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Telling
Tales Well Is An Able Way To Lead
Illustrating
A Point With A Story Works To Your Advantage
By
Gary M. Stern, Investor's Business Daily
The
chief executive showed his executive team how to take their services firm
global by telling them a story.
From the head of
the conference table, the CEO recounted how he learned to swim. When he
was young he'd been afraid of the water, but one day he and others were
brought to the YMCA pool.
He froze, but his
fearless best friend plunged right in. Then in went the others, and he
finally overcame his ear and dove in too. The story demonstrated that
he knew change provoked fear, and understood his team's concerns. But
they would have to plunge in to keep pace in a globalizing world.
"The
story showed the leader's vulnerability," said Kathy Lubar, co-founder
of Ariel Group, a Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm. The CEO's story created
a vivid picture. It helped connect the leader on an emotional level with
the audience, Lubar said.
Companies now use
storytelling as a creative outlet to tap breakthrough ideas, create new
products and devise original solutions. "The mind works in a nonlinear
fashion when it's trying to do exploration," explains Marian Thier, president
of Expanding Thought, a Boulder, Colo., consulting company.
Storytelling enables
people to discover ideas they wouldn't have discovered on their own. Here
are some tips from the experts to add storytelling to your workplace arsenal:
Have each person
help create the story. When one speaker finishes, the next speaker
adds to the previous participant's thought. The original story provides
the anchor, and each succeeding speaker builds on top of it. "Storytelling
allows for the imagination," says Annette Simmons, author of "A Safe Place
for Dangerous Truths" (Amacom, 2000), which includes a chapter on storytelling.
Tell it from
a different point of view. When an oil company reached an impasse
on looking for new ways to drill, each member of the team told his story
in chronological order of what had worked and what had not worked.
The group identified
three problem areas. Try thinking like an insect drilling into the ground,
suggested the consultant. Through stories, the group unearthed a solution
that led to an unusual but effective drilling technique. "Storytelling
as a group expanded each person's thinking," Thier concluded.
Pictures say
a thousand words. The technique of pulling in all of your senses is
a must. Think color, shape and action. Avoid abstractions. Several years
ago, a major food company's research and development team was looking
to develop new products aimed at the teen market. Thier suggested that
each member take snapshots of teenagers and then tell a story about the
snapshot. The result was a series of photographs of very active teenagers.
The ending might
surprise you. "Who is your customer?" Seeing the photographs of teens
and telling the pictures' stories enabled the team to develop a hit nutritional
bar for teens. "The team was flabbergasted. They had no idea where the
story would take them," Thier said.
Short is better than long. "To be effective, stories need to be
concise. We train people to use short sentences, create images and use
sensory words," Lubar said. A story that drags on without a unifying point
loses effectiveness.
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