Better than chocolate: Storytelling for stakeholders

Back in the olden days when civilisation was just being born, people would leave their dough in big pots and leave them out in the sun to rise so they could make bread. But one day, they got really lazy and left one of the pots of dough out too long. It rained and they forgot about it! And so the pot filled with water, and the water and the flour was all mixed. But the rain didn't last very long. And then the sun came out but by then they'd completely forgotten about the pot. They came back a couple of days later and they were like, “Oh, there's this weird brown bubbly liquid in this pot, gross. What is that?” And they went to throw it out and start their bread again. But then one woman was so curious. She asked, “What does this bubbly brown liquid taste like? It smells pretty good… so I wonder how it tastes?” And so… she bravely tasted it. Just a little taste at first, and then more. Because she discovered that it was DELICIOUS. And that, my friends, is how beer was invented.

Using stories is something I always recommend to my Leading Successful Change students. You can use them to open a briefing, a training, a capability build or a workshop. Stories are such a powerful tool when leading change because they work directly with the unconscious mind to open up people’s psychology to new possibilities, ideas, and potential (and this is the next-level Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Coaching tools I’ve built into the course).

Learning to drive

I’ll often use the story of learning to drive. It's a really good one that most people can relate to. When you're first learning to drive, you think you're never going to get it. You are struggling to check the rear view mirror and keep the steering wheel straight and turn on your indicator and look over your shoulder to your blind spot. And I first learned how to drive on a manual car so I had to try and figure out how to work with the clutch. Finally, I went to an automatic car and that was so much easier because all I had to learn was all of the other stuff and the car itself, not the pedals. So I finally got my driver's license. And within a few months of having a driver's license, driving was such a second nature to me. Today, it's just such body knowledge now to me that I can be sipping on my coffee and listening to a podcast or talking on the speaker phone while I’m driving. I don't have to stop and think about everything that I have to do.

That is a really good story to tell. Because everybody's done that. It's very relevant to everybody's experience. Most people, 95-99% of people know how to drive. And so they've all gone through that learning struggle of learning how to drive, which is exactly the discomfort and struggle most people experience when they’re going through a process or technology or ways of working change. Learning to drive is a baseline story that applies broadly. And, that's why fairytales resonate so much with people because they are higher-level morality stories. The message is a very common message. And it's the same with the story of learning how to drive. It's a very well known, relevant, easy-to-understand message. So thinking about some of those key moments when you had change in your life and think about what would be useful. 

Construct based on the outcome

When using stories, I always think first about: what’s the outcome I want to achieve? Then I use that to construct my story. Sometimes it could be stories of things that you've actually experienced. Sometimes it could be made up stories. It honestly doesn't matter if a story's made up or real. I would always just say: what is the outcome that you are trying to achieve? That's how you make the story relevant.

I was doing an Agile capability uplift for this client and I didn't actually open with a traditional story. I just opened with, “Here are some experiences that I’ve had working Agile.” I told them about one organisation that I worked with and how they worked Agile. And then I talked about a different project that I worked on and how they went Agile and what they did instead. It wasn't necessarily a story, it was just sharing my experiences. You do have to be careful sometimes with that, with a new project, a new client, a new company, a new employer or a new thing. Because people can get sick of hearing, “Oh, well at my last company I did this, and at my last company we did this, and this was so much better than the way you're doing it.” Sometimes you don't necessarily want to lead with that when you're meeting new stakeholders, but you could always share stories or examples of what you've done in the past when you've already built some of those relationships.  For me, the outcome or core message that I wanted to achieve as part of this capability uplift was that I wanted to showcase that how you do Agile ways of working can be very flexible and fluid. Why did I tell two stories of two different workplaces and projects that have worked Agile? To show that they didn't match. They worked completely differently. The garden path that I was leading this team down was that we are going to be working Agile, but we are going to pick and choose what we want to do and how we do it. I knew exactly what outcome I wanted, and I used that to construct my story based on real experiences.

Make sure it’s relevant

When using experience stories, you might want to make sure it’s relevant to your stakeholder audience. For example, I’ll often share the story of how my partner Josh had a liver transplant. Not many people are going to have had that experience before. But when I tell that story, I don't talk necessarily about the transplant. I talk about the caring, and how moving to independent consulting allowed me to be there for Josh and for hospital visits and trips to Emergency and ICU, and still earn a full income because I worked with my clients and students flexibly and on my terms. A lot of women have had experience with caring responsibilities, even if they haven't had a partner who's had a transplant. It might be caring for kids, it might be caring for a partner, it might be caring for parents. Most women by the ages that me and my community are probably have had an experience where they've had to care for somebody. But if I was talking to a younger group of women, say 20-year-olds, they might not resonate so I might not use the caring story and pick something more relevant.

Borrow from movies, books and fairytales

You can absolutely use stories from movies. You can use stories from books. You might be like, “Oh, one of my favourite movies is… etc.” Say you want to explain one of the challenges that you might experience going through the change. And then you might be like, “Oh, it's like Terminator, where, x, y, z.” and it’s a well-known film that people would know. Even if it's something that people don't know, you can tell the story.

Trigger the state you want them to feel

A really nice way of leading into a story is, “Oh, it reminds me of a story that my mum told me.” Or “It reminds me of a story that my grandma used to tell my mother who told me.” Because all that is layers upon layers from a Neuro-Linguistic Programming perspective. Do you remember that movie Inception? Dream within a dream within a dream? That's what you're doing when you're going, “Oh, it reminds me of a story that my grandmother told me that her grandmother told her.” It just lulls people. And it can be a completely made up story, but sometimes it's just the way that you tell it, it just calms people's defenses and their critical, rational, logical mind. Sometimes it's just the way that you open the story. It's the funniest thing in the world. It's so effective. Stories are so effective. Even when they're made up. People will be on the edge of their seat. They're more willing to listen to that than listen to you actually talking about what the change is! It is ingrained in us to get engrossed in stories. It really doesn't matter what the story is. What matters is that the story matches the emotional state you want to create or it matches the outcome or the message that you want. 

For example, maybe at the start of a briefing for your change, you might tell a story about somebody who was really curious. So, you're talking about somebody who's curious and because our psychology automatically puts us into the shoes of the main character of the story, talking about somebody being curious makes everybody in the room curious. And then you can tell them about your change. You are triggering the state within them that you want them to feel. In fact, I did it at the start of this blog post. I don't even know if that's how beer was invented, but at some point somebody had to mix those ingredients together, leave it to brew, and ended up with beer! Stories like this, where mistakes lead to successes and people are curious and bravely try something new are amazing when leading change because people expect everything to be perfect and get all the information upfront and need to try things to discover they’re fantastic!

Lata xx

P.S. I’ll be sharing more about advanced tools to set your change up for success with your consulting clients and projects in my free Change Advisor Bootcamp coming up in late May. In the meantime, here’s 3 ways I can help:

1. Grab my free Creative Launch Ideas Guide with 53 ways to bring your Transformation and Change to life: click here to download
2. Check out my free 6 Ways to Instantly Build Trust video to connect with stakeholders and build relationships rapidly: click here to watch
3. Join my Leading Successful Change program in time for our next monthly coaching call tomorrow Wednesday 7 May: click here to join