My three powerful principles of storytelling

Storytelling in organisational life has sometimes been maligned. I believe that's because it's misunderstood. Storytelling isn’t after all about falsifying information or making things up. When done well, storytelling cuts to the heart of the matter and makes ideas stick. It’s a powerful way to connect - honestly and emotionally - with others.

Here are three powerful principles to create a strong story:

One: lift the lid

One of my favourite storytelling feeds is Humans of New York on Instagram. Brandon Stanton’s famous project began as an idea to create a photographic census of the city. He does that by approaching strangers in the street, taking their photo and asking their story. Brandon is lifting the lid on his city, uncovering the beating heart of the streets he loves.

Whether outside documenting the lifeblood of a city, or in an organisation - lifting a lid reveals so much. Delving into our teams, departments and organisations gives us an opportunity to shine a light on those untold stories, and discover the people who make the cogs turn.

During an episode for my 2020 Meet The Storyteller series, Microsoft’s Steve Clayton told me that when he was in the UK he used to get the train past Microsoft’s Thames Valley Park site. The campus consists of five, large grey buildings. Steve - who was Chief Storyteller at the time -  felt strongly he wanted to showcase what lay behind the walls, what amazing things people were doing inside those five grey boxes. It was important for him to unearth the activities, passions and projects that everyone was involved in.

Companies are like boxes - whether we’re working literally inside an office, or figuratively within the structure of the organisation.  Every organisation can lift a lid on what its most important asset, its people, do there. 

Two: tell a personal story 

Whilst the pandemic sent us away from our usual office spaces and into our homes, at least one good thing has come out of that - how many more of us feel able to bring our real selves to work. As we’ve sat on Teams meetings and Zoom calls, our colleagues and customers have seen the inside of our apartments. They’ve watched our pets saunter by, or our kids pop up on screen. For many, this peek inside our private lives has meant we can be more ourselves, we can let others in and hopefully that means we are more comfortable being open and vulnerable. 

When we bring our own life experiences into the workplace, and are open and honest with the stories of our experiences, it always creates strong emotional engagement with our colleagues. I’ve seen it in action many times. It’s something I always advise leaders to do.

Research from Lauren C. Howe, Jochen I. Menges and John Monks published in Harvard Business Review last year supports this. They found that when leaders are open about their own fears, stresses and other negative emotions, their teams feel more comfortable doing the same. The researchers suggest that such sharers might make better leaders.

Three: zoom in tight

TV dramas, movies and documentaries don't have casts of hundreds. Instead the stories focus usually on a handful of protagonists. The individual represents the many; they’re a distillation of our hopes and fears, our anguish and joy. And a story about one or two holds our interest, whereas when the story flits between too many people, it’s often hard to keep up, or to remain engaged in the same way. 

In the early days of the Ukraine war, Channel 4 News’ Paraic O’Brien reported from the country’s border with Poland, where thousands of Ukranians were waiting in line. Paraic told viewers that Europe’s last refugee crisis, in 2014, was so huge it felt monolithic. It was one big crisis, where individuals were subsumed into the whole. Every refugee was anonymous. “So in the first few days of this one (the crisis), individual introductions matter,” Paraic said to camera. And the viewers watched as he went down the line, asking people their names. By simply asking their names, it humanised the crisis at a most fundamental level. Those of us watching at home connected with those mothers fleeing with their children. We could see, feel their situation and understand, they’re no different to us.

It was a beautiful piece of storytelling. So how does this apply to a 100- or 100,000-person organisation? Zoom in tight on a small number of characters, and tell the macro through the micro. The stories of a few represent the many, where your culture, values and motivation can be communicated via a few key voices.

And knitting each of these points together are the golden threads of empathy and emotion, that enable us to understand and connect with one another. 

Storytelling, far from being flaky, can speak to each of us at our deepest levels.