us as a teller? And what effect does it have on listeners? Can they follow us? Will it trigger stories for them?
I’ve been releasing short two minute video blog pieces where I have been experimenting with story richness. I’ve been playing with story forms (anecdotes, metaphors, visual metaphors, clichés, alluding to other personal stories without going into them, and references to well known stories or movies, etc…).
How do these “story forms,” enrich conversations and presentations and when do they detract? Are they still stories? Are these story skills more easily practiced by others because they might mimic natural forms of communication better? Can we be more mindful and aware of these forms of stories and by doing so become more effective at connecting with each other?
In my latest video I gave myself a hard challenge. I wanted to tell three stories in less than a minute and half and still have it be cogent, effective, evocative for others, and well connected to the front part of the video. I then further challenged myself by giving myself one take only. I turned the camera on and away I went. I had a mental schema in my mind and I had identified the stories but I had never tried telling them all together and I had never tried to tell them all in less than a minute and half.
Here’s the result. I’d love to hear people’s experiences and thought about the questions. Here's the short video to jumnpstart your reflections and our conversation...
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!
Last year Shawn Callahan and I delivered a webinar in the triple threat of storytelling. It was really popular and we had a great time doing it.
Well we're back for another webinar, this time we're exploring how to become a better storyteller by applying some specific and deliberate practices.
Here is our little marketing blurb. Sign up details are at the bottom of this post.
Have you wondered why you are not making better progress at becoming a storyteller at work? Are you finding it difficult to find good stories to tell? Are your stories relevant to your colleagues or do they look at you blankly wondering what planet you're on?
Spend 45 minutes with master business story practitioners Shawn Callahan of Anecdote and Terrence Gargiulo of MAKINGSTORIES.net as they share deliberate practices you can employ today to be a better storyteller.
We will conduct the session as a conversation involving everyone. Yippee!
We expect you'll walk away with three things from this session:
Three practices to deepen your storytelling skills
Ideas from other attendees of how they improve their skills or what works for them...what works in their organization
Some specific resources for finding good stories
We're doing this webinar twice, one timed for Asia Pacific and the other for the Americas. Just click on the link of the webinar you want to attend and fill in your details.
How would innovation change in an organization if we became more responsible for each other? What would that organization look like? How would you feel? And how would you perform?
Please add your voice to this conversation starter...
Some of you know I spent over 25 years as a competitive fencer (and with a fair amount of success). My first fencing coach Dr. Bank passed away two weeks ago. On father's day as I think of all the influential people in my life I wish to share this tribute and memory...
Dr. Bank…he will always be Dr. Bank to me.
I’m still the fragile nine year old who showed up one day at the Monterey YMCA with nothing more than a medal won by my father in fencing eons ago and the romantic images of swashbuckling. Dr. Bank would not disappoint. I had brought my whole family in tow to learn the ways of the sword. My youthful determination caught the imagination of Dr. Bank’s huge heart.
He grabbed my awkward, mixed up physical body and went to work quickly on transforming my curiosity into something sustainable. His laugh, positive energy, and ever present teasing, fun banter were all ingredients he used to introduce me to a path.
One of the first memories of fencing lessons with Dr. Bank was learning to be a pin cushion. With gentle, direct wisdom he taught me to how to be hit before I ever knew how to make a hit. That was the sort of wisdom he had a knack for imparting while we were busied in the details of acquiring new skills. He knew I would never be able to score touches if I did not know how to accept being hit. He was showing me how to conquer not just any possibility of physical fear of getting hurt but the mental, spiritual hurt that was to become an inevitable part of my fencing journey. Could I sustain the vulnerability of being touched? Could I allow myself to be touched?
Dr. Bank touched me…he was tireless in encouraging me, nurturing me, and sharing his passion.
I had in Dr. Bank the perfect example of making learning a priority before being consumed by goals. Excellence did not exclude humility. Hard work did not eliminate fun. And drive was not to compete with an unquenchable love for the sport. Dr. Bank delighted in each small step I made. Perfected advances, a solved riddle of disengaging around a trick parry combination, or the joy of discovering a new facet of fencing, were met with the same indefatigable enthusiasm.
I couldn’t wait to go fencing on Tuesday evenings and Sunday afternoons. My weeks were defined by my special time with Dr. Bank. I was never disappointed. A huge smile greeted me and I never knew what the day’s adventure in learning would be. Dr. Bank’s generosity extended to my whole family. I still remember the joy I felt when Dr. Bank gave me my first foil.
Dr. Bank was more than just a coach to me, he was a role model. Fencing was serious business. Not the sport but rather the door the sport opened for me to finding and experiencing myself. Discipline never felt onerous; it was just part and parcel of participating. Dr. Bank’s bigger purpose was never far from the surface. If you weren’t paying attention it could have been easy to miss his deeper mission given his light hearted zeal but only if you did not engage with him. To cross blades with him you quickly realized he was living his faith, questions, and love for life with each parry and thrust.
I really never knew failure with Dr. Bank. His patience for learning outstripped any counter-productive expectations. He handed me keys to probably the most formative influence in my life. He showed me how to make sense of my mind, body, and spirit.
Dr. Bank was one of those rare teachers that taught me how to learn. He exemplified a love for learning. I remember while Dr. Bank was on summer vacation one year I went rummaging in the stacks of the Monterey library looking for information on fencing. I stumbled upon a book with flip book style photos of fencing actions. My days were consumed with studying the intricate new moves. I was overflowing with new questions and ideas when he returned. This is what he encouraged. This quality persists in me today. He had a way of bringing it out in others.
Life changes and I cultivated the seeds Dr. Bank planted in me. I was thrilled to bring him details of my latest conquests. Each little package of success was a new gift I couldn’t wait to bring back to him. In the best possible ways he was indifferent to the trappings of success. He was interested in the affects of my experiences but he always wanted me to divulge the details of the process. What a perfect form of validation. Good or bad the results were secondary.
In fact my first medal in fencing was for sportsmanship. No surprise here. Anything less was not possible in Dr. Bank’s club. It’s just the way things were. Part of the unspoken code of how he taught and he lived.
It’s so hard to imagine him gone. I have not done a good job of staying in touch. Maybe it’s because a part of me has this never ending dialogue with an angel that walked among us and brought me so many blessings.
My prayers of comfort fly out to you and the family. I look forward to the day when I can join my coach in heaven. For now he’s winking at us and showering us with joy.
Are you enamored with black and white approximations of life? Don’t our lives in organizations depend on these holy grails of homeostasis? Is your sense of equilibrium and equality governed by stable platforms of immutable laws?
I’m suggesting we sit in the rich space of story. When we agitate the potential cacophony of stories we invite a chorus of perspectives. Stories are sacred because by their nature they’re non dualistic.
Stories are like atoms and high energy particles smashing into one another forever fusing and forming into ever new bits of raw sense making material. So clarity emerges from uncertainty.
The more we can sit with our contradictions, paradoxes and tensions the more we are graced to be an agent of change.
Watch my last two minute conversation starter video and add your voice to the dialog...
Saturday, June 7th I had the pleasure of being a guest on Coach Judy Nelson BlogRadio show. I became connected with Judy through a mutual friend, Carol Biddle who is the Executive Director of the Kinship Center.
Carol is an amazing leader who with her partner in leadership Carol Bishop have created an agency making a huge difference in the areas of adoption, foster care, advocacy, open adoption, family therapy, and a host of other children and families issues largely neglected.
I wrote a case study in two of my books on the Kinship Center...
The Strategic Use of Stories in Organizational Communication and Learning
Stories at Work: Using Stories to Improve Communications and Build Relationships
For more info on these or any of my other books click the image below:
I was most appreciative of the care and attention Judy took in preparing for our conversation. Like a gifted coach, she took the time to step into my shoes with a keen curuiosity and openess to discovering my gifts. Forty-five minutes was not enough and I look forward to our next conversation.
Do you ever feel like your organizational environment needs to be vitalized? In the face of fatigue and deterioration what does renewal look like?
Are we cursed by our propensity for forgetting or are we just slaves to our sense making needs? Whatever the case may be remembering seems to play a central role in the act of renewal.
I’d like to suggest a template for renewal. I feel active reflection must be at the heart of it. Of course to quote a famous Greek guy, “An unexamined story is not worth having.” Active reflection begins by remembering our experiences, looking for connections between the past and the present and imagining new futures…
Spend two minutes with me...then share with me and others how you approach organizational renewal.
Are things falling apart all around you? Have you been hit with discombobulation? This fast paced video turns our prevalent notions of sense making on its head. It’s always bothered me that when we talk about story we usually talk about stories requiring Beginnings, Middles, and Ends. I don’t disagree. I’ve finally been able to put my finger on what I felt compelled to articulate…
Watch and see what discombobulation, stories, and a new way of thinking about stories adds to your current way of thinking about them. Then be sure to add your voice to the conversation, after all stories beg us to co-create with each other.
Our pilot project in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera HD Live in Schools was a rewarding and rich event. I've pulled together a short four minute documentary that tells the story of our work and is a marketing piece we are using to drum up support for the expansion of next year's program:
For more information on the Occhiata Foundation...
We are actively seeking sponsors and support. In other news on the community and philanthropy front, I have been volunteering as a coach for the John Steinbeck young writers program. The student I have been coaching has won. I am so proud of her!!
Thanks for stopping by. What have you been up to? How have you engaged with your community? I'd love to hear your stories.
What role do you think imagination plays in our organizations?
My family’s recent trip to Disneyland tickled my imagination
It’s a small world is stilling vivid for me. So many beautiful countries, customs, symbols, joined in a chorus of diverse kinship
All of this made me pause to think about the role imagination plays in our lives and what place does imagination have in our organizations? Can such a child like capacity have any relationship to bottom line imperatives?
There are the obvious ways that imagination can be put to work in our organizations by driving problem solving, stimulating innovation and guiding creativity but these are not enough for me… I want to see how imagination touches our capacity for awe and wonder and how these deeply human expressions are operating even within the walls of our organizations
I am enamored with patterns – must be why I am such an afficiando of stories and narrative. I gaze at these animations of fractals and I begin to intuit a fascinating connection between how we are mini pattern generating contributors in a large ecosystem propped up by some structure
Could it be that imagination allows me to extend myself into a set of repeating possibilities? If I cannot directly apprehend or manipulate all the bytes of sensory and cognitive stimulus shaping my world maybe I can use my imagination to propel myself into a wider orbit …there I can be guided by the gravitational potential of bodies…ways of being and experiencing the world that are different than my own
Imagining who and how we are is vital to sense making and it never stops – whether we are in the private space of our own reverie or influencing organizational decision makers. Our capacity to encounter others…and to imagine frames of references other than our cherished set of values and beliefs is a creative act of monumental importance. The future speed of business is unlikely to accommodate anything less. What can you do to rev up your capabilities. Our performance depends upon it.
Look around, there’s tons of talk about stories and storytelling. Most people are convinced of the important role story plays in effective communication but…
How can we help people experience their natural story skills that go beyond telling a good yarn?
What does it feeling like when people are engaged in story-listening?
How can all this touchy-feely story stuff be tied to concrete behaviors that generate measurable performance results?
Spend 45 minutes with me in an interactive session answering these questions and more. I’ll share a tool I developed from research and an active learning activity.
Here is a link to the recording of my March complimentary webinar on the topic:
During the video I shared the case study of Len as an example of active learning story-based communication skills exercise - The Magic Three (link below to a facilitator guide for the exercise - quoted here is just the case study):
I was facilitating a workshop on personal effectiveness in business. Len was a nononsense technology project manager for a nuclear research company. Len possessed exceptional communication skills. He was clear, precise, succinct, and very articulate. However, despite his technical prowess as a communicator, Len observed that he often failed to connect with people on an emotional level.
I gave Len two assignments. The first assignment was to take a complex newspaper article on a controversial topic and in thirty seconds or less provide a summary of the article’s information and make a recommendation. Len’s second assignment was the Magic Three.
Len performed the newspaper activity with the prowess of a polished politician. He was absolutely brilliant. I wanted him to serve as an example of how to deliver an effective executive sound bite. There are many times when we have thirty seconds or less to make an elevator pitch.
After appropriate accolades, I asked Len to share his three stories with us. In a matter of a few seconds, Len’s body language began to transform in front of our very eyes. His erect, formal stature was replaced with a more relaxed posture. As he began to share his stories with the group, he moved to the edge of a table to sit down. Here is a recapitulation of his stories as I remember them:
I’ve always been a fairly private person so joining groups was never high on my list of things to do. About seven years ago I decided to get more involved with my local Catholic church group. I was surprised at how quickly I began forming a core group of friends who became a central part of my life.Weekends were filled with fishing trips, barbecues with our wives and families, and general fraternizing with my new cohorts. It had been a long time since I had experienced this kind of camaraderie and I was relishing every minute of it. As a group,we kept growing closer and closer. Even my family was caught off guard by the quality and depth of relationships I developed with a bunch of total strangers.This continued for several years.
After a horrible car accident, I found myself in the hospital recovering from a life-threatening back surgery and long days of excruciating pain blunted by the constant dripping of numbing morphine. Everything was a haze. I was in a complete fog of pain, depression, and despair. During these horrific weeks, there were two pins of light that got me through these dark times,my family and my friends. Family you kind of expect to be there for you, but I was amazed at the dedication and energy my friends gave to me when I needed them the most.To this day I believe my friends were a special gift granted to me to ensure I pulled through a very trying experience.
A couple of years later my buddies wanted to go on a weekend retreat with the church. I resisted, but after a lot of cajoling I agreed to go.We had a fantastic time, and the retreat was filled with lots of soulful opportunities to recharge our batteries and put the challenges of life into perspective. My friends made the retreat a special experience and I returned home with fresh vigor and zest. A day after my return,my father died unexpectedly. I believe my friends and the retreat were granted to me as a form of preparation for my father’s death. I was able to be a source of comfort and strength for my family. I had more emotional energy to give to them.To this day, I am eternally grateful for friendship and all of the richness it has given me in life.
Unfortunately, my retelling is pale in comparison to Len’s original account. It’s missing all of the other subtle forms of communication that accompanied it, such as body language, eye contact, and tone of voice. When Len finished, there was silence in the room. People needed a moment to exit their imaginations and reenter the workshop’s frame of reference. Ken confessed he had never told these stories to anyone else before; and prior to the workshop he never would have dreamed of sharing them in a work environment. He reflected on the powerful connection of friendship he discovered in the three stories. Then Ken made an amazing leap of insight. He concluded that he needed to be selectively more vulnerable with people at work in order to improve his personal effectiveness. Ken committed to spending more time cultivating relationships in his organization. Stories, he discovered,are one of the best tools for building effective, meaningful relationships.
I'd love to hear from folks. If you are thinking about how these skills and principles relate to your organization and people's performance call me (415-948-8087) - let's roll up our sleeves together to understand the dynamics in play and how to transform the "natural power of story" (that's a wonderful expression used by my friends Shawn Callahaun and Mark Shenk at Anecdote to describe their strategic narrative work).
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?
