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Thanks for connecting!
At their core, stories are about connection. Let’s connect you to your story, and then connect your stories with your goals.
Connect to your Story
Below are some high level steps you can take with your story prompts to begin ideating and then refining one of your personal narratives.
Write down or voice record whatever details you have about your story and why it matters to you. For example, regarding the question about “overcoming obstacles”, what was at stake for you and your team? What was the extraordinary effort or strategy you used to overcome the obstacle, and how did victory make you feel? Did you change? Here, your primary goal is to begin to articulate your story arc, the stakes, and your conclusion/story goals. As a subgoal, start thinking about what you would like your audience to take away from the story.
Think about some details, as well as your mindset. What would have happened if the obstacle hadn’t been overcome, for example? Or, for the question about your secret strengths, what would it mean to you to have those strengths recognized? Here, your primary goal is add some emotional depth to your story and heighten the stakes of the story.
Take some more time—maybe a few minutes or even a few days, and think about more details that matter to you that will help to elevate and illustrate your story. Was there an interesting or pivotal conversation that took place at a climactic point in the story? Was there a surprising advocate who helped in a clinch? Were you able to win hearts and minds with a novel approach? Anything that helps to anchor you to moments or scenes in your story will add great texture for your audience, as well as a greater ability to empathize. Here, your primary goal is to start creating “stepping stones” of scenes that will create an interesting path for your audience. You can also start thinking about these details as “levers” you can pull to accomplish different goals with your audience. Emphasize more details about your strengths to evoke leadership or call out more details about your teammates to emphasize collaboration (for broad examples).
As you connect with your story, you can also think about how stories can connect you to your team, your clients, and your KPIs. See below for some examples.
Storytelling has the ability to transcend many of the problems businesses face today. Storytelling events, lightning talks, and similar efforts help to reduce attrition by increasing employing engagement, improving empathy, creating knowledge transfer conduits, and supporting employee sense of belonging/DEI initiatives. These events can also support growth in executive presence and leadership development in a welcoming environment that primes them for success. Collaborative storytelling efforts can help teams create or maintain a competitive advantage in front of clients and investors that isn’t always evident through quantitative data alone. It can also help teams find “wins” they may not have discovered without the discovery process that storytelling enables.
We would be more than delighted to speak to you about how storytelling can support your organizational needs and we are always open to ideas for collaboration. Thanks again for connecting with us, and please stay in touch.