We start our lives being driven by stories, telling them, having them read to us, before reading them ourselves. I am interested to when we as adults lose this passion, as I have been listening to wonderful podcast called Cautionary Tales, by Tim Harford over the past few weeks.
I want you to think about the most influential figures in your world – are they in your team, your business, your family? It’s likely that one of the qualities they have in common is that they are exceptional storytellers.
We are inherently story telling creatures.
Everyone tells stories—that’s how we build community and share ideas.
However, we don’t always tell our story as effectively as we intend to.
Stories, or narratives, in the workplace may take the form of email communications, proposals, briefs, project or product kickoffs, and presentations.
At Blue Mercury, we work on not only having the confidence to tell your own stories, we create opportunities to help the people around us feel heard. Helping others tell their stories, will produce a cultural environment of sharing, collaboration and openness.
To create a space where story telling is part of the cultural make-up we must:
Make time
Show our vulnerability
Pay attention
These three things, will help others strengthen their stories. Once you have harnessed this, the next step to engage is to ask questions, to develop, foster and nurture that narrative.
Here are some questions to get you started:
How did that make you feel?
What does it mean to you?
What surprised you about the situation?
Leaders must help others feel heard, each person will have a unique and authentic way to do this. Like working out your muscles in the gym, you need to train, be patient and consistent with your approach.
Which one is going to be your first muscle to train?
At Blue Mercury Leadership, we are both CliftonStrengths and ECD accredited practitioners - using these two tools together creates an environment of story telling.
If this is something that you or your team would like to understand more, please get in touch at our website www.bluemercury.co.nz we would love to help.