Category: Culture

Putting ourselves in sales leaders’ shoes

Posted on 16th August 202329th August 2023 by Matt Renton

Selling is full of ugly jargon. Thinking of customers as ‘prospects’ and ‘leads’, and using expressions like pipelines, deal-flows, MQLs and customer acquisition costs gives selling and sales people a bad name.

So we’re telling the stories that are Reimagining Sales and enabling sales teams around the world to do the same. We help them to move away from the clichés and the staid products/benefits approach, shifting to the concept of potential outcomes for their customers, based on an understanding of their needs, objectives, and pain points.

Sales teams need to understand the journey customers are on and demonstrate how they empathise with their situation. It’s time to ‘PUT YOURSELF IN THEIR SHOES’.

At The Storytellers we think deeply about business strategies for clients and marry that with distinctive, creative story-driven approaches. We’ve explored the story that is common to sales leaders and their teams – it’s a peek into our smart thinking around outcome-based selling, coming together with an engaging idea to motivate audiences both rationally and emotionally.

Don’t wait for the other shoe to drop. Have a read and reimagine the power of your sales.

Chapter One: As successful salespeople, we are great storytellers who built our careers on trust

Chapter Two: But our clients needs have evolved, and they are paralysed by FOMU

Chapter Three: We can create mutually rewarding partnerships

Chapter Four: By sharing our knowledge and insights, focusing on client outcomes

Chapter Five: And deeply understanding our clients’ stories

Chapter Six: We will put ourselves in our clients’ shoes, generate deep sales and exceed our targets

What’s your story – how can we help you inspire your organisation with it?

Download the free ebook: Nine drivers to accelerate your strategy

Posted on 24th July 202324th July 2023 by Kirsty Spencer

Understand how high-performance organisations activate their people to accelerate change and overcome strategic challenges.

There’s a reason why 70% of strategic change initiatives fail to realise their original objectives. It’s the human side of strategy and change that time and again is the determining factor.

Working with organisations to activate their people to deliver significant change strategies over the last 20 years, we’ve identified the nine key drivers which accelerate activation, engage colleagues in strategic challenges and unlock discretionary effort and ingenuity.

These range from overcoming the fear, confusion and apathy often associated with change, through a clear and compelling narrative, to ensuring leaders are aligned and championing the strategy, avoiding conflicting points of view and diversion of focus and effort. All nine are explored in this ebook.

How this ebook will help:

Clear, summarised and easily digestible list of the nine factors that need to be in place for strategy to be effectively activated
Outlines the common situations when strategy activation is critical
Provides a framework that can be used to assess and establish what you need to prioritise to activate your people in the journey you are on

Complete the short form to immediately download your copy

Watch on-demand: Two inspirational days of masterclasses and discussion

Posted on 18th April 202331st May 2023 by Kirsty Spencer

To celebrate 20 years pioneering the transformative power of storytelling to execute strategy, accelerate change and unlock extraordinary performance, we hosted a series of bite-sized masterclasses from master storytellers sharing the art and science of storytelling – these are now available to watch on demand.

Fill in the form to watch all sessions

Agenda

View full session and speaker details here

1pm BST – Opening keynote: organisations of the future will be story-driven
2pm BST – Storytelling: the secret weapon for change
3pm BST – Immersive experience: how to make your people the hero of your story
4pm BST – The nine drivers to accelerate the activation of your strategy
5pm BST – A strategic writer’s perspective – how to develop and activate your organisation’s story

View full session and speaker details here

1pm BST – How creative concepts have the power to activate entire organisations
2pm BST – Creating speeches that move mountains
3pm BST – Increase your leadership influence and impact through storytelling
4pm BST – Activating your organisation using story-driven nudge behaviours
5pm BST – Closing reflection: stories that shape the 21st Century

Complete the short form to access all on-demand content

Why activating your people is critical for successful M&A

Posted on 14th March 202314th March 2023 by Flora Clarke

Organisations pursue mergers or acquisitions for a variety of reasons: entry into new markets, plays for innovation or new talent, and customer-base expansion to name a few. In the current turbulent environment, we see that many deals are focused on productivity rather than pure financial objectives. With that core objective in mind, the ability to rapidly activate the optimisation strategy is critical to M&A value creation.

Whatever their nature, our research with Mergermarket confirms that mergers and acquisitions are notoriously difficult to execute effectively. One of the common reasons for failure is that leaders underestimate the importance of – and focus too little on — the people and culture factors in the equation. This is even more heightened when the purpose is to achieve operating synergies, which can be put at risk through underperformance and talent attrition because employees are unclear on the role they play, fearful of change and in turn become demotivated, quietly quit or loudly leave.

Featuring insights from senior M&A executives at major global blue chips around the world, our eBook shares findings gathered through a survey of 100 senior executives.

Featuring:

Why people and culture matter in M&A, and what happens when they are neglected
How to build cultural alignment and engagement
Why resetting the narrative is key and insight into the story-driven methodology The Storytellers has successfully employed to activate employees in post-merger integration strategies

Complete the short form to immediately download your copy

Future-proofing your organisation in 2022

Posted on 29th December 20213rd March 2022 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

Accelerating ESG strategy – what future story will your organisation create?

Posted on 17th November 202118th November 2021 by Robert Tennant

There’s no escaping it – environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy is now a critical part of the boardroom agenda. Among the business leaders working with The Storytellers, we’ve noticed a clear shift in mindset and response too.

Underlined by the growing climate crisis, and further highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, ESG has gained greater prominence because of how it’s seen by stakeholders and investors as a way to safeguard organisations against future risks to the global economy. It focuses on the areas of business that matter most to employees and, as highlighted in the latest EY Future Consumer Index, provides opportunities for businesses to create value and grow revenues by responding to the trend for sustainable consumption.

Today, as business leaders around the world also come to terms with the practical implications of the outcomes of the COP26 summit – and the monumental task of decarbonising the global economy – there is a clear need for organisations to quickly turn their ESG strategy into meaningful action. Investors want clarity about the initiatives companies are undertaking, the reporting they are doing, and the returns they will generate. Brands around the world will increasingly be looked at and recognised for their leadership towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and employees are pursuing purpose at work. In short, taking no or limited action will simply become untenable.

Ahead of us lies one of the biggest changes in mindset and strategy that the world has ever seen – but for businesses to deliver on this at the necessary pace and scale, they will also need to leverage the power of their people to make change happen. Leaders need a powerful narrative to begin to activate a movement within their organisations and around their brands. A narrative that connects people to the reasons for change and helps them to understand their role in achieving these bigger, better ESG outcomes for the benefit of everyone.

Talent and purpose

What ultimately brings us meaning and purpose is contributing to something larger than ourselves. Just like the climate change movement, the workplace is made up of thousands of stories of endeavour and achievement, but also disengagement and failures. Crucially, these stories shape our belief about the organisations we work for and the leaders who guide us. A strong narrative that articulates the collective purpose, the journey an organisation needs to take, and what success looks like, provides a vehicle through which we can play out our own personal ambition. Ultimately, top talent will want to be part of meaningful journeys that they truly connect with.

Turning strategy into action

To move their people from passively understanding the strategy to being compelled to act in service of it – leaders must identify ways to build ownership. People are more likely to take positive action if they feel they’ve helped to create it. Empowering teams and employees to identify ways in which they can contribute to a strategy unleashes great rewards.

Employee engagement and accelerated change

Whatever your views on a “disengagement crisis” one thing is clear – employees that are inspired by their work are happier, more productive and are more likely to achieve remarkable things. With the scale of change ahead, this is the moment for leaders to challenge themselves – is engagement enough? Our experience shows that if leaders can find a mechanism to unite their people, inspire them and provide a clear plan, they can accelerate change and transform performance.

Brand perception and leadership legacy

Ultimately, leaders and organisations will be judged on this moment. Aside from taking action to benefit or mitigate the reputational risks to their brand, what was their wider response? What was the story of their organisation? How did they approach change and how successful were they in contributing to one of humankind’s greatest challenges?

If ever there was an opportunity to write a story for the ages – this is it.

Overcoming key leadership challenges in 2021

Posted on 5th August 20215th October 2021 by Lynn Archer

The number of new opportunities and challenges created by the pandemic shows no sign of dwindling. Businesses that can respond to new demands on their markets will always be best equipped to navigate risks and remain sustainable in the long term.

The COVID crisis has fundamentally changed many aspects of our lives, not at least how we work, and successful business leaders will adjust to these seismic societal shifts by staying nimble, flexible and creatively future-proofing their organisations.

In our ‘Stories from the C-suite’ series, we talk to leaders, who we believe are expert storytellers, about the challenges of leading through change and how they will approach the next stages in their journey.

Each webinar provided valuable takeaways on how leaders can overcome both the common and more unique challenges large organisations face at this time.

As the series takes a break during August and September, I invite you to catch up or watch back and reflect on the conversations we’ve had since the beginning of the year.

WATCH: ’Future of Food’ with Will Jennings – CEO, UK at Rabobank

Will shared how the global food crisis has come to drive Rabobank’s mission and purpose. And why storytelling and narrative are important to leaders looking to drive long-lasting change.

READ: Transformation in Asia’ with Nick Pollard – MD APAC, CFA Institute

Accompanying this webinar is a free guide outlining the skill set needed for leaders to unlock business transformation in Asia.

WATCH: ’The Future of Health’ with Tracy Garrad – CEO, AXA Health

We explored how Tracy dealt with the challenges of the pandemic in an industry at the forefront of the crisis. We also discussed how the business has adapted and what healthcare will look like in the future.

WATCH: ’Food for thought’ with Duncan Everett – CEO, Noble Foods

From a unique position of having experienced and led two different food companies during the pandemic, we were keen to hear what Duncan had learned and what he will focus on moving forward.

WATCH: Navigating Crisis’ with Gary Morrison – CEO, Hostelworld

Arguably one of the hardest hit during the pandemic, the travel industry has been dealt consistent blows with no respite. We discussed with Gary, a veteran of digital travel companies, what Hostelworld did to ensure that it had a roadmap to recovery, and how it plans to thrive when normal travel patterns resume.

WATCH: ’Talking Talent’ with Alistair Cox – CEO, Hays plc

Forces of change are sweeping across the recruitment industry, and we wanted to know how Alistair is navigating this tumultuous but exciting landscape. He also shared plenty of insights on what the future of recruitment might look like.

WATCH: ’Facing The Crisis’ with Andy Briggs – CEO, Phoenix Group

He was a new CEO, taking up the role during the early stages of the pandemic – we wanted to know how Andy was able to navigate Phoenix Group, the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business, through the toughest of times.

Follow our LinkedIn page or sign-up to our newsletter for notifications about future ‘Stories from the C-Suite’ webinars. If you have any suggestions of leaders you would like to hear from or ideas on topics you would like us to cover – we would also love to hear from you. Please email us: connect@thestorytellers.com

Going global with a story of shared success

Posted on 26th January 202126th January 2021 by Alastair Hagger

Let’s be honest – we’ve all experienced a touch of Zoom fatigue these last few months, and we might even have zoned out a little during the last virtual meeting of a long day. We crave the connective tissue of a physical work hub: the in-person idea storms, the water cooler catch-ups, the good-natured envy of the comfortable corner office, the nuanced emotional punctuation of the gesture and the smile and the raised eyebrow.

We may have watched our teams slowly become disengaged. Perhaps we’ve noticed a worrying fragmentation in our company culture, seen an erosion in our organisation’s understanding of its common purpose, or felt that our leadership teams have drifted out of alignment.

As we turn the harrowing page of 2020 to the hope and dynamism of a new human story in 2021, we may forget that those countless laptop interactions have in fact been offering us a glimpse of something vibrant, positive, and packed with possibility. Something that is very much here to stay: a dynamically networked virtual world, an opportunity to create global organisations that span many different countries and regions.

Thinking globally

But how do we foster a truly global ‘virtual’ mindset in our organisations, and transform Zoom zone-outs into cross-cultural, planet-spanning success stories?

Matt Mullenweg is the founder of Automattic, the software company that runs the publishing platform giant WordPress.com, with more than 1,000 employees working remotely in 77 countries. In a July interview with The New York Times, Mullenweg talked about the resistance he encountered from investors to the idea of remote working before the company’s inception in 2005.

“There’s a very intangible magic that people imagine happens in an office that’s necessary for innovation or design,” he says. “There were a lot of biases. And to be honest, it’s hardest to change when you’ve been successful doing something in the past.” Fifteen years later, Automattic is worth US$3 billion, with 30 per cent of global bloggers using WordPress as their platform of choice.

Automattic’s success was born out of a company culture that embraced the potential of ‘virtuality’, creating the story of a shared understanding that the office of the future could be anything its employees wanted it to be.

“I’ve been to the offices of billionaire CEO’s that have their own private bathroom, beautiful art and couches,” he says. “But these are all things that you can have in your house. What I love about distributed organisations is every single employee can have a corner office.”

While his 2005 detractors may have predicted a slump in productivity in his remote workforce, Mullenweg says that in reality, people take less “away from keyboard” time than they should, and that this phenomenon is tracked and flagged up when it’s clear that an employee is in need of a short refresher break, or even a longer vacation.

A connected vision

This kind of compassionate, visionary leadership requires a ground-up transformation in “the way things are done” patterns of thinking. Leaders need to rally their teams into the brave new virtual worlds of the century’s third decade with a compelling and motivating cultural story, if they wish to thrive in international markets and avoid the cross-cultural mishaps of a disengaged workforce working virtually, and in isolation, across different time zones.

The Storytellers can provide the means to help inspire your team to make this journey, and the momentum to transform “the way things are done” into “the way things could be”. A thousand individual corner offices – but a singular, interconnected vision, one unified global aspiration.

Story-driven change

The Storytellers can help you revolutionise your company’s culture by setting out a story-driven goal – an emotionally compelling narrative that can act as a motivational catalyst to positive, lasting change. Small but significant stories of achievement are pooled from teams across your organisation, wherever they are based, from the corner office, to the staff canteen, to the laptop in a café. These stories then feed into your defining business narrative, further fuelling inspiration, camaraderie and connectivity across each and every one of your company’s different time zones, cultures and productivity styles.

Download our Culture Change ebook today and learn how The Storytellers can make going global central to your organisation’s shared story of future success.

Culture change: how to transform your culture during a crisis

Posted on 14th January 20211st February 2021 by Imogen Wallersteiner

2020 was a year of rapid and continuous change. Such explosive change for organisations is truly unprecedented, and having an existing robust company culture has been necessary for businesses not just to stay rooted, but to grow in this challenging environment.

With the transition to remote working at the outset of the pandemic, a major fear was that company culture would be difficult to sustain. How could businesses maintain something so dependent on day-to-day interactions such as in-person meetings, socialising and chance encounters in the office virtually? Culture is something so intangible and abstract that it is known for being ‘what takes place when managers leave the room’. How can leaders role model culture through Zoom? And amidst the continuing whirlwind of change taking place in the world around us, how can companies continue to transform, adapt and innovate?

Inevitably, the shift from the office to home-based working has transformed behaviours, as culture is made up of workplace relationships and interactions. Companies are now considering serious questions such as how they can foster a global mindset in a digitally-connected world. There is also a strong focus on retaining culture when the physical environment of the office, water cooler chats and casual conversations have been taken away. Technology alone cannot shape culture and it still needs to be defined and articulated.

In fast-moving global markets, culture is the biggest determiner of sustainable advantage. It determines agility, collaboration, how fast you can innovate and how hard you can drive towards a collective goal. By communicating and showing how your culture still exists and is able to thrive in a socially distanced, remote working world, you can ensure it stays strong throughout the pandemic and beyond.

Complete the form on this page to download our latest ebook, and find out how you can use storytelling to shift behaviours and deliver long-lasting, sustainable change in your organisation today.