What's in your chapter of the book of the business? Storytelling your part. Podcast.

In this podcast episode of Here's An Idea Worth Playing With (HAIWPW), I explore the idea that there is a book being written about the company you are working in. That book started on Day 1 and every day people are adding to each chapter of it.

As such, what do you want your chapter to say? Do you want it to be a horror, a drama or an action packed adventure?

I share ideas on how to use the Hero's Journey story arch and how stories move people into motion. And also how you can use stories to frame change programs too.

The episode is here - and the transcript is below.

Transcript

Welcome to another episode of here's an idea worth playing with. I'm a huge fan of leaders and managers providing clarity, alignment and action. And one way to do that is to think about your world of work as a chapter in a much bigger book. And to use basic story arcs in order to try and move people into action.

So this is one of the ways in which I work with clients to articulate what it is they're trying to do for the immediate chapter or the next few chapters of this big book, which is essentially a book about the life of that organization.

And it's really helpful to look at it in this way in in terms of your your writing the chapters to be included in the book. So, you know, think about what you want to be included in there. So when I'm working with leaders and managers, they've got goals, they've got ambitions, they've got targets, and deadlines, and problems, and drama, and all of the other stuff that almost every organization has and leaders and managers are are leaning into this day after day.

And one way to think about this, as I've already said, is to think about this period of time as being a chapter in an ongoing book.

And that book is a book about the business that you're working in. It could be a fairly new book in the sense that you're working in a startup and you've got this bright future ahead of you and an amazing book to write to be part of the authors of that book.

No matter what role you play in the organization you're contributing to the story of that business.

Equally, you could be working in an organization that's a 100 years old and it's got this rich history, this amazing book going from day 0 to where you are now. And everything that's happened in the organization over that last 100 years are chapters in a book.

Now people always ask me, well, how big is a chapter? Is it a year? Is it a month? If it does help to bring this to life in terms of timing, then maybe consider a year a chapter in this book. So, you know, a 100 year old company's got 100 chapters.

What you get the opportunity to do now is to actually think about what you want to write in that story. So I'm sure most of you listening to this will have seen any of the sort of Disney or Dreamworks films. The one that I like to use the most as an example for this is Finding Nemo. Now there's a part in Finding Nemo, the film about the fish, if you haven't seen it. It's definitely worth checking out.

It's a pretty good film. These sorts of films are amazing by the way in terms of what a good story looks like. One minute you're on the edge of your seat, it's all sort of like, oh my god. The next minute you're laughing, the next minute you're crying, then you're on the edge of your seat, then you feel all sentimental. You know, it's an absolute masterclass in storytelling.

But there's this one particular scene in Finding Nemo where they're trapped in a in a fisherman's net and the fishermen are trying to pull this net up full of all these fish. And Nemo and the band of merry people are trying to encourage all the fish in the net to swim downwards, to move them into action. At first, they're all over the place. Some have resigned themselves to that's it, end of the world, that's it, they're dead. Others are panicking and some are just sort of going crazy.

And what Nemo is trying to do is get Dori and every fish, every single one of the fish, to swim down to make it really hard for the fishermen to pull that net up. So with clarity, with, you know, I guess cajoling, with good communication, with sort of energy and attention and a focus and a lot of heat and drama behind this, you know, this is life or death for them, they manage to do that.

They manage to swim down and the net breaks and they all go free and it's an absolutely wonderful little scene within that film. Now this is a micro example of what we might call a story arc. The hero's journey is the story arc we're talking about here.

And this is a micro example. The whole film is actually pretty much a hero's journey. There are lots of different story arcs to use but the hero's journey is pretty much the classic de facto. Think about star wars. And Nemo is the same example and this is a micro version of it.

So it goes a little bit like this and this is where it relates to our business world.

There's a seemingly insurmountable problem to overcome. If your organization doesn't have problems, I'd argue you're probably not looking hard enough or at least not leaning into the reality of that. And there are always more problems than we can ever solve in an organization and some of those problems are energizing and motivating and some of them are bringing people down. You know, that's the nature of work. And sometimes we're solving the simple shiny ones rather than the root cause but that's for another podcast.

The story arc is there's an insurmountable problem to overcome. There's usually a hero, a protagonist and you know if you're a manager maybe that's you. You don't have all the skills or the experience to tackle this big problem. Maybe it's like, you know, you're trying to reduce costs or you're trying to dominate a market or you're trying to find market fit for a product. These are problems that seem insurmountable that are quite tricky to overcome.

On your own, you're unlikely to have all of the skills and experience you need in order to overcome this problem. And so you gather a group of like minded people together to take on that problem. They've got different skills, different abilities. And you as a leader or manager, you've made this problem so compelling, so exciting, so interesting that these people, they've got the energy and enthusiasm to come and help you solve that problem. Now I would argue we all wanna belong in a team like this.

So instead of the problems driving us mad and taking away our energy and attention, they're actually energizing. We're actually coming together to solve them and it's a positive experience. So we've got a problem. We've got a protagonist, a hero, and that hero has gathered a like minded group of people together. And again, think about Nemo.

He's got his sort of band of merry fish around them. You've got star wars where you got Luke Skywalker and there's Chewbacca and Han Solo, and all these people come together to take on an insurmountable problem.

Now of course somebody in the team devises a plan and there's a clear direction. For the Nemo one, the plan is every single fish to swim down. Star Wars, it's you know join forces and do this, and destroy the death star.

But there's a plan. The plan might not go to plan but at least there's a plan. It's a clear direction. Everybody's got clarity and they're aligned around where they're trying to get to. I mean, that's the fundamental role of leaders and managers is to come up with a plan to tackle a problem and get everybody moving in the same direction.

It's clear what role everybody plays in these story arcs. Everybody has a role to play depending on their outlook, their skills, their experience, their behaviors. So it's really clear and the Nemo example is spot on. Everybody knows what role they're playing in trying to escape that net.

It's hard. It's hard to overcome it. There's no story there if it's not hard, you know, if it's super simple and easy you just do it. And again, Nemo's a good example. It's really hard. There's a lot of tension there.

There's obviously a lot of drama in the film. Will they escape? Will they not escape? You know, what's gonna happen? So it's hard.

But eventually the challenge is met. It's overcome. And the really important part of this, in a really good story arc, is that the people involved in the challenge, they grow, they learn, they become better different people because of it. Now, that's an important part. So let's go over those 6 again.

1. There's a insurmountable problem, that's number 1.
2. Number 2, there's a protagonist who gathers a like minded group of people together with different skills, different abilities to overcome it.
3. Number 3, there's a plan.
4. Number 4, everybody has a clear role to play.
5. Number 5, it's hard to overcome the challenge. There's some resistance, there's some things we've got to do.
6. Number 6, the challenge is met.
7. And number 7, importantly, people grow as part of that process.

Now, that story arc exists in almost every, well, every business I've ever worked in. You wouldn't hire and recruit people into a team if you could solve the problem on your own.

There's some problems, there's some opportunities, there's some challenges and you gather like minded people with different skills and abilities to overcome them. That's the essence of building a team, of building a business, of building a company. You've got a plan. That plan's clear. It provides clarity and alignment.

Everybody understands the role that they play within your organization. It's hard work. Otherwise, why are we going to work? You know? It shouldn't be easy.

But at the same time, it shouldn't be miserably hard overcoming these problems. I'd say you've probably not got the right problems or deconstructed them properly, or communicated about them in the in the right way, if it's super easy or it's super hard and it's really miserable being there.

You meet the challenge and hopefully you're going to overcome these challenges. Maybe not in their entirety but you're going to get some sort of outcome. But more importantly people are going to grow as part of it.

So that's a classic hero's journey story arc and it's the one that I like to use in this chapters of an organization that I'm covering in this podcast.

Now stories like Nemo work because they make you feel something. There's a connection, there's a sense of belonging, there's some drama, there's some tension, there's a problem that you really want them to overcome. And in Nemo, you want them to escape that net. In Star Wars, you want them to destroy that death star.

And at work, you want people to feel a sense of satisfaction of overcoming that obstacle, that problem of growing the business, of finding a market fit, of reducing costs, of keeping the business alive in actually in some cases.

And that is a classic sort of emotional roller coaster that people go on and that's the essence of a good story. It's emotion. If you look back at the history of the organization, it will not have been plain sailing from day 0 to where you are today. It's a story, it's a journey of ups and downs, it's an emotional roller coaster.

And the reason that I like using stories is they're emotional. When we feel something, we move. And that's your job now as a leader or manager is to get people into motion around these problems. You've got to try and get them to feel something. Excitement, energy, you know, fear maybe sometimes but that's not a great motivator for the long run.

And really that's the job of using stories is you're telling a story. You want people to feel something, and emotion and motion come from the same word. Get rid of the e off the front of emotion and you've got the word motion. When we feel something we move and we do that through having clarity, of having alignment, of having the right action, through storytelling, comms and all the other stuff but also knowing what role we play in overcoming those obstacles as part of that story.

And the key thing is when we've overcome these obstacles, we also as individuals in organization want to feel like we're developing, like the job is growing us, like the job is developing us and also we wanna feel a sense of belonging.

So that's why stories work. Now, if we come back to the idea in this podcast is you are completing a chapter of this big book of the business. If the organization lasts long enough, when you leave for whatever reason, that book continues to get written by the people who are in the organization.

So what do you want your part of that story to look like?

We are also where we are in the organization because of all the work that's happened in the past.

All those other people that have been writing those chapters, maybe not realizing there and then that they're writing the chapter, if they've never thought of it in this way before. But all of the work that they've done, all the decisions, all of the challenges they've overcome, all of the obstacles, all of the plane sailing, all of the moments of fear and like dread or moments of highs where you've won that new client, all of that are chapters in the book that has happened before.

So we've got to appreciate what's gone before and we've got to say thank you to those people for helping the business get to where it is today because we are where we are today whether it's a an amazing place to work on or whether it's got epic challenges because of all of the work that's happened in the past, all of the chapters that have been written.

So your role as leader or manager now is to think about the chapter that you're in at the moment and to try and work out what you want that chapter to say.

You know, what kind of book or what kind of chapter are you hoping to add? Is it going to be a drama? Is it going to be a horror? Or is it going to be an action packed hero's journey story of you and the team overcoming those obstacles and challenges? Another way to think about this is what would you want to be written about this team right now doing this work?

What problems are you overcoming? What business benefits are you bringing? What opportunities are you opening up? You know, what kind of story do you want your chapter to be? And then think about what will happen in the next chapter.

And this chapter idea is also a really good way of talking about change. A lot of change programs can be structured in the way of of chapters, you know. Chapter 1 is we understand our current reality. Chapter 2 is we start to optimize the way that we work. Chapter 3 is that we revolutionise our, you know, I guess our employee experience. Chapter 4 might be that we launch a whole new set of products, you know.

You can package up change programs into this idea of chapters as well. But for now, think about you as a leader, as a manager and you're in charge of writing the chapter of the book for your team, for you in this organization. There's a big book being written and you're responsible for part of that chapter. What do you want it to say?

You know? Like I say, a drama? A horror? An action movie? Do you want it to be a chapter where everything fell apart and failed because you had no clarity or alignment?

Or because you didn't galvanize the team around a difficult challenge or an opportunity? Or nobody knew what role they played in it? Or everything just got crazy and out of control. I mean, that's a horror or a drama.

Do you want that or do you want it to be an action packed of "right here's the challenge, this is what we're gonna do, this is the team to get it done, this is our bright future"?

Now, I would encourage you to think about that bright future in the team to get it done. But of course, it's your drama, it's your horror, it's your action packed, it's your chapter.

But have a think about this because if we can be clear about the obstacles that we're trying to overcome and we can be clear about the direction that we're going in, then it helps to get people aligned and galvanized and motivated and enthusiastic about overcoming these problems.

And that group of people that you build together should have skills and experiences that complement each other, that support each other's weaknesses with their own strengths. And then you galvanize those people around it, and you do the hard work and you get the stuff done.

And then everybody grows because of it. The job is developing people. Now, that's a wonderful story and if you can make that happen in your chapter of this big book of the company, then I'd say you're on a really good path to being a very successful manager.

A manager that people will remember for all of the right reasons because you created a very positive chapter in this big book of the business. And hopefully, it isn't the last chapter of the book.

I mean that'd be pretty sad but sometimes that is the case. And maybe it's the first chapter and that's a super exciting place to set the time for the whole book, to set the kind of theme, to set the way that the business is gonna run and I think that's a wonderful thing as well.

So that's an idea worth playing with, when we think about how we can design chapters of a big book of the business and what do you want your chapter to say. And think about that hero's journey, you know, as an obstacle, as a protagonist, as a group of people, they overcome it. It's hard, it's dramatic, but there is a plan and it's clear. And then when they've done it, they grow because of it.

One of the most wonderful aspects of being a manager is that you get to see people grow in their role, under your supervision so to speak. You get to see them grow and develop and become better versions of themselves hopefully, they grow in skills and behaviours and capabilities, they grow in the way that they approach challenges and problems and they grow as individuals and that's the most wonderful thing to see as a manager.

You've got problems, you overcome them and people grow because of it.

I always say that people will always leave your supervision at some point, you know?

Hopefully it's not through the madness that happens in many organizations where actually it's a reduction in staff. You know, they might just go off and do something different, might switch departments, might start their own company, might just want a new opportunity with a different organization.

And you should hopefully have that satisfaction of knowing that they've grown under your supervision and that's a wonderful, wonderful aspect of management.

With that, thank you so much for listening to this episode of here's an idea worth playing with.