Storytelling, this ability to tell stories, has been with us since the dawn of time. The chicken or the egg question, but our brain is now “story-wired”, to use the words of Oana Juncu with whom I held a workshop on the subject in 2013. Storytelling is also for me those wild dungeons & dragons sessions during my teenage years, and I share with David from benext, the idea that having played these games and having been the game master is a significant element in our personal development with regard to organizations.
What will storytelling be useful for? To transmit and to help memorize. It is said (you know the stats…) that we retain a story 22 times better than a text. Telling stories is also about creating or transmitting or transforming a culture.
As its name suggests, storytelling is told rather than read. But let’s try. The simplest approach for me is to describe the commentary and support provided a few times to benext’s sales engineers. But naturally this example is just a vehicle and the principles raised here are applicable in multiple situations.
The meetup
Becoming aware of the tone of your voice, your silences, your posture, etc.
Naturally, beyond words, posture, intonation, rhythm, etc. play an important role. A first step would be to make people conscious of this. For this I take a sentence that’s not too marked positive or negative like “Well now we tell ourselves that we’re going to try to do it”. And I ask a person to say it with a very specific intonation that they write down on a sheet (for example: anger, anxiety, fear, hesitation, affirmation, being decided, etc.). I ask the others to note what intonation they felt and why. Sometimes the gap is such that it triggers a moment of realization, an aha moment, in the person who becomes aware that what they wish to convey is not at all what they are actually conveying, and that’s the moment to talk about tone, silences, rhythm, posture, etc.
The absence of a camera is a posture in videoconferencing for example. All of this continues to matter in remote work.
Taking an example as a starting point
Then we can ask people to tell how they present BENEXT.
I exaggerate the point and summarize what I might hear from our sales or HR engineers (these are excerpts):
BENEXT is an innovative company bringing together a community of specialists and talents passionate about innovation, technologies and new practices. We support our clients both in their search for innovation and in the implementation of more agile practices.
or also
BENEXT was created, in 2014, by agilists. And we are approximately XXX benexters, with a goal, a common objective => Be Your Potential.
And Be Your Potential, means making the beNexters and our clients better. That is, making them aware of their potential.
For this, our communities of practice have a role to play.
If I'm talking to you about community, it's because we were inspired by organizational modes in Holacracy.
That is to say that there is no management, no B.U. director at BENEXT. The communities meet once a month to make decisions and exchange. And to bring these communities even more to life, a certain number of rituals have been put in place.
First ingredient: the main stages of storytelling
Here are the basic components of a good story:
State the heart of the subject
In a succinct and clear way (“what you cannot explain to an 8-year-old child, you don’t understand” – Einstein, “what is clearly conceived is easily expressed” – popular adage) introduce the heart of the subject.
Describe the protagonists
Who are the actors of the story. (or the setting first).
Set the scene
Describe the context, places and/or era, and/or etc. (in the desired order protagonists and setting)
Explain what the problem is, the impediment
The story goes from point A to point B. It’s a narrative, a journey. Why did we want to leave point A? What problem is thus revealed? As in the hero’s journey (this criticized structure, but which, for example, served Star Wars) that a critic summarizes thus: “the hero has problems, the hero solves his problems”. You can refer to Monomythe or in English (more exhaustive) Hero’s journey.
Reveal the trigger of the story
The story is triggered by something either that has become intolerable, no longer bearable, or that has simply changed the situation.
Walk through the path to resolution
Describe the stages of the journey in a concrete way, we’ll come back to this.
Describe the denouement, the new situation
At the end of these stages, point B is revealed, what is it?
If I try with the BENEXT presentation mentioned above:
I wanted to talk to you about benext and why we are proud to participate in this adventure (heart of the subject). BENEXT was born in the head of David its founder (protagonist). David was running a fairly classic company of the kind we call ESN, or SSII, (set the scene) and where often greed is disparaged versus humanism (problem). For David it had become unbearable (trigger). He had to find meaning again in what he was undertaking (trigger). And so he left everything to create benext (short description of stages). Whose primary meaning is to make humans better, our benexters, our clients primarily. Today it's this structure, to which I belong with happiness, that I want to talk to you about (denouement, new situation).
Let’s make a detour via fables or by Shrek and Pixar. Emmy Coats had published a very interesting article on stories at Pixar that I had translated and commented on. Observe point 4 (but many are interesting even if outside our scope):
Once upon a time there was …. Every day, ….. One day ….. Because of that, ….. Because of that, ….. Until finally …
A setting, protagonists, a trigger, stages, a denouement.
Now we need to delve into the stages
The stages are the journey. If I take up the formula “once upon a time” I add “and” “and” “and” “and” “until”… All these “and"s begin and end. The stages are standardized. They begin and end, a duration, a status at the start and at the end. In a word they are “smart”, English acronym for specific (it’s not a sprawling novel like war and peace, an encyclopedia or a tome, there is a focus), measurable (we know if it worked or not, or where it stands), realistic (it’s possible even in the context of the tale), and temporally limited (we don’t launch into something endless, it’s close to specific). Your stages are concrete. Let’s try.
I wanted to talk to you about benext and why we are proud to participate in this adventure (heart of the subject). BENEXT was born in the head of David its founder (protagonist). David was running a fairly classic company of the kind we call ESN, or SSII, (set the scene) and where often greed is disparaged versus humanism (problem). For David it had become unbearable (trigger). He had to find meaning again in what he was undertaking (trigger). And so he left everything to create benext (short description of stages). He defined its values. He quickly surrounded himself with a small group of people serving as guardrails. Together they based the functioning around a very participative model. We found increasingly pleasant premises. They put in place a strong framework on support and learning (stages) because the primary meaning of BENEXT is to make humans better, our benexters, our clients primarily. Today it's this structure, to which I belong with happiness, that I want to talk to you about (denouement, new situation).
Being authentic: if you give, you will receive (karmic communication)
The Johari window is a model for reading communication between two people, or two groups, or two … It represents four zones.
- What both entities know (the public zone).
- What you know, but the other doesn’t know (hidden zone), for example, that you love BBQs, the other doesn’t know it.
- What the other knows but you don’t know (blind zone), for example, that they love model making.
- What no one knows or imagines (the unknown zone). For example you are both Led Zeppelin fans and you were both at the Jimmy Page & Robert Plant concert in 1998.
If you want to discover the unknown zone which contains many treasures and connections, you must reveal from your hidden zone. If you reveal things about yourself, and moreover if you highlight certain vulnerabilities, you help your interlocutor to put themselves in a position to also reveal to you the blind zone, and thus to have even more chance together of discovering this unknown zone.
Let’s try
I wanted to talk to you about benext and why we are proud to participate in this adventure (heart of the subject). BENEXT was born in the head of David its founder (protagonist). David was running a fairly classic company of the kind we call ESN, or SSII, (set the scene) and where often greed is disparaged versus humanism (problem). For David it had become unbearable (trigger). He had to find meaning again in what he was undertaking (trigger) and pleasure, beneath his *businessman* air he remains an epicurean dreamer (hidden zone). And so he left everything to create benext (short description of stages). He defined its values. He quickly surrounded himself with a small group of people serving as guardrails. These coaches bring chaos! It stirs things up, but it brings many things even if it's not easy every day (hidden zone). Together they based the functioning around a very participative model. We found increasingly pleasant premises. They put in place a strong framework on support and learning (stages) because the primary meaning of BENEXT is to make humans better, our benexters, our clients primarily. Today it's this structure, to which I belong with happiness, that I want to talk to you about (denouement, new situation).
Facilitating appropriation with symbols, metaphors.
In “Metaphors in Mind” by Lawley and Tompkins it is said that situations can be described in three ways: sensory, conceptual, or symbolic. Symbols (or metaphors) allow becoming concrete. Conceptual language is by definition conceptual. Metaphors speak to everyone, and they allow making tangible things that are very subtle and difficult to express otherwise. Everyone understands them. To use your metaphors well remember this acronym: VAKOG (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic – touch –, Olfactory, Gustatory), try to be sure that your metaphors highlight one of these senses.
For example:
Sensory, “warms my heart and gives me a smile”.
- Today it’s this structure, to which I belong and which warms my heart and gives me a smile, that I want to talk to you about.
Conceptual, “happiness”.
- Today it’s this structure, to which I belong with happiness, that I want to talk to you about.
Symbolic, “a large fur coat that warms me and whose every pocket holds surprises”.
- Today it’s this structure, which is like a large fur coat that warms me and whose every pocket holds surprises, it’s this structure that I want to talk to you about.
To finish therefore:
I wanted to talk to you about benext and why we are proud to participate in this adventure (heart of the subject). BENEXT was born in the head of David its founder (protagonist). David was running a fairly classic company of the kind we call ESN, or SSII, (set the scene) and where often greed is disparaged versus humanism (problem). For David it had become unbearable (trigger). He had to find meaning again in what he was undertaking (trigger) and pleasure, beneath his *businessman* air he remains an epicurean dreamer (hidden zone). And so he left everything to create benext (short description of stages). He defined its values. He quickly surrounded himself with a small group of people serving as guardrails. These coaches bring chaos! It stirs things up, but it brings many things even if it's not easy every day (hidden zone). Together they based the functioning around a very participative model. We found increasingly pleasant premises. They put in place a strong framework on support and learning (stages) because the primary meaning of BENEXT is to make humans better, our benexters, our clients primarily. Today it's this structure, which is like a large fur coat that warms me and whose every pocket holds surprises, it's this structure that I want to talk to you about.
Additional elements
During the meetup two additions were added.
- If you have a villain, make sure he is very good at his villainy, it highlights your obstinacy (and that’s what we love in a story hero) to overcome him. If the villain is good the story is good.
- Don’t hesitate to film your training sessions.