“A group of Bushmen once led some anthropologists to see some rock paintings. When they arrived, the anthropologists could see nothing. The Bushmen laughed; throwing some water onto the rock, the images burst into life.”
Our work as storytellers and consultants involves the most ancient form of communication and paradoxically, the most modern. In 1997 Howard Gardner in “Leading Minds” put it like this; “All leadership takes places through the communication of ideas to the minds of others. All successful leaders, political, military, religious, academic or industrial, are successful to the extent that they tell and embody persuasive stories about where the institutions they lead should be going and how they will get there.” A leader is a visionary and every leaders struggle is how to sell their vision, how to encourage others to build on it with pictures of their own. Nothing does this better than story.
Stories speak directly to the imagination so that we can create our own pictures in our own minds eye: personal images that arise out of our deepest memories and longings. Images that are far more intimately connected to us than any rousing presentation or launch could hope to be. Take the Bushmen story. Here it is the experts who fail to find what they are looking for. It takes the ancient people of the bush, a people who have survived by modern standards on practically nothing, with their perspective, their laughter and their water, to bring the images to life. Stories are like water. They allow us to reflect, to playfully imagine, to become mobile in our thinking. They bring things back to life. They also demand they we engage our powers of listening to their fullest extent. This level of alertness means not just paying attention but deeply engaging at all levels. Of course, the importance of listening in leadership, for example, is well recognised, particularly for understanding and motivating colleagues and employees. But we often work in a culture where leading can seem to mean prevailing, dominating, talking more than listening. The quality of listening good storytelling engenders is desperately needed in every sphere of industry today – listening to resolve conflict, listening to provide exceptional service, listening to make good sales, listening to understand employees potential and how to release it.
But, you might say, who has time to really listen with this depth when the business world is changing so rapidly all around us? We grapple with complex issues: squeezed margins, staff turnover, increased competition, business ethics, investment planning, IT strategy, marketing, all in a rapidly changing environment. Precisely. And in this constantly changing environment, it’s just not enough to have experience, qualifications and dedication. Organisations today need constant creativity, refined communication skills, ingenuity, imagination, intuition. In Australia the outback, dry, dusty and lifeless, stretches on for miles, but if you are there when the rain falls, the whole landscape starts to bloom before your very eyes. It’s the Bushman principle again. There are people around us who bring this kind of moisture, who open up new vistas, who transform the drudgery of a day to day desert into a colourful workplace. They appear to be drawing their energy from a different source. Where do they find their inspiration? If there is a source, can we tap into it?
Clearly we can’t manufacture creativity, but we can create the environment that encourages its development. Stories that have survived the span of time embody the actions of unusual people who broke the expected codes of behaviour, who exemplify creative thinking, stories such as this one from Japan about ….. well, let’s see:
“An elderly storyteller arrived in a village hungry and tired. He went to the local samurai training school where it was the custom that if anyone challenged a student to a duel and won, he would be provided with a meal and a place to sleep.
The storyteller told the students, “I wish to have a duel with your master.” The students laughed, looking at the tired old man but when the master at last heard, he agreed to the duel.
The students watched as the storyteller and the master took up their opening positions. Then the storyteller spoke:
“Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was an old man living in a hut in the forest .”
The master threw down his sword and cried, “You have won.”
Turning to his students, he said, “I have stressed to you the importance of being in the moment. I stopped to listen to this man’s words and I was carried away. He could have killed me there and then. Prepare a feast and a warm bed for him.”
With this deeper listening, look at this story in terms of a business environment. Could it have something to say about competition and winning? Could it be that some small, underestimated product modification or development has the power to challenge the brand leader? Or could it be about the power of words? Perhaps a new message about your organisation could capture attention as easily as the storyteller captured the master? Perhaps your company might be in the position of having to learn an unpleasant lesson quickly in order to advance further? Is your organisation a master that listens to everyone, no matter how insignificant? A lot of questions from a small story. And all ways of addressing some of the business problems mentioned in a way that speaks to the imagination as well as the intellect.
A story then is an excellent catalyst for change. Put it to work and it becomes a focal point for discussion, a safe way to explore uncomfortable issues, but most essentially it fosters listening and engages the listener in a meaningful way. We are all hungry for this. How many endless meetings have we all sat through where the subject and the speaker do nothing to engage our interest, but observe any speaker drop a story or anecdote into their presentation and the ears open, the heads lift, the eyes engage. It is storytelling that consistently introduces what is human.
Business is about achievement and we give great value to the reason and intellect that appear to be the pillars on which it is built. But all too often the quality of human relationships is given the backseat, and fantasy and intuition neglected. Undervaluing these things takes the heart out of any endeavour. Story in its essence redresses the balance. Without it “we are speeding up our lives and working harder in a futile attempt to buy time to slow down and enjoy it.”
Business is about bottom lines. But what really is the bottom line other than our need to understand the whole story. To be part of an organisation, to feel – even unconsciously – how we fit into a larger whole and what this changing world means to us as individuals. Succinctly put: Who are we? Where are we going and why? There are age old existential questions, but they have become a matter of survival for business today, not merely in the formation of mission statements, company logos and the like, but as a mark of integrity.
This integrity involves attending to peoples’ deepest concerns and potential. For generations there has been a schism between the passion of peoples’ private lives and the persona they assume in the workplace. Bridging this gap, allowing peoples’ juice and creativity into the workplace is the only way businesses are going to survive. This means creating new forms for individual initiatives, it calls for a revolution in language and relationships but first and foremost it means taking the inner world of fellow employees seriously. Managers and leaders who are alert to their own ideas and the ideas and feelings of others, who understand what is needed to help people relate better, will reciprocally boost their business.
Richard McKnight in his book “Transforming Work” expresses it like this: “The business organisation which is able to tap into its employees spiritual centres to give them something to rejoice about, is the company which is most fit for human habitation and, other things being equal, the most profitable as well”. Author and businessman Jack Hawley sounds the same bugle: “The key questions for today’s managers and leaders are no longer questions of task and structure but are questions of spirit.” But how do we understand “spirit”? Are we just talking about the creation of a spirited company culture? Or are we addressing the question of acknowledging and touching the spirit in each individual?
At this time, like no other, it is surely the latter. Attend to the hidden potential of your colleagues and you will generate a unique company culture with limitless possibilities. This is easy to say, difficult to realise. Spirit, ideas, emotions, they are intangible things. We can’t pin them down but like it or not they are the invisible forces that fuel our existence, the source of our happiness or unhappiness, the centre of our creativity. This is the cutting edge for which the business world has currently very little vocabulary, but reach for a story and the language you’re looking for is there.
Authors: Kelly, Hollingsworth and Ramsden