Author: Chris Spencer

A new chapter

Posted on by Chris Spencer

After 20 years pioneering the power of storytelling to activate people, accelerate change and unlock extraordinary performance, we are delighted to be embarking on an exciting new chapter, announcing today that we are now part of Accenture, the leading global talent and innovation-led professional services company.

People are demanding more human connection and authenticity from leaders as they tackle today’s pertinent issues – including the rise of AI and sustainability. Leaders need a fresh way to motivate people to take action, bridging the gap between strategy and execution which is where many transformations can fail. With Accenture’s expertise and highly respected transformational change capabilities, we believe now is the time to take our business to the next level and join forces to deepen our impact with clients.

We have identified huge synergy between us, with a mutual focus on human potential to create transformation. In Accenture’s press release Tim Good, Accenture’s Talent & Organisation / Human Potential lead, EMEA said: “In 20 years, The Storytellers have built a formidable reputation for helping business leaders accelerate their transformation strategies to thrive in a world of fast-paced change. A compelling vision and narrative are now fundamental for driving change, and they bring deep understanding of the transformative power of a story and its role in energising people around a shared ambition. Together, with Accenture’s breadth of consulting and technology services, we will bring an innovative team to C-Suite clients to help them reinvent their business and build resilience for the future.”

At our heart we are storytellers, and will continue to focus on helping organisations around the world to harness the emotional connection, inspiration, motivation, behaviour change, empowerment and recognition storytelling creates for their people. Our team of experts in creativity, storytelling and transformation are excited about our next chapter and how we can make even more powerful magic happen for clients, their employees, customers and wider stakeholders.  We thank each and every one of them, and our associate network, for helping to develop our craft and being on the journey with us to this amazing moment in our own history. We also partnered with Trachet who enabled us to reach this great result by helping articulate The Storytellers’ unique value and positioning as well as the thrilling potential of becoming part of Accenture.

If you’d like to explore how our extended capabilities can now support you in even better ways please do contact our team, or me directly at chris.spencer@thestorytellers.com

 

 

Future-proofing your organisation in 2022

Posted on by Chris Spencer

How leaders will grow resilience and relevancy through storytelling

Every day, we see firsthand the complex challenges that impact how people perform, and the opportunities leaders must seize to ensure their organisation remains relevant and resilient for years to come. 

In our experience, to ensure your business can adapt to any number of potential new scenarios, your people must be able to quickly make sense of the situation they face and feel empowered to take the right course of action to resolve it. 

In today’s non-linear world, rigid long-term plans can prove a burden or soon become irrelevant. Therefore, a strong compelling narrative will ensure everyone in your organisation understands their role and the purpose of what they do – even if the business goal or strategy has to quickly shift. This narrative can help you to establish the right culture to combat the aforementioned brittleness, as well as encouraging innovation and creativity so that your organisation can remain agile and maintain competitive advantage. It can also be used to help leaders build connection and belonging to help people to overcome their anxieties.

Featuring insights from members of The Storytellers team, our eBook on future-proofing your organisation considers how leaders can unleash the power of their organisation’s story to create belief and shift mindsets in the face of the many challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Explore how to:

  • Accelerate your ESG strategy
  • Embed hybrid working
  • Elevate your EVP
  • Sustain digital transformation
  • Lead with empathy

Complete the short form to immediately download your copy

Turning a business’s fortunes on its head: delivering meaningful change through stories

Posted on by Chris Spencer

The challenge

Standards at one packaging business were already highly competitive. But the new CEO believed he could raise them even further. His big ambition was to improve operational performance at manufacturing sites in order to secure new partnerships and achieve a higher return on capital. But for that to work, everyone had to be invested in his vision.

The programme

That’s where we came in. We created OWNIT!, a company-wide programme of strategy engagement and operational improvement.

Working with the Executive Committee, we crafted a narrative that laid out in clear terms what the business’ ambitions were, aka the OWNIT! Story. This offered a structure that fed through to events, workshops and toolkits. It motivated managers and teams, and showed them how each individual can play their part. In many cases, that meant local initiatives encouraging people to come up with meaningful solutions to operational problems. The results were genuinely extraordinary. At the Bristol plant alone, defective parts per million dropped from 3,200 to an incredible 500 in just four months.

Stories were shared via a Champions’ network, connecting people to the wider narrative through their individual experiences. 

One such story told was of two operators who worked on the box line. For years, the boxes had been fed into the machine lengthways. But these two women saw a way to boost efficiency. By standing the boxes upright, twice as many could be fed through the machine, transforming productivity. This simple story showed the role each team member can play. It showed how every individual can be part of, and connect to, the broader narrative of raising standards.

The impact

Defect levels at the Bristol plant reduced by 73% in three months. Higher standards ultimately led to the acquisition of global customers such as Amazon, as well as a 460% increase in share price. In other words, our programme achieved exactly what it set out to do.

And as well as engaging 95% of employees, OWNIT! became the internal identity for cultural improvement. It allowed us to create a culture of shared ownership. One machine operator said, “OWNIT! dramatically changed my life and the lives of people around me.” 

Our programme had impact because it tapped into the experiences of people like him, connecting them to the wider narrative through the power of stories and moving them to do great things. To discover how storytelling can transform your business, download our e-book, Storytelling: how to reset an organisation’s narrative to inspire change. 

The case of the missing ring: building a narrative of exceptional customer service

Posted on by Chris Spencer

Crafting a vision

Every client has their own set of challenges. For one luxury hotel chain, they wanted to achieve an exceptional standard of service, creating the ultimate holiday experience that drove guests to come back and tell all their friends. This meant sharing their vision with their staff and inspiring 9,000 new employees.

We started by crafting an overarching narrative of the journey the business was on. We distilled a simple yet powerful story about the founder’s vision, then tailored a programme that connected people to this narrative through their own stories, allowing employees to truly understand the personal contribution they could make.

The case of the missing ring

One story told of a hotel guest who had the misfortune of binning two theatre tickets. On letting reception know, they offered to buy him replacements. But the guest insisted: it had to be those tickets. So a few off-duty members of staff offered to search through the rubbish to find them. Eventually, they uncovered the envelope – and within it, an engagement ring.

This was just one inspiring story of exceptional customer service uploaded to a digital platform that collated over 1,000 other motivational stories. Through this interaction, through emotionally engaging with the narrative, every member of the business was able to connect with the hotel’s ambitions and contribute in a meaningful way.

The impact of storytelling

The results? Employees felt hugely engaged. Guests’ expectations had been exceeded. Repeat business increased, as did spend during stays and customer recommendations.

Our impact even transformed the founder’s outlook on empowering people. “This business of storytelling,” he said, “and finding a way to give individual recognition to people by allowing them to tell their stories every day and publishing them, is the single greatest idea that I have heard in business of any kind whatsoever.”

That’s why we talk about storytelling delivering meaningful change. It ditches the jargon of traditional programmes in favour of genuine, human language that shows how everyone has a role to play and can be part of the journey towards achieving great things.

To discover how storytelling can transform your business, download our e-book, Storytelling: how to reset an organisation’s narrative to inspire change

Moving people to do great things: behind The Storytellers’ purpose

Posted on by Chris Spencer

At The Storytellers, we know that meaningful change is built on emotional connection. That’s why we talk about moving people to do great things through storytelling. In this post, we want to unpack what that means.

Our purpose in practice

Let’s take Trolley Tom. An ordinary guy working for one of our clients, a major supermarket retailer (you’ve heard of them). While collecting trolleys, Tom notices people struggling with the sloping car park. One meeting, he raises his hand to offer a simple but effective solution. Within days, he’s crafted small cardboard wedges that fit into trolley wheels, enabling customers to manage the slope.

And there it was, in a nutshell, the perfect example of how this supermarket goes above and beyond to preserve its trusted reputation through customer service. When this client approached us, they were facing a dip in morale and an unhealthy shift in culture. Trolley Tom’s was just one story of inspiring behaviour following our tailored programme, engaging individuals with the company’s wider ambition.

A unique approach

We work with a company to co-create its overarching narrative and devise an integrated programme that connects people to the bigger picture through their individual stories: the initiatives, the inventions, the acts of kindness and courage.

These human, relatable stories show people the role they can play within an organisation, engaging everyone from shop floor to C-suite so that they feel invested in the company’s overall goal. This emotional hook is critical for people to embrace change, whatever the business’s ambition: to deliver big shifts in customer satisfaction, increase share price value or slash operating costs.

Of course, every client we speak to is different. Industries vary, sizes differ, pain points range from skills gaps and organisational politics to entrenched behaviours and fear of change. We’ll always design the most effective programme, finding the stories that link back to the core narrative and champion the behaviours you want to see.

Storytelling as opportunity

Today, many leaders question whether their stories are compelling enough to bring people with them on their journeys and to realise their goals. Through storytelling, we offer an opportunity like no other: the chance for a business to shape its narrative and to talk to its people in an authentic, human way, allowing each person to understand his or her part in the overall journey. That’s how you move people to do great things, and accelerate change.

To discover how storytelling can transform your business, download our e-book, Storytelling: how to reset an organisation’s narrative to inspire change