The Play is the Thing

I've been reading a series of short stories to my children that I remember my dad reading to me when I was young. I have vivid images in my mind of the characters and scenes from these stories, and I hope my kids have similar memories. The kids love for me to read to them at bed-time, even though I don't get to as often as I would like. The stories that we share create a bond between us that will remain for years to come.

As much as we love stories in our childhood, I think they are no less meaningful for us as adults. Whether we're catching a movie with friends, keeping up with the latest episode of a favorite TV show, or reading a book by the fireplace, we are captivated by stories.

What is remarkable to me is how quickly we tend to lose our ability to tell stories when we move into the workplace. Certainly, some people are natural story tellers, and they are able to effectively employ stories to persuade their audience, make the sale, or motivate their staff. However, I think we have countless lost opportunities every day where a story could be the difference maker.

What really drove this home for me today was a presentation I was giving where one key story appeared to sway some of the skeptics in the audience. I was challenged on a main point to consider the possibility of an extreme negative example. I could have discounted the likelihood of such a possibility, or I could have dismissed the negative example as irrelevant; instead, I was able to share the story of an individual that had faced a very similar situation, yet was able to apply his strengths in such a way that he is now at this top of his profession. It was the story that made all the difference.

Remember the scene in Hamlet when he decides to use a play put on by a traveling group of actors to test the guilty conscience of the new king? I think the same concept holds true for us in the workforce. We can work to drive home the importance of performance metrics, or continually highlight the need for quality systems, audits, and error checking, and we might have some success. Or, we could simply tell the stories of the customers that benefit from our improved performance, or the stories of the customers whose plans were ruined by a product that failed at a critical time. Such stories could do more to motivate people than all spreadsheets and charts we could trow at them.

Still, it's so easy to forget the things that can make us the most successful. The next time I find myself buried in spreadsheets and procedures, project plans and reports, I need to remind myself to take a step back and find the storyline underneath it all, to make it real, to make it human - to tell a story.

Light it up...

Rob