Category: Storytelling

Our strategic narrative: practising what we preach

Posted on by Alison Esse

There’s a saying that you can tell a cobbler by his shoes, implying that he is so busy he has little time to address his own footwear. In the same vein, ‘doctors make the worst patients’ might also apply (and if you happen to be the child of two doctors, as am I, you’ll know that you certainly don’t get the same sympathy as you’d hope their actual patients get).

So when we embarked on creating our own strategic narrative at The Storytellers – an exercise we’ve now done for over 170 major organisations across the world – we weren’t entirely sure how it was going to pan out or, more importantly, how we could possibly stay friends during the process. Roger, one of our best-loved and most talented storywriters, was tasked with drafting it, based on interviews with each of the senior leadership team, and aligning us behind the draft narrative that emerged.

It took time, not least because we were so busy with our clients that it kept getting put on the back-burner. But we eventually reached final alignment, and ‘Our Journey to Soar’ was born.

I have to admit, the black-and-white, words-only version was good: beautifully written by Roger as we’d expected. Of course. But it wasn’t until one of our designers, Sana, brought it to life with a stunning, colourful Da Vinci-esque creative treatment that captured the concept of the art and science of storytelling so well, that it really came into its own. I have to say I actually felt quite emotional when I saw it transformed into a stupendous piece of art. Our creative expertise really did do the trick.

Two years later we are embarking on ‘the next episode’…an updated story that will show progress and weave in the next set of challenges and opportunities that underpin our journey of growth. But what’s been so gratifying is how we’ve used our Story at every opportunity to remind the team of where we’re going, why we make the decisions we make, how we need to act and behave, and what our priorities need to be.

Every week it makes an appearance as we relate stories of the previous week, linking them back to the narrative. It has been a reminder of the approach we need to take with our clients, and other priorities, which has influenced the shape of our business plan. It has provided clarity and direction for our decision-making. It has proved a useful tool for positive team conversations, and occasionally to take the heat out of a ‘difficult conversation’. It has reinforced our new brand and provided us with a wonderful creative campaign. We use it for conversations with potential candidates and induction for new recruits. It has aligned us as a leadership team and has helped us to explain the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. It is a brilliant strategic engagement tool. And clients love the fact that we’re actually walking the talk ourselves (after all, it’s what we preach to them….!). It’s no coincidence that we’ve enjoyed one of our best-ever years from a performance point-of-view.

So next time I pop into our local shoe-repair shop I’ll check out the state of the owner’s shoes. If they’re shiny and clean, it won’t necessarily mean he’s not diligent and too busy dealing with his own customers’ shoes. It could be that he simply appreciates the benefits of looking after his own footwear. Walking the talk, so to speak. Literally.

 

Alison Esse
Co-founder and Director

Five defining moments of the World Cup so far

Posted on by Daniel Castro

If journalism is the practice of picking up on the threads of existing stories, exploring how events of today impact those narratives, and exploring where the future could take us, then this year’s World Cup has already been a journalist’s dream.

So far the tournament has been full of twists, turns, and ‘defining moments’ – what we at The Storytellers call the meaningful and memorable moments in a long-term narrative, and that point to big change.

At The Storytellers, we know that ‘defining moments’ are essential towards how companies and organisations shift culture and mindsets – and at the World Cup, we have seen five ‘defining moments’ that have shifted five very different narratives:

Russia: in terms of hosting the World Cup, it is widely acknowledged that Russia has delivered above and beyond what was expected. Prior to the tournament, fears over the country’s problem with hooliganism and clashes with rival fans loomed large – and of course, the West’s frosty relationship with Putin soured the prospect of the tournament for many. What has happened thus far has actually been a carefully staged and violence-free carnival of football. As an event, Russia has gone a long way towards challenging the existing narrative about what kind of a country they are – this really could be a defining moment in the country’s history.

Germany: it’s pretty clear what poor Germany’s defining moment has been: this is the first time that Die Mannschaft have exited the tournament at the group stage, ever. As a team, the next four years will undoubtedly be a process of resetting the journey that they are on. In storytelling terms, they are certainly ready for the ‘Next Episode’ of how they achieve success on the global stage – and most likely, a new leader to give new meaning to those old objectives that once seemed so straightforward.

England: the fascinating thing about England’s campaign so far is the quietly shifting nature of how the public interact with the national team. There is the palpable sense of a nation finally reaching the final stages of grief after years of agonising losses and crushed optimism. Of course, as you read this, England may have already exited the tournament – but there is a sense of belief that under Gareth Southgate’s leadership, English football has quietly begun a new kind of journey towards success.

Messi and Ronaldo: after years of two players dominating the world of football, we have most likely seen the last of the mercurial Ronaldo and magical Messi at a World Cup. Tantalisingly, we might have seen a very different kind of defining moment, as the match between Portugal and Argentina – and a chance for one final showdown – was narrowly missed. So instead the story is that of a glorious era coming to an end – and just as they shared their years of success, how fitting that they both bowed out of the tournament on the same day. Truly a defining moment for these two giants of football.

VAR: after mixed successes at the domestic level, one gets the sense that this is a defining moment for how football uses technology to enhance the actual game itself. After years of controversial refereeing decisions, VAR (Video Assistant Referee) has put the thousands of different camera angles at the disposal of the referee and their team, to more accurately judge what has happened. The human touch remains of course – and while this is certainly a defining moment in that VAR is probably here to stay, the wider narrative of how humans interact and make best use of technology continues.

 

Daniel Castro
Producer

Episodic storytelling: beyond the myth

Posted on by Daniel Castro

“Life is a spiral staircase… the journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward.” – Y.B Yeats

When it comes to understanding the power and influence of episodic storytelling, there are perhaps few better examples than Star Wars. For over 40 years, Star Wars has delighted and entertained billions of people across the world, and the franchise shows no sign of stopping. So far: we have had two complete trilogies; we await the finale of the most recent, third trilogy; and there is another subsequent trilogy planned. There is a Hans Solo spin-off in the cinemas right now, and there are at least three other ‘anthology’ films in development. From its humble beginnings in the 1977 film ‘Star Wars’, the story has grown to a point that surely was beyond even the wildest dreams of its creator. It truly is storytelling on a grand scale.

So what has made Star Wars so successful, and given it such incredible longevity? The answer can be found in the art and science of a particular kind of storytelling: episodic storytelling.

In the broadest sense, one could define episodic storytelling as the art of telling the story of an epic journey via a series of interconnected, smaller episodes that link together thematically, and that each have meaning and value in and of themselves.

The original Star Wars trilogy is a crystallised example of how this works: each individual film has its own ups and downs, trials and tribulations, and evolving cast of characters. But over the course of the trilogy, there is a more profound narrative that emerges: a battle of good and evil on the grandest of scales… and of course, a particularly difficult relationship between a father and son.

As each episode adds a new layer of meaning, the story gradually unfolds before our eyes – it’s incredibly engaging. The challenge that Luke Skywalker faced in the first film was real, but the true test only revealed itself in the second – and the compelling nature of what it meant to overcome this challenge was only meaningful by the time we arrived at the third, concluding film, when we finally came to know who Luke had now become. To put it bluntly, without ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’, Luke is a pretty forgettable hero. But by the end of the trilogy, we understand that he is someone who has not only overcome mortal and existential challenges, but who has also come of age.

As an audience, this kind of understanding and meaning is only possible through an evolving, episodic journey. Each of the three films in that original trilogy has a beginning, middle and an end. The beauty of episodic storytelling is that as we follow the mini beginning-middle-end of each chapter in the overall story, the key messages become both focused and magnified. In this way, episodic storytelling takes an original, monological ‘myth’, and makes it real, meaningful, deeper and altogether more human.

So what does any of this have to do with The Storytellers? Is there anything we can learn from Star Wars in this sense?

At The Storytellers, one of our main goals is to perfect the art and science of storytelling in business. For over fifteen years, we have developed and refined narrative frameworks that help our clients answer a primary, yet deceptively simple question: ‘where are we coming from… and where are we going?’

Our experience in engaging people in these ‘strategic narratives’ tells us that the key to how an organisation moves towards its goals and destination can almost always be found in the centre of that story – whether it is a key opportunity that must be seized, or a crisis that must be resolved.

However, in an era defined by constant and continuous change, we are seeing an ever growing need for clients to be increasingly agile, responsive and compelling in how they describe the changes that are happening around them – and it is only really through episodic storytelling that this is achievable.

What constitutes the central challenge of any journey is constantly and subtly shifting, and this can only truly be countered by consistently updating what that journey really means now. Deciding to climb Everest is one thing, but does the journey look the same when you arrive at Base Camp, months after that initial decision? Does it look the same when you are 100ft from the summit? The destination may be the same… but the motivation that took you from your home to Base Camp – and the true meaning of that journey – is constantly in flux.

To put it simply: it is how we continuously and compellingly redefine what the journey to our destination looks like that makes climbing the mountain possible.

Perhaps more importantly, episodic storytelling also provides a meaningful opportunity to connect the overarching journey to what people are experiencing on a collective level – breathing a new kind of life into that same journey. And again, Star Wars provides us with a great example.

One of the most high-profile decisions in ‘The Force Awakens’ (Episode 7) was the casting of one particular role. Every single Star Wars film before it had a man playing the main hero, but in 2015, for the first time in seven Star Wars films – the hero was played by Daisy Ridley, a woman.

It’s fair to say that we would not have seen a female hero in a film of this size and scale in 1977 – but in 2015, the time had come for a female Jedi. In this one casting decision, Star Wars showed that it was moving with the times, choosing to better reflect reality – and bravely making progress on a very different journey.

Of course, some people were unable to get past the decision to have a woman play a Jedi hero. Unbelievably, one fan took it upon themselves to make their own ‘cut’, and entirely removed all women from the film. This act was met with a withering response on Twitter, with even the film’s director and stars responding directly to voice their dismay.

The point is that while the events of the 7th episode in the Star Wars saga take place ‘in a galaxy far, far away’, down here on Planet Earth another story was unfolding on social media and in everyday conversation that arguably had a much more pertinent lesson. Effectively, episodic storytelling had taken Star Wars beyond a mere parable of good vs. evil, and to a point where, for a brief moment, it became a bonafide force for progress in society.

The decision to go against convention by casting a woman as the hero; the conversation that took place on a global level in response to the casting of Daisy Ridley; and the actions of the filmmakers in defending that choice could well be regarded as the most important achievement of the Star Wars franchise to date. Arguably for the first time in this galaxy, Star Wars had truly shown us what good looks like.

So the power of stories is not only in how we tell them, and in telling the ‘right’ story; but also in the conversation that happens when a population is engaged through storytelling. In and of itself, a story has the power to motivate people to act in service of progress, to move as one towards a common goal – but it also has the power to spark an invaluable conversation about who we are and who we want to be; and therefore, to directly influence reality. In this sense, as a methodology for real change and progress, it is quite unparalleled.

In conclusion, I come back to that wonderful quote from Yeats: it’s true, the journey really is repetitious. Just as in Star Wars, we all know that in life, we tend to circle back round to the same characters, the same themes. The big question is: how exactly do we make sure the journey is progressive?

It is in how a new story builds on the one we told yesterday; it is in how the conversation around the journey evolves in response; and perhaps most importantly, it is in how, as leaders and as individuals, we choose what should stay the same on that journey, and what should maybe be different this time.

At The Storytellers, our aim is to make sure that our clients don’t go round in circles, but that they see real progress. In an era of constant change and shifting values, it is only through episodic storytelling – the continuous connection between the epic, evolving stories that we tell, and the reality around us each day – that real progress begins to become truly possible.

Daniel Castro

The state of storytelling

Posted on by Jack Roberts

So much of our world is wrapped up inside the constancy of change. Only a few short years ago we had no smart phone. This is just one example of many innovations and progressions that have impacted our society. Think about how our daily story has changed since that time in 2007 at the launch of Apple’s iPhone. We now hold the whole of the world’s organised information on a device in our pockets and use it to argue with strangers or adopt an endless scroll of news we did not curate ourselves. We have greater access to data and solutions to large scale problems than ever before. But, how do we make sense of this?

Concurrently to information becoming the moniker for an age, the next age is emerging. Throughout human history each age seems to hold the seeds or perhaps the needs for the next age within it. This has been true of the information age. We are entering the age of stories. According to creativity author Daniel Pink,1 the information age will be supplanted by the conceptual age, the age of ideas. He posits that “right-brain”or “creative” people will be the next group of leaders in power in business and culture. Once all of the information is aggregated and we know what must be done, one of the only differentiators that will emerge is how it gets done. Pink believes this is why creativity will emerge and the conceptual age will begin. We see it happening today. Two companies may have similar products, similar market share, even similar values but the one engaging their audience creatively accelerates performance. This presents new challenges, too. A company may have extremely innovative concepts, may even be on the cusp of disrupting the market, but, without an inspiring way of communicating their ideas there’s no way to transform the concepts to measurable results. As we move past the information age and need to figure out what to do with all of this big data, we need ideas. But, without storytelling the ideas just become another kind of data point. And what happens in a world of competing ideas?

This is where storytelling comes in. Storytelling could well be called the craft that takes information into the form in which we can assimilate it, and do something with it. In this sense, then, concepts alone, ideation alone, is simply not enough in today’s changing and volatile world. With so many ideas and concepts to choose from in any given moment born from the sheer volume of information how we tell our story is more important that ever. Because this will become our differentiation in a sea of people speaking up for their ideas to be heard.

The Storytellers exercise these specialties for our many clients around the world bringing strategy to life through the power and influence of storytelling. One method in which this can be achieved is through the adoption of bespoke story-driven creative campaigns. By placing creativity through print, video, film, or television within a wider strategic narrative, our approach connects people to a bigger journey and motivates them with a purpose. Distilling the story down to a simple creative idea can amplify the essence of the overarching message, inspire people to learn from the ideas of their peers and make connections to their own. By equipping people with the means to challenge mindsets lasting behavioural change can be accomplished. By adopting a multi-faceted creative campaign alongside the launch of their Purpose, Vision and Values, one of our clients accomplished 2.1% volume growth and increased its trading margin by +30bps to 8.8%. In turn, the approach received industry wide recognition and remains integral to their strategy two years later.

We help inspire, accelerate, and transform their performance in the marketplace. Story or narrative is the power that will carry concepts forward at the end of the information age. The power of visuals drives a compelling narrative communicating to the feelings of people looking for a connection with your organisation. After all, data without a story is simply a set of numbers. Information without knowing how it best fits into the pressing needs of your customers is only idea competing with so many others. Stories create context and connect hearts and minds. These connections remind us of our needs and we then link those needs to the organisation telling the story. At The Storytellers we build these kinds of narratives everyday. At the end of the information age, we will need more than concepts. We need the power of narrative to communicate them. Perhaps then, we are entering into the Age of Story.

 

1 Pink, Daniel. (2014). A Whole New Mind. Riverhead Books.

Guess where I went on the tube today?

Posted on by Poppy Kearney

I’m on the underground huddled up against London commuters on their way to work, blankly avoiding the gaze of my fellow passengers.  Unbeknown to those vacant faces, I’m in Michigan. Rustic cabins, scary stories around the fire, ice-cold lakes, pine forests, camp legends; I’m listening to my favourite podcast, This American Life, and I’m transported to a summer camp. In this episode, the host and narrator Ira Glass sheds light on the magic that is camp. It’s easy to be baffled by the obsessive fixation Americans have with camp – an obsession that acts as a barrier between ‘camp people’ and ‘non-camp people’. I must confess, although not a life long camper, having worked at a summer camp in Seattle I definitely identify more with the ‘camp people’! In this particular episode we experience the power of storytelling to capture the essence of camp, shedding light on personal experiences, transporting the listener to Michigan and bridging this gap.

Whilst the host draws the outline, it’s the first-person stories of the children (campers) and counsellors who add depth and colour to the picture.  Dave, a young man who worked his way up the ranks to become the much-anticipated counsellor and the main character in this story, takes the listener on a tour of camp.  Immediately my spirits are lifted: I find myself wanting to sing along with the camp songs, join in with the energetic games and smell the smoke from the campfire. Songs, inside jokes, sailing and sun: it’s enough to momentarily replace the stress of daily life, intensified by technology and social media. In the words of Dave, “all the best moments of my life have happened at camp”. And for a moment, as the listener, you are right there with him, sitting in his cabin hearing the hilarious camp dance de-brief from the 13-year-old boys, joining in with the laughter and banter around a shared first kiss!

A sudden jolt brings me back to London.  Victoria, only two stops left!  I’ve reached part 5 in the episode, the story of colour wars: a camp wide tradition where children compete between their assigned colours in different activities, ranging from canoe races to war-cry competitions. The story traces a group of teenage campers, following the raw emotions they feel in the weeks leading up to the highly anticipated announcement of the colour captain, the greatest honour you can receive at camp. The night has arrived. Through my headphones I hear the crackle of the bonfire, and the tension as the girls are put out their misery and the colour captains are revealed. The elation and pure joy of the girls who received the honour and despair of the girls whose long-lived camp dreams have been squashed; it’s palpable through my headphones.

Through these personal stories, the podcast captures the essence of camp: a place for children that stands still in time, holding onto traditions and rituals, despite the ever-changing word around them. A place where children form bonds and connections with friends that are like no other, and just for a moment, on my commute to work, I feel the rush of nostalgia for my summer spent around the crackling campfire.

Whether it’s understanding the American love affair with camp, a father describing the everyday reality of raising an autistic son, teenagers from the Bronx’s poorest public schools experiencing a day in the life of a private school kid, or the life of a Mexican mother deported from America and separated from her three children, podcasts have the power to tell beautiful, honest stories, exploring the lives of ordinary people through an incredibly intimate lens. Today, podcasting has gone mainstream. With the number of US podcast listeners doubling in 3 years and UK weekly download rates reaching 4.7 million, podcasts are quickly becoming the new accessible way to engage with mind-blowing ideas, incredible facts and extraordinary stories.

The rise in podcast listeners has been attributed to a variety of influences, ranging from the increased ease of access via smart phones to the flexibility podcasts have over radio. Although this is undoubtedly a factor, we cannot ignore the power and influence storytelling plays in the success of podcasts.

People love listening to stories, and not just any story, stories that connect to our lived experiences, stories that we can relate to, stories that increase our understanding and empathy and stories that create shared identities. By connecting to one’s own lived experience, podcasting – through story – provides the trigger to evoke emotive memories of our own. Through this connection a common ground is established between podcaster and the virtual community who share the same, or similar experiences.

These shared identities are powerful, as human beings are instinctively motivated to act in ways that protect or maintain their identity. This kind of ‘digital storytelling’ is increasingly being seen as a mechanism for galvanising political and social change.

Stories spark imagination, they help us find meaning and context, they emotionally engage us in something bigger than ourselves and they build empathy by encouraging us to draw on our own experiences to find common ground with others. So what’s the secret to the success of podcasting? Well it’s the power and influence of storytelling!

Poppy Kearney

The three sides of Purpose

Posted on by Marcus Hayes

In this age – where tech-driven transparency, consumer demand for authenticity and our ongoing pursuit of meaning continue to rewrite the rules of corporate behaviour – purpose has become a hot topic among many of our clients. From many interactions of this nature, it’s clear that the motivation for creating or refining purpose is multifaceted,  and at times I sit in meetings with the feeling that everyone seems to be talking at cross-purposes… which is of course a little ironic.

In many ways it’s not surprising. A company’s purpose is at the intangible end of how it describes itself, unlike the visible and physical attributes of what it has, what it does and how it does it, though of course they should be connected. And purpose is a highly emotive subject. A business without purpose is, arguably, just a money-making machine, extracting value from others without giving anything back. In an economy still defined by the results of financial greed, and increasingly aware of the environmental and social impact of corporate activity, it’s increasingly unacceptable – from a social and commercial perspective – to remain disengaged.

Beyond the moral imperative, there seems to be three themes that emerge from the ‘purpose of purpose’ discussions. They’re interconnected, but it’s useful to unpick them.

The first is what James Collins and Jerry Porras, back in the mid 1990’s, called ‘core ideology’. As part of their research into the attributes of long-term successful businesses, they identified purpose as: ‘the glue that holds an organisation together as it grows, decentralises, diversifies, expands globally, and develops workplace diversity’. Simon Sinek took up the theme in 2011 when he shrewdly argued that companies, like Apple, that are more innovative year after year after year ‘start with the why’. In this sense, purpose is establishing a fundamental role for a business within society that transcends its current products and services. Walt Disney may have started with animated mice, but its role in making people happy through wholesome family entertainment is still highly relevant, and has created the foundation for films, theme parks, toys and the rest.

A few years back we, at The Storytellers, defined our own purpose statement: to move more people to do great things. This gives us a platform to not only express the more intangible side of what we do – the connection we help people to feel to their work, and clarity and motivation we help to create across organisations – but also the hard skills we provide through our leadership development and L&D modules, that give people the means to really live the purpose of their organisation. As we are an interdisciplinary business offering a range of services, we found the statement a useful mechanism for expanding and guiding our development. It also really helps us to explain what we do for our clients, which brings us to the second purpose of purpose.

Brands have been extolling the virtues of purpose for many years, as a foundation for building trust and loyalty with customers. Here, a company’s purpose outlines its motivation for engaging with you. It sets out what it believes. Providing you share that belief, you will feel much more comfortable in buying a range of products and services from it – as long as they deliver on that purpose. You’ll also be more willing to pay more, and stick with them through diversification and the commodification of the market. Sinek talks about Apple’s belief in challenging the status quo through beautifully designed products. I’m old enough to remember that pioneering feeling I got when using my first computer from Apple. So it was natural for me to turn to the same company for my first laptop, digital music player and smartphone.

A strong and well established purpose can also help to build that elixir of marketing: a sustainable competitive advantage. This is especially important in an age when what you have, what you do and how you do it can almost always be copied. The difference today is that purpose must be made real in the ‘How’ of the business – the systems, operations, organisational design that truly bring purpose to life. Rhetoric is no longer enough. The smart marketeers like Unilever – who are themselves global leaders in purpose-led business, and have now committed to work only with brands who share their values – know that the world is full of companies making moisturisers, but only one, Dove, is committed to helping improve the self esteem of girls worldwide. Yet consumers are not the only audience motivated by Dove’s purpose. This brings us to the third purpose of purpose.

Talk to any HR Director for long and you’ll get onto the subject of ‘Millennials’. These creatures from another generation are now populating our organisations, and we’re told they are looking for more than money. This is the generation that is motivated by purpose and meaning! Without it, we’re told, they’ll just pull out their backpack and pursue life elsewhere. We know that The Storytellers’ millennials care deeply about our purpose as a business, and so far we’ve managed to help them resist the lure of the open road.

But the bigger point is that everyone needs a sense of purpose. Isn’t it the basic message behind the shocking disengagement statistics and draining productivity and misery we see after three decades of ‘money is king’ corporate philosophy? Gallup’s annual engagement reviews continue to tell us that employees are in crisis. According to its 2017 study, 85% of all US employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work. That’s about $7 trillion wiped off their national bottom line. So maybe the millenials have it right. Dan Pink, the writer on work and behavioural science, talks about purpose being one of the three core motivators for work, alongside mastery and autonomy.

In their new book, The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath refer to research undertaken by professor Morten Hansen into employee performance. He got managers to rank their employees by performance, and then categorised the employees by their passion and sense of purpose for their work. Those without passion and purpose not surprisingly were low performers. However those with high purpose but low passion performed significantly better than the other way around. ‘Purpose trumps passion’ heralds the Heaths. ‘The best advice is not ‘Pursue your passion!’ It’s ‘Pursue your purpose!’

The challenge here for business leaders is not just to define a motivating purpose for their business, but to cultivate a sense of purpose amongst their employees: ‘to unite people who may drift in different directions’. Purpose doesn’t need to be so grandiose, and it doesn’t need to be an expensive branding exercise. It needs to give people a sense of value, and contribution, and connection to something bigger than themselves. This isn’t just about ‘Purpose Statements’. Purpose can be conveyed holistically, through multiple parts of a business: its values, its social contribution, the impact it has on its local community, as well as the world at large.

This is where the power of storytelling comes in. Take a pharmaceutical client of ours, who was going through a difficult transformation. They recognised that their employees where more likely to come with them through the change if they reconnected them back to the ‘why’. So we built a narrative that set the change within the context of the organisation’s purpose and vision, and invited leaders to bring it to life through their own stories. The CEO kicked things off with a highly emotive, personal story about why he had left his earlier career as a doctor to join the industry. This sparked storytelling conversations throughout the organisation that helped remind people of their purpose and meaning for coming to work. Within a year the transformation KPI’s had been exceeded.

 

Marcus Hayes

Visions of the Future: VHack

Posted on by Joe Mackay

When the Vatican announces a hackathon, you know there’s something up.

The ‘VHack’, held in March this year, called the world’s brightest students – from all ethnic, social and religious backgrounds ­– to ‘harness technological innovation to overcome social barriers and embrace common values’. Its 36-hour event would emphasise social inclusion and ‘human-centric values’ in an increasingly isolated, tech-driven world; interfaith dialogue, in the face of increasingly sectarian global narratives; and migrants and refugees, whose continued need for relocation and effective integration is ever more threatened by Europe’s populist moment.

Unsurprisingly, it was not a typical event. Yes, there were students, coding furiously through the night on a high of pastry and espresso. But there the similarity ends – and not simply because they hacked in rooms usually reserved for choosing Jesuit generals, or Cardinals dropped in to play with the VR headsets. In every walk of life, diversity is sorely lacking. And it is in our most celebrated hubs of mind-bending innovation that this issue becomes most acute – and the implications, for the solutions on which we are increasingly dependent, most profound. Hackathons tend to replicate this imbalance. Yet the Vatican, wielding a pretty hefty moral mandate – and, presumably, a healthy measure of self-irony – chose more inclusively. As a result, the final cohort of students represented over 30 countries. They came from every faith. And they were a 50:50 gender split. This, in the quest for effective new-age problem solving, is a big deal.

The results present us with a future world that uses technology to bridge divides, not widen them: from Credit/Ability: a ‘credibility’ scoring application that gives refugees a way to collate their history and build the trust they need to gain easier access to services like housing – to Vinculum­: an app that leverages machine learning to reunite families lost in relocation through the upload of a single photo and advanced face-recognition technology, or Faithstrings: a VR journey into different religions to create space for meaningful inter-faith dialogue.

This is empathy in design. It’s also a model for the VUCA world we’re in: nebulous, ambiguous, accelerating. A place where to succeed means to design at pace and think as a collective mind, across systems and disciplines and world views. Where to tolerate hierarchies, to divide generations, is to waste potential; where to dig your heels into your own assumptions, to privilege one perspective, just won’t cut it.

In a world where true diversity remains a box ticking exercise, and strong, speedy decision making is still the way we’re taught to gauge and demonstrate value experience, this can feel an awkward state of affairs. But at The Storytellers it’s one we’ve built into the core of our business: creating connection points to exploit the difference in skills, backgrounds, expertise and perspectives, and helping our clients to do the same. Like every muscle, collaboration needs work. But it’s worth remembering that our brains have evolved to think this way.

We are The Storytellers. We exist to move more people to do great things through the power and influence of storytelling.

What story will move you and the people around you to do great things in 2018? Share your story with us.

Burning bridges

Posted on by Marcus Hayes

Over 15 years of working with Executives around the world on their strategic narratives, we’ve had plenty debate about the ‘burning bridge’: the emotional hook that demands people take action before they get burned. In theory, it’s the ultimate form of motivation. But in the carrot-or-stick story of the world, where the pressures of constant change or increasingly mammoth global issues make most of us drag our feet in mutinous bewilderment, it’s tough for any leader to galvanise a community into decisive action.

It was therefore great to welcome Anita Krishnan to The Storytellers from Harvard University who studied under Marshall Ganz, a great catalyst of grassroots social movements that achieved real change, from American civil rights to the United Farm Workers fight for decent working conditions. It was from these models that Marshall went on to devise the organising model that would see Barack Obama win his 2008 presidential campaign. He’s got a very informative YouTube video you can view here.

His starting point is this: ‘strategy without motivation is just theory’. Strategy sets out the rational, logical ‘how’ – but our motivation requires an emotional ‘why’. Regardless of how advanced we think we are, our operating systems are still firmly connected to our animal forefathers. We like emotional autopilot, which means sticking to established – and once-efficient – habits. It’s like we’re still grazing on the Savannah. Our surveillance system is constantly on the lookout for signs of danger that will trigger our anxiety, and stimulate the adrenaline to take action. Hence that ‘burning platform’.

But, as Marshall points out, we all know that our instinctive response to danger is flight, fight or freeze. Hardly productive conditions for strategy execution. Yet we see them all too often within organisations preparing to change. The so called cynics who are up for a fight or the ‘passive aggressives’ who seem to be on board but silently do nothing. In this ‘Catch 22’ it seems that the very thing we need to motivate action is also inhibiting it.

Marshall’s solution is to balance the threat with positive, galvanising emotions. His first is hope: a theme that he used to great effect in the Obama campaign. Hope, he quotes, is the belief in the plausibility of the possible. In business, no one can ultimately predict success, but I’ve had the privilege of working with many leaders who leave you feeling that success is possible, even in the most challenging circumstances.

Next is solidarity, that feeling that we’re in it together, and together we can make it happen. Playing to our identity is a powerful driver. I love that moment in the film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ when Al Gore sets out the massive challenge of climate change and then turns to his fellow Americans and reminds them that massive challenges is what we do best (along with emotive images of putting a man on the moon etc.)

But arguably the most galvanising emotion comes in the form of a truly unpronounceable acronym: YCMAD. Try it out on yourself. Think of a burning bridge you need to address and reflect on how you feel. Then add the words: ‘but you can make a difference’. Of course it only works if you can! Again we see this in the environmental debate. Create the motivation without the means and you get nodding heads from people who still drive their cars and fly on their holidays. Show them they can make a difference to ocean pollution by avoiding plastic bags and you get positive action.

It’s a leader’s job to balance these emotions and empower people to act. Luckily, as Marshall points out, this is exactly what makes the narrative form so powerful as a tool to educate, inspire and connect people, even – and especially – in the face of overwhelm and fear. Obama’s closing words remind us always to strive for the audacity of hope. Stories are where we learn how.

Marcus Hayes

Moving more people to do great things

Posted on by Joe Mackay

I visited a client last week and on discussing outcomes for the meeting, two key questions came up: “how can we motivate our people to do more extraordinary things? How can we get more of our people to believe that what seems impossible today, could just be a conversation or an action plan away?”

Their view was that their company’s legacy (as well as their own as board members) would be defined by the number of good ideas (great and small) that they were able to turn into action in the next few years. As with most companies, pace was a key theme – how quickly could they turn passive understanding into action? Could they inspire people to act now before the opportunities were seized by more agile competitors?

It is a conversation we have had with many boards over the past 15 years. Most have asked similar questions which can be summarised as, “how can we move more of our people to do great things?” It’s a question that lays the foundations for the most remarkable business journeys.

The Storytellers exist to move more people to do great things. It is a purpose that enables us to work with leaders all around the world to inspire change, transform their organisations and accelerate the journey their business is on.

In defining the story of an organisation we often come across ‘moonshot’ goals – now described in the dictionary as ‘an extremely ambitious and innovative project.’

There has been plenty written about moonshots over the last few years – articles harking back to Kennedy’s “landing a man on the moon” speech, ambitious scientific collaborations to cure cancer and tech organisations planning to disrupt long-standing industries. These are the headline-grabbing examples, but the truth is while most organisations have ambitious visions, few are able to spark a movement to realise them.

Many of these organisations fail to create a wider context, a rational and emotional understanding of the journey a business is on, a belief in the ability to change and the inspiration and commitment to contribute. This sense of personal and collective connection to a business journey provides leaders with fertile ground to empower teams to define the goals that will enable them to play their part.

One of our key learnings has been that authentic leaders, equipped with the capability and tools to inspire action, have a huge impact.

We’ve seen organisations rally behind seemingly impossible journeys. We’ve seen teams achieve goals that only months before would have been discounted. Most importantly we’ve seen leaders embrace change and inspire truly remarkable stories.

Of course, these stories are now helping to breed new cultures, reinforce a unique mindset and encourage behaviours that enable these organisations to rally again, to embark on their next journey to the moon…

Robert Tennant